1. Under the full moon in grass shadows upon shadows the foolish revelry of insects. 2. No birds come. The scarecrow is deeply annoyed. In moonlight the crops laugh. 3. Even while in water how does one fight the crocodile? ...By becoming a relatively bigger crocodile. 4. In the crickets' ceaseless weeping my candle's light grows...dims...dies... 5. What beautiful play of fire! No one to watch. Again darkness...again silence. 6. All those stolen apples I ate them all alone...giving none to anyone! And what a stomachache followed! 7. Evening descends, on the dusty path I walk alone; a bird weeps... 8. At our final meeting in the battle between boat and shore the sand dune won! 9. In rain's trembling grey sand in grey water rows of pictures without lines... 10. Tom and Jerry; life and I! 11. The old fisherman gazing at the glittering scales of fish shows his thumb to the icy evening rain. 12. One winter evening, when I turned to look at the passerby who had just walked past, instantly he dissolved into mist! 13. Sometimes I visit the graveyard. So much hoarding, so much rushing, so much hatred... I come to see where all this ends. 14. Above our two graves the grass flowers that bloom will meet, will talk in colors on butterfly wings. 15. As your life nears its end you're drowning so deep in sin, look—on your grave not a single blade of grass will grow! 16. From the day I prepared for death until today not even a mosquito bites me anymore! 17. That unbearable silence... no one could break it! Not the guests, not the family, not the white tuberoses. 18. If I just stayed quiet for a moment I could see how flocks of egrets like white clouds fly across the sky... 19. When will the winter sun rise— does hunger understand such waiting?! 20. A lonely umbrella beside the thatched hut one evening... walks in wait for rain.
Thoughts in Bonsai: One Hundred Eleven The gardener who tends to bonsai knows that the true art lies not in what grows, but in what is pruned away. Each careful cut shapes not just the tree, but the space around it—creating a universe in miniature where every branch speaks of restraint, every leaf of intention. In the same way, wisdom often comes not from the accumulation of thoughts, but from the patient trimming of unnecessary ones. We learn to distinguish between the growth that serves beauty and the growth that merely consumes space. The master gardener of the mind knows which ideas to nurture toward the light and which to sacrifice for the integrity of the whole. There is a profound intimacy in this work—both with the bonsai and with one's own thinking. To shape either requires years of attention, seasons of watching, moments of decisive action followed by long periods of allowing. The tree teaches patience; the mind learns it. What emerges is not diminishment, but concentration—essence distilled to its most vital form. The bonsai does not pretend to be a forest; it becomes something else entirely, something that holds within its small frame the memory of vastness, the promise of growth, and the wisdom of limits gracefully accepted.
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