Gizan Zenrai

Gizan Zenrai (1802 – March 28, 1878) was a Japanese Zen monk and poet.

Quotes

• I was born into this world
  I leave it at my death.
  Into a thousand towns
  My legs have carried me,
  And countless homes -
  What are all these?
  A moon reflected in the water
  A flower floating in the sky
  Ho!
  • Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6, 2000; Partly cited in: Scott Alexander Jones. Elsewhere: Indian Summer’s End: Book I, 2014. p. iii. Also translated into German in: Ralf T. Vogel. Der Tod in der Psychotherapie. 2007. p. 111, and quoted in: Andrés Pascual. Die Tränen des Himmels: Roman 2011. p. ii

Quotes about Gizan Zenrai

• As a spiritual successor to the 19th-century Zen poet Gizan Zenrai (and anyone who has ever felt wistful thinking that everything we’ve ever known will one day vanish), [Harold Whit] Williams writes: “A child once again, / Gazing out to where forever ends. / Everything orbiting, gently orbiting.”
  • Harold Whit Williams. Red Clay Journal Paperback, January 2, 2018. Back cover text.

External links

• Yoel Hoffmann (1986) (in en). Japanese Death Poems. Rutland: Tuttle Publishing. Wikidata Q116482757. ISBN 0-8048-1505-4. OCLC 1335736500.