Four Huts (Shambhala Centaur Editions)

FOUR HUTS: Asian Writings on the Simple Life, translated by Burton Watson (1994). Don’t let that last phrase fool you. There’s nothing of Marie Antoinette dressing-peasant here.

These are short records, essences caught, of lives of real retirement from the world and often of a poverty we would call stark rather than simple. There are pieces by Po Chu-I, Yoshishige no Yasutane, Kamo no Chomei and Matsuo Basho, ranging from the ninth to the seventeenth century.

The title of the last piece, “Record of the Hut of the Phantom Dwelling," “And yet we all in the end live, do we not, in a phantom dwelling?” captures the insistent Buddhist theme of impermanence.

Kamo no Chomei’s Hojoki, “Record of the Ten-Foot-Square Hut” is one of the touchstone pieces of Japanese literature, a survivor’s record of the fires and famines that attacked Kyoto in the twelfth century, and his reclusion to a mountain hermitage. It’s also one of those indelible, unforgettable pieces that marks anyone who reads it attentively. Watson captures the range of mood and styles. Read them over a couple of quiet evenings and see if you ever forget them. One of the best essays in Sam Hamill’s collection of essays mentioned above is the beautiful “Basho’s Ghost,” a short record of a long life dedicated to the perfecting of a poetic gift.