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Showing posts from November, 2017

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 Taigu (良寛大愚) (1758–1831)