Once, in the sultry heats of Midsummer,
An Emperor caused the miniature mountains in his garden
To be covered with white silk,
That so crowned
They might cool his eyes
With the sparkle of snow.

Sound of the sixth-month rapids like a fierce rain;
Hsiang-shan, upper floor north, Master Wen-ch'ang's room:
late at night I get up, stand leaning on the railing,
the roar of the water filling my ears, coolness full in my face.

There is a man of me that sows.
There is a woman of me that reaps.
One for good,
And one for fair,
And they cannot find me anywhere.

Father and Mother, shadowy ancestry,
Can you make no more than this of me?

Courageous fool—the peril's strength unknown.
Courageous man!—so conscious of your own.

O thou whose name, being alone, aloud
I utter oft, and though thou art not there,
Toward thine imaged presence kiss the air.

Since I began Zen meditation, I've stopped taking medicine,
don't take it even if the sickness worsens.
No need to keep this whole body in health;
strain for health and you think too much of ego.

There was a small boy of Quebec,
Who was buried in snow to his neck;
—When they said, “Are you friz?”
—He replied, “Yes, I is—
But we don't call this cold in Quebec.”

Autumn moonlight on bed curtains, your night tears melting in darkness;
peonies in the garden—springtime ache of prolonged sorrow—
in this world, no medicine to cure these ills,
only the four chapters of the Lankavatara Sutra.

Kissing and bussing differ both in this;
We busse our Wantons, but our Wives we kisse.

A young man and an aged man of late,
Being in a tavern, fell at great debate:
The youth thinking the testy fire to cool
Said, 'Turd i' thy teeth, thou crabbèd doting fool.'
At this the old man laughed, and made reply.
'Turd in his teeth that has teeth, none have I!'
So showed his gums, which made the young man laugh;
They both grew friends, and drank their liquor off.