He went his way, looking the world in his face, without concern for the future. One of his friends, Oyama Sumita, described his life this way: "Santoka did not think of yesterday or of tomorrow, but lived each today as it came on him. In Zen every single breath is appreciated to the full. Santoka gave full justice to each breath, each moment, each day, as if it was his last. Each step, each movement, each haiku formed a consummate whole in his life."
His legacy includes several collections of haiku and an idiosyncratic diary called Gochuan, all of literary merit. In that diary, on September 21, 1932, he wrote: "A tumble-down man enters a tumble-down hut. Morning and evening, tranquility, insects, the moon, persimmons, the flowers of the manjushage (an amaryllis)." In perfect solitude he cooks his supper.
koto taru nabeno
kome o togu.
One washes rice
in a metal pot;
only one pot, that's enough
(for me).
or
I wash rice
in a metal pot;
one pot's enough.
or
Washing rice
in a metal pot;
one pot's enough.
Hitotsu areba
Colloquialisms mark his haiku. He used easy, plain language at its best, never the literary, poetic diction of more ordinary writers.
asu no kome dake wa
aru.
Oh cricket!
there is enough rice, at least
for tomorrow.
Korogi yo,
The following haiku in not grammatically correct Japanese. Santoka often was careless about grammar. He seemed to want us to read between the lines, and more often than not his grammatical mistakes, a sign of his nonchalance, add charm to his work.
itta ri kitari suru
kemuri.
In your company
going this way and that ....
the smoke of train.
Anta to ko-shite kisha ga