রাহুল_です

“On days like today,
even if I see something that would
make a good picture,
I don't take it out of my pouch.
I take my time
as I walk...
here, between the sky above
and the earth
below...
Its rhythm follows
the pace of my
steps.
A song emerges from
my parted
lips.
As I look around at the world,
out from myself,
I continue walking.
But I carried on
my strange song and
dance
all the way home.
I never took out my camera.”
― Hitoshi Ashinano, ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 1 [Yokohama kaidashi kikō 1]

“After all, the cherry blossom blooms every year, but does anyone find it the less lovely for that?”
― Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book

“It has been a thousand years since I started trekking the earth
A huge travel in night’s darkness from the Ceylonese waters
to the Malayan sea
I have been there too: the fading world of Vimbisara and Asoka
Even further—the forgotten city of Vidarva,
Today I am a weary soul although the ocean of life around continues to foam,
Except for a few soothing moments with Natore’s Banalata Sen.

Her hair as if the dark night of long lost Vidisha,
Her face reminiscent of the fine works of Sravasti,
When I saw her in the shadow it seemed
as if a ship-wrecked mariner in a far away sea
has spotted a cinnamon island lined with greenish grass.
“Where had you been lost all these days? ”
yes, she demanded of me, Natore’s Banalata Sen
raising her eyes of profound refuge.

At the day’s end evening crawls in like the sound of dews,
The kite flaps off the smell of sun from its wings.
When all colours take leave from the world
except for the flicker of the hovering fireflies
The manuscript is ready with tales to be told
All birds come home, rivers too,
All transactions of the day being over
Nothing remains but darkness
to sit face to face with Banalata Sen.”
― Jibanananda Das, Banalta Sen

“[W]e must remember that the finger pointing at the moon remains a finger and under no circumstances can it be changed into the moon itself. Danger always lurks where the intellect slyly creeps in and takes the index for the moon itself.”
― D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism