ACENTO

We were guests of things, most of them care less than us when we leave them A traveller weeps, and the river laughs at her: pass by, for a river is much the same at the beginning as at the end Nothing waits. Things are indifferent to us, and we greet them and are grateful to them But since we call them our feelings we believe in the name. Is their essence in the namd We are the guests of things, most of us forget our initial feelings, and deny them.

‘Scrolls of Frolicking Animals’ (Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga) from the Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto, 12th/13th century.

"People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life."