Quotes from Ko Un

Body and soul, let's all go / transformed into arrows! / Piercing the air / body and soul, let's go / with no turning back.

In the old days a poet once said" In the old days a poet once said our nation is destroyed yet the mountains and rivers survive Today's poet says the mountains and rivers are destroyed yet our nation survives Tomorrow's poet will say the mountains and rivers are destroyed our nation is destroyed and Alas! you and I are completely destroyed

HOUSE Grow high. The devil can't find you. Grow deep. Buddha can't find you. Build a house and live there. Gourd creepers will climb over it, their flowers dazzling at midnight.

I stood facing the horizon over the East Sea. What had become of the seventeen hundred koan-riddles? The sound of waves the sound of waves. Playing with you I threw them away.

A Drunkard I've never been an individual entity. Sixty trillion cells! I'm a living collectivity. I'm staggering zigzag along, sixty trillion cells, all drunk.

The Lotus Sutra The Lotus Sutra. Ultimate reality. So far you've been bashing me badly. Now I'll cudgel you, bastard. Oh! Ouch! You're made for bashing. Oh! Ouch! Oh! Ouch! The Lotus Sutra dashed away Fields open wide, once the farmers have gone.

There might be a fresh, new kind of truth in a cabbage