Last week I re-read Basho’s “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” (sometimes titled “The Journey to the Deep Interior”). I was looking for some insight that could guide me through this time of coronavirus. While reading I learned that, for Basho, the Buddhist concept of impermanence included ideas of continuity and regeneration.

When he visited a monument at Tsubo no Ishibumi  he wrote:-

” In this ever changing world where mountains crumble, rivers change their courses, roads are deserted, rocks are buried, and old trees yield to young shoots, it was nothing short of a miracle that this monument alone had survived the battering of a thousand years to be the living memory of the ancients. I felt as if I were in the presence of the ancients themselves, and, forgetting all the troubles I had suffered on the road, rejoiced in the utter happiness of this joyful moment…