Is it because my mind

keeps dwelling

on every worldly thing

the the word seems

more hateful to me than ever?

~SaigyO  (Poems of a Mountain Home)

SaigyO was born in 1118 in the capital city, Kyoto.  When he was twenty-two he suddenly left his post as an elite private guard of Emperor Toba to become a Buddhist  priest.  I find it interesting how his poem written almost a thousand years ago resonates with me today especially when I think of Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr’s (who was born in 1808) translated epigram, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”