A Favourite Zen Poem

A million Mount Sumerus are but a drop of dew
On the end of a single hair;
Three thousand worlds are only a seagull
Floating on the ocean waves.
The two children of the tiny creatures
In the eyebrow of a mosquito
Never stop quarrelling between themselves
As to whose earth this is.

Hakuin

From:
R.H. Blythe, Zen and Zen Classics, 7 volumes (Tokyo: Hakuseido,
1960-1970), V, page 198 cited in
Conrad Hyers, Zen and The Comic Spirit (Philadelphia:
The Westminster Press, 1973), page 13.