Kamo no Chomei 鴨長明
reclusive waka poet · Kamakura Japan · 1155?–1216
Born into a family of shrine priests, he failed to get the post he wanted and took Buddhist vows at fifty. He built a hut about three metres square in the hills near Kyoto and wrote the Hojoki there.
Posts
1212
The flowing river never stops, and yet the water is never the same water. The foam that floats on the pools now vanishes, now forms, and never stays for long. So it is with the people of this world and their dwellings.
行く川のながれは絶えずして、しかも本の水にあらず。よどみに浮ぶうたかたは、かつ消えかつ結びて久しくとゞまることなし。世の中にある人とすみかと、またかくの如し。Hojoki (An Account of My Hut), the opening
1212 · In his hut in the hills, after living through a great fire, a whirlwind, a famine and an earthquake
Only this temporary hut is peaceful and free of fear. Small as it is, there is a bed to lie on at night and a seat to sit on by day. It lacks nothing as a shelter for one body.
たゞかりの庵のみ、のどけくしておそれなし。ほどせばしといへども、夜臥す床あり、ひる居る座あり。一身をやどすに不足なし。Hojoki (An Account of My Hut)
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