“One of the striking differences between Christian and Buddhist thought is that in the Christian sense of things, nature is fallen, and in the Buddhist sense, it isn’t. Another is that, because there is no creator-being in Buddhist cosmology, there is no higher plane of meaning to which nature refers. At the core of Buddhist metaphysics are three ideas about natural things: that they are transient; that they are contingent; and that they suffer.”

– from the “Introduction” to The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, & Issa, edited by Robert Hass

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