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Basho in 1666, at the age of 23, wrote:
                       Shibashi ma mo / matsu ya hototogi / su sennen
 
                                                Waiting a short while
                                   for the cuckoo's song — seems like
                                                  a thousand years!

Oseko writes that the exaggeration in Basho’s haiku reminds him of an expression from Li Po's (701-762) poem that contains the lines:
                          My white hair is 30,000 feet long
                    The waterfall flows flying down 3000 feet

                    Saru kiku hito / sutego ni aki no / kaze ikani

                                    Hearing a monkey —
                          that lorn child in the autumn wind
                                who could have left him?

   This haiku appears in Basho’s journal Bleached Bones in a Field of 1684. For the Chinese, monkey’s cries and autumn wind reflect sadness and impermanence, and the phrase “monkey’s cry” often crops up in Li Po’s poems. Some critics seem to think that this was a fiction that Basho created for effect. After all, Basho being a Buddhist, how could he leave a child to the elements? Two years earlier Basho had studied Zen with the Rinzai master Butcho (1642—1715), who had encouraged him to give up haiku if he wanted to take up Zen seriously In Zen, we are often asked to give up our attachments. By the act of giving up, we transcend our attachments, and they no longer become a priority in our lives. I feel that Basho was unable to do this, which he himself admits to in his writings. If he had been able to do so, the about situation and haiku would have been entirely different. It’s all down to our intentions. Basho had not grasped the Universal Precept that had been handed
down through the ancestors and authentically transmitted from a previous Buddha to the next Buddha, namely to “Refrain from all evil whatsoever, uphold and practise all that is good, and thereby purify your own intentions.” Having said that, it is not my intention to belittle Basho, given the circumstances we are always doing the best that we can at any given time, and that we should not read too much “Zen” in Basho’s haiku, for if we examine Basho’s haiku thoroughly, we find that the main emphasis is that of the Taoism of Chuang Tzu.

                Sakazuki ni / mitsu no na nomu / koyoi kana

                                    With my sake cup
                          & the moon, I toast three friends —
                                      this fine evening

   Basho wrote this playful haiku in 1685, when three friends came to visit him late at night. He had in mind lines from Li Po’s poem:

                               With blossoms, a bottle of wine
                                Drinking all alone, no one else.
                                Raising the cup, we greet the bright moon
                                With my shadow we become three.

   Basho substituted Li Po’s three friend, the wine cup, his shadow and the moon for three actual friends.

                    Ryumon no / hana ya jogo no / tsuto ni sen

                                        Dragongate Falls
                                       flowers opening — a gift
                                        for my drinking friends
   Basho wrote this in 1688, in his Knapsack Journal, remembering Li Po’s love of waterfalls, and how the flowers would make a nice gift for his friends. Had he in mind the lines from a Li Po poem:
 
                                    Flying straight down 3000 feet
                        It looks as though the Milky Way had fallen
                                                                   from the sky

                   Kusa no to mo / sumi—kawaru yo zo / hina no ie

                                       Even my grass hut
                                     has changed into a home
                                       for colourful dolls
   
   This is from the opening haiku to Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North, which forms the first section of a renga sequence, consisting of 8 links, which Basho left on the outside post. The haiku is preceded by an adaptation to the preface of a poem by Li Po entitled On a Spring Night, Holding a Banquet at the Peach and Plum Gardens, “Heaven and earth are like an inn, for all things are contained within the universe, light and shadow are the travellers of a thousand generations, Making this life nothing more than a floating dream.".
   Legend and poetic myth record how Li Po, after a night of wine and poetry, boating on a lake, saw the reflection of the moon on water. In attempting to grasp it, he fell overboard and drowned.

       Ro no koe nami o utte / harawata koru / yo ya namida

                          Oars beating waves, sound
                        freezes through to the belly —
                           tears flow in the night

   Basho wrote this in the winter of 1680—81, rather than thinking of Li Po, this haiku refers to a poem by Tu Fu (712—70):

                       From the window frame, western peak covered
                                                                         in eternal snow
                       By the gate, a boat heading east  ten thousand 
                                                                           miles of sea
 
 
        Higekaze o furite / bosho tanzuru wa / ta ga kozo

                     Beard blown by the wind
                     now who is it, lamenting
                          in the late autumn

   Basho wrote this in the late autumn of 1682 after reading a poem of Tu Fu’s which contained the lines:

                      With his goosefoot walking cane
                      Who is it, lamenting the world?

          Akebono ya / shirano shiroki / koto issun

                      In the light of dawn
             the white of whitefish gleaming
                       just an inch or so

   This comes from Basho’s Bleached Bones in a Field. ”Just before dawn I went to the beach when it was still dark.” Here he jotted down the above haiku with the lines from a poem by Tu Fu ringing in his ears:

                    Every whitefish has its own life
                    In nature just an inch or so long

          Natsukusa ya / tsuwamono domo ga / yume no ato

                                  Summer grasses —
                          all that remains of soldiers
                                   ancient dreams

   In Narrow Road to the Deep North, Basho stood at Takadashi Castle, recollecting the tragic death of the old soldier Yoshitsune. Combining this with lines from Tu Fu’s poem A Spring View, which he incorporated into the text of his journal:

                                The nation broken and defeated
                                But mountains and rivers remain
                                Springtime at the old castle, grass deep

                 Awa hie ni / toboshiku mo arazu / kusa no io
 
                                Millet abounding
                          there’ s no scarcity of food
                                 at the thatched hut

   Basho wrote this on 20 July, 1688 when he stayed over for a kasen party, hosted by Choko, a priest of Yakushido Temple. In this haiku Basho compares Choko to Jin Li, who Tu Fu mentions in a poem:
                             Hermit Jin Li wearing his dark hood
                             Who’s good at harvesting taros and millet

                     Nomiakete / hanaike ni sen / nishodaru

                                Finishing our drink —
                           lets arrange these flowers in
                                  this sake bottle—flower vase

   Here Basho recollects a line of poetry from Tu Fu. This sake bottle now changed into a flower vase. For a while Li Po and Tu Fu shared a brief friendship, exchanging poems with each other. Li Po is thought of as being earthy, while Tu Fu as that of the moon. Li Po is at his best when drunk and happy, like a lark singing at heaven’s gate. Tu Fu wrote his best poems when angry, like a nightingale singing with his throat against a thorn. Nearly a thousand years passed and Basho helped perpetuate their poems in his own writing .