Looking back over these seventy years and more

The human world of good-and-bad

completely dissolves before my gaze

A late-night snowfall blurs

the footsteps of the last passerby

I light a stick of incense

and sit and meditate beside my old window

                                                             Ryokan

How many years I spent parting the wild grasses

to penetrate the inmost depths

Then suddenly I understood my teacher

and came back to my native place

You go there and come back again

Yet everything remains the same

Cloud’s covering the mountain summit

Streams flowing by your feet

                                                               Ryokan

Trying to change into someone or something else

is  unnecessary

Changing into oneself

Is practicing the true Way

Looking for meaning misses the mark

Finding the world of non-meaning

Is attaining the true Way

                                                        Doen