Artist notes: The title of the painting comes from one of my favourite poems which has an equally favourite story to go with it.
The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window.
By Ryōkan Taigu (1758 - 1831)
The Japanese Sōtō Zen Master composed this poem after a thief had come to his simple hut in the forest and stolen his few belongings. Ryōkan discovered that the thief had forgotten to take his meditation cushion and so he ran after the thief to give this to him as well. Any sort of theft of the very few possessions of the monk were amusing to him because the only thing he felt he had of real value was the moon (metaphorically representing enlightened wisdom) which could not be stolen.