Yang Saeon 楊士彦
16th century (recorded in a songbook of 1876) · Joseon Korea
Mount Tai is high, they say, but it is a mountain under heaven. Climb and climb again and there is no reason you cannot reach the top. Yet people do not climb, and only say the mountain is high.
泰山이 놉다 ᄒᆞ되 하늘 아ᄅᆡ 뫼히로다
오르고 ᄯᅩ 오르면 못 오를 理 업건마는
ᄉᆞᄅᆞᆷ이 제 아니 오르고 뫼흘 놉다 ᄒᆞ돗다Gagok wollyu (1876)
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Jo Sik 曺植
1560s · Joseon Korea
Look, I beg you, at the bell of a thousand stone: unless you strike it hard, it gives no sound. Yet how can it compare with Mount Jiri, which does not ring even when the sky rings?
請看千石鍾 非大扣無聲
爭似頭流山 天鳴猶不鳴Nammyeong jip, "Written on a Pillar of the Stream Pavilion at Deoksan"
Qu Yuan 屈原
3rd century BC · Chu, Warring States China
The road is long and stretches far away. I shall go up and down, seeking.
路漫漫其脩遠兮，吾將上下而求索。"Encountering Sorrow" (Li sao), in the Songs of Chu
Bai Juyi 白居易
c. 788 · Tang China · Said to have been written at about sixteen
Wildfire cannot burn it all away. When the spring wind blows, it grows again.
野火燒不盡，春風吹又生。"Grass on the Ancient Plain: A Farewell," in the Complete Tang Poems
Hafez حافظ
14th century · Shiraz, Persia
Lost Joseph will come back to Canaan. Do not grieve. The hut of sorrows will one day be a rose garden. Do not grieve.
یوسف گم گشته بازآید به کنعان غم مخور
کلبه احزان شود روزی گلستان غم مخورDivan of Hafez, a ghazal
Masaoka Shiki 正岡子規
June 2, 1902 · Meiji Japan · Three months before his death, on a sickbed where he could not even sit up
Until now I had misunderstood what Zen calls enlightenment. I thought enlightenment meant being able to die calmly whatever happens. That was wrong. Enlightenment means being able to go on living calmly whatever happens.
余は今まで禅宗のいはゆる悟りといふ事を誤解して居た。悟りといふ事は如何なる場合にも平気で死ぬる事かと思つて居たのは間違ひで、悟りといふ事は如何なる場合にも平気で生きて居る事であつた。A Six-Foot Sickbed (Byosho rokushaku), entry 21, serialized in the newspaper Nippon
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