“The one close to me now,even my own body-these toowill soon become clouds,floating in different directions.”

“Even when a river of tearscourses throughthis body,the flame of lovecannot be quenched.”

“Even if I now saw youonly once,I would long for youthrough worlds,worlds.”

“In this worldlove has no coloryet how deeply my bodyis stained by yours.”

“Watching the moonat dawn,solitary, mid-sky,I knew myself completely,no part left out.”

“Oi elämäni, toivoton sammumaton.Miten kadehdintuulen tuivertamiasoihtuja yössä.”

“We are not told of things that happened to specific people exactly as they happened; but the beginning is when there are good things and bad things, things that happen in this life which one never tires of seeing and hearing about, things which one cannot bear not to tell of and must pass on for all generations. If the storyteller wishes to speak well, then he chooses the good things; and if he wishes to hold the reader’s attention he chooses bad things, extraordinarily bad things. Good things and bad things alike, they are things of this world and no other.Writers in other countries approach the matter differently. Old stories in our own are different from new. There are differences in the degree of seriousness. But to dismiss them as lies is itself to depart from the truth. Even in the writ which the Buddha drew from his noble heart are parables, devices for pointing obliquely at the truth. To the ignorant they may seem to operate at cross purposes. The Greater Vehicle is full of them, but the general burden is always the same. The difference between enlightenment and confusion is of about the same order as the difference between the good and the bad in a romance. If one takes the generous view, then nothing is empty and useless.”