Ikkyu Sojun Biography

It is nice to get a glimpse of a lady bathing--
You scrubbed your flower face and cleansed your lovely body
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A master’s handiwork cannot be measured
But still priests wag their tongues explaining the “Way” and babbling about “Zen.”
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The tree was barren of leaves but you brought a new spring.
Long green sprouts, verdant flowers, fresh promise.
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Exhausted with gay pleasures, I embrace my wife.
The narrow path of asceticism is not for me:
My mind runs in the opposite direction.
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The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
...