稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ inazuma ni satoranu hito no tattosa yo Bashō - How admirable, to see lightning, and not think life is fleeting

Matsuo Bashō's verse admires the person who sees lightning and does not take the flash for enlightenment. Lightning is one of Buddhism's oldest pictures of how things pass. Bashō set the verse under a Zen teacher's warning against half-raw Zen. Its readers since 1783 agree that the admirable person does not take the flash for awakening, and differ on who that person is. One reads someone awakened who does not claim it, another someone who takes no notice of such Zen at all. Asatarō Miyamori hears a rebuke to a superficial sense of life's vanity, R. H. Blyth a plain statement that life is life and lightning is lightning, and Hiroaki Sato a great wariness of enlightenment. Which you hear is yours.

The last word, 貴さよ, has two readings, tattosa yo and tōtosa yo. Bashō's letter, as it was transcribed, spells it tattosa, and the three complete English editions romanize it so; Miyamori, Blyth and others give tōtosa, and Sato and Sam Hamill totosa.

The English is Robert Hass's, from his The Essential Haiku of 1994.

Bashō sent the verse in a letter to his disciple Kyokusui dated the sixth day of the ninth month of Genroku 3 (1690), written at Gichū-ji on Lake Biwa, under a Zen teacher's warning he sets down there; the letter is known from Ebara Taizō's transcription of 1947, and the verse was first printed in 1692, in 己が光.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 稲妻にさとらぬ人の貴さよ.

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image. The line art prints sharp at any size. The brushed image is sized to print at the dimensions shown on the PDF, so for a larger piece, work from the line art.

Your purchase includes a personal-use license: use the design as a tattoo reference, frame it, engrave it, print it for yourself, or make it into a gift. For more information see Licensing, which also covers commercial-use options that may be purchased separately.

Your PDF is available for download the moment your order completes, and a copy is attached to your emailed receipt.

If you need your design again later, ask us for it and we will send it.