Musing

I Watch People In The World

I watch people in the world

Throw away their lives lusting after things,

Never able to satisfy their desires,

Falling into deeper despair

And torturing themselves.

Even if they get what they want

How long will they be able to enjoy it?

For one heavenly pleasure

They suffer ten torments of hell,

Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone.

Such people are like monkeys

Frantically grasping for the moon in the water

And then falling into a whirlpool.

How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer.

Despite myself, I fret over them all night

And cannot staunch my flow of tears.

Ryōkan Taiga (良寛大愚) (1758–1831)
Eccentric Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk who lived much of his life as a hermit writing poetry, calligraphy, and communing with nature.