Yasunari Kawabata quotes - page 2

Put your soul in the palm of my hand for me to look at, like a crystal jewel. I'll sketch it in words... (Yasunari Kawabata)
If Buddhism is divided generally into the sects that believe in salvation by faith and those that believe in salvation by one's own efforts, then of course there must be such violent utterances in Zen, which insists upon salvation by one's own efforts.
Yasunari Kawabata
The baby understands that its mother loves it. [...] Words have their origin in baby talk, so words have their origin in love.
Yasunari Kawabata
Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.
Yasunari Kawabata
As he caught his footing, his head fell back, and the Milky Way flowed down inside him with a roar.
Yasunari Kawabata
That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music.
Yasunari Kawabata
The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless.
Yasunari Kawabata
In my essay, "Eyes in their Last Extremity", I had to say: "How ever alienated one may be from the world, suicide is not a form of enlightenment. However admirable he may be, the man who commits suicide is far from the realm of the saint."
Yasunari Kawabata
The single flower contains more brightness than a hundred flowers.
Yasunari Kawabata
The "secret" of their being up in the tree had continued for almost two years now.
Yasunari Kawabata
A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary. (Yasunari Kawabata)
In these two statements, perhaps, is the rigorous fate of art.
Yasunari Kawabata
There can be no world of the Buddha without the world of the devil. And the world of the devil is the world difficult of entry. It is not for the weak of heart.
Yasunari Kawabata
My own works have been described as works of emptiness, but it is not to be taken for the nihilism of the West. The spiritual foundation would seem to be quite different.
Yasunari Kawabata
I have an essay with the title "Eyes in their Last Extremity". The title comes from the suicide note of the short-story writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke... It is the phrase that pulls at me with the greatest strength.
Yasunari Kawabata
In his last poem he offered nothing as a legacy. He but hoped that after his death nature would remain beautiful. That could be his bequest.
Yasunari Kawabata
The disciple must, however, always be lord of his own thoughts, and must attain enlightenment through his own efforts. And the emphasis is less upon reason and argument than upon intuition, immediate feeling. Enlightenment comes not from teaching but through the eye awakened inwardly. Truth is in "the discarding of words", it lies "outside words".
Yasunari Kawabata
When we see the beauty of the snow, when we see the beauty of the full moon, when we see the beauty of the cherries in bloom, when in short we brush against and are awakened by the beauty of the four seasons, it is then that we think most of those close to us, and want them to share the pleasure.
Yasunari Kawabata