Saigyo
Saigyō Houshi (西行 法師, 1119 – March 23, 1190) was a famous Japanese poet of the late Heian and early Kamakura period.
Born Satou Norikiyo (佐藤 義清) in Kyoto to a noble family, he lived during the traumatic transition of power between the old court nobles and the new samurai warriors. After the start of the Age of Mappō (1052), Buddhism was considered to be in decline and no longer as effective a means of salvation. These cultural shifts during his lifetime led to a sense of melancholy in his poetry. As a youth, he worked as a guard to retired Emperor Toba, but in 1140 at age 22, for reasons now unknown, he quit worldly life to become a monk, taking the religious name En'i (円位). He later took the pen name, "Saigyo" meaning Western Journey, a reference to Amida Buddha and the Western paradise. He lived alone for long periods in his life in Saga, Mt Koya, Mt Yoshino, Ise, and many other places, but he is more known for the many long, poetic journeys he took to Northern Honshuu that would later inspire Basho in his Narrow Road to the Interior. He was a good friend of Fujiwara no Teika. Some main collections of Saigyo's work are in the Sankashuu, Shin Kokin Wakashuu, and Shika Wakashū. He died in Hirokawa Temple in Kawachi Province (present-day Osaka Prefecture) at age 72.
“Beyond this life andThis world I'll have it tilMy heart's content:The bright moon that passed overThe horizon before I had my fill.”
“Today's satori:Such a change of mind wouldNot exist withoutMy lifelong habit of havingMy mind immersed in blossoms.”
“Tightly held by rocksThrough winter, the ice todayBegins to come undone:A way-seeker also is the water,Melting, murmuring from the moss.”
“Last year, Yoshino,I walked away bending branchesTo point me to blossoms--Which now are everywhere and I canGo where I've never been before.”
“Returning to whereIt used to see blossoms,My mind, changed,Will stay on at Yoshino...Home now, and see anew.”
“Now seen...now gone,The butterfly flits in and outThrough fence-hung flowers;But a life lived so close to themI envy...though it's here and gone.”
“Limitations gone:Since my mind fixed on the moon,Clarity and serenityMake something for whichThere's no end in sight.”
“I'd like to dividemyself in order to see,among these mountains,each and every flowerof every cherry tree.”
“Every single thing changes and is changing always in this world. Yet with the same light the moon goes on shining.”