苦は楽の種 ku wa raku no tane No Pain, No Gain

苦 is hardship, toil, suffering; 楽 is ease and comfort, the same character that read tanoshimi is pleasure; 種 is a seed, and the seed is the whole figure: hardship is not a price paid for ease but the thing ease grows from. A literal rendering is pain is the seed of comfort. The saying lives as a pair, 楽は苦の種、苦は楽の種, ease is the seed of hardship and hardship the seed of ease, and these words are the half people keep.

No Pain, No Gain is the English proverb it sits nearest; the seed is what the Japanese keeps.

The proverb is first found as calligraphy: the Zen master Hakuin, about 1752 and again in 1768, tells of an old master who wrote out the two halves for everyone who asked him for calligraphy; a comic novel of 1774 has them as a sermon commonplace.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 苦は楽の種.

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