Quotes from book
Hōjōki

Name: Hōjōki
Author: Kamo no Chōmei

Kamo no ChōmeiOriginal title 方丈記 (Japanese)

Hōjōki , variously translated as An Account of My Hut or The Ten Foot Square Hut, is an important and popular short work of the early Kamakura period in Japan by Kamo no Chōmei. Written in 1212, the work depicts the Buddhist concept of impermanence through the description of various disasters such as earthquake, famine, whirlwind and conflagration that befall the people of the capital city Kyoto. The author Chōmei, who in his early career worked as court poet and was also an accomplished player of the biwa and koto, became a Buddhist monk in his fifties and moved farther and farther into the mountains, eventually living in a 10-foot square hut located at Mt. Hino. The work has been classified both as belonging to the zuihitsu genre and as Buddhist literature. Now considered as a Japanese literary classic, the work remains part of the Japanese school curriculum.

“Though the river's current never fails, the water passing, moment by moment, is never the same. Where the current pools, bubbles form on the surface, bursting and disappearing as others rise to replace them, none lasting long. In this world, people and their dwelling places are like that, always changing.”

Kamo no Chōmei book Hōjōki

"An Account of My Hut" (1212), opening sentence as translated by Robert N. Lawson https://washburn.edu/reference/bridge24/Hojoki.html