“To hell with the wind!
Confound the rain!
I recognize no Buddha.
A blow like the stroke of lightning -
A world turns on its hinge.”

—  Nampo Jomyo

Japanese Death Poems. Compiled by Yoel Hoffmann. ISBN 978-0-8048-3179-6
Other translation:
I rebuke the wind and revile the rain,
I do not know the Buddha and patriarchs;
My single activity turns in the twinkling of an eye,
Swifter even than a lightning flash.
Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Zen Dust, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World p. 206; cited in Richard Bryan McDaniel (2013)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Nampo Jomyo photo
Nampo Jomyo 3
1235–1309

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