by Denis Wallez
March 28th, 2013
illustration (attribution, if any possible, is at the end of the article)
Ryōkan returned and caught him. "You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler, "and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift." The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryōkan sat naked, watching the moon. "Poor fellow," he mused, "I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
This story may be an interpretation of an account mentioned by Ryōkan in a #haiku :
盗人に
取り残されし
窓の月
The thief
Left it behind—
The moon at the window.
#Buddhism #Zen #buddhistcircle
[excerpt from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryōkan]
(photo: © +Randen Pederson, http://www.flickr.com/photos/chefranden/ )