[Kamo no Chōmei — Hōjōki]

*The flow of the river is ceaseless,
and yet the water is never the same.
The bubbles that float upon its surface
form and break, never lingering for long.
So it is with people and their dwellings in this world.

In the jeweled capital,
roofs stand shoulder to shoulder,
grand houses compete in splendor.
Yet if one asks whether they remain unchanged,
few are the same as in former times.
Some are destroyed by fire one year
and rebuilt the next;
some great houses decline to small ones.
It is the same with their inhabitants:
though the place remains and the people are many,
of those once known,
only one or two remain among twenty or thirty.

To die in the morning, to be born in the evening —
such is the way of the world,
like bubbles upon the water.
We do not know from where the people who are born and die come,
nor to where they go.
Why should one trouble the heart
over a temporary dwelling?
What should one rejoice in with the eyes?

Owner and house alike depart together,
subject to impermanence,
like the dewdrops upon the morning glory.
Sometimes the dew falls,
and the flower alone remains.*