Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of others, instead, seek what they sought.

The imitation of a master's outward path is not the same as sharing the master's purpose. Footsteps show where someone walked, but not why they set out. The quote suggests that the real inheritance from people we admire is their longing, whether that was truth, beauty, or freedom, and not their routes, habits, or style. Copying the steps can leave you with a hollow version of someone else's life, while pursuing what they sought lets you arrive somewhere that is truly yours.

This fits what we know of Bashō, the Japanese haiku poet, who revered earlier poets and travelled to places they had written about, yet shaped his own voice and was influenced by Zen's emphasis on direct experience over received forms. Still, the attribution is uncertain. A very similar saying is often credited to the Buddhist monk Kūkai, so it is safest to treat it as a saying in Bashō's spirit rather than a verified quotation.

Today, imagine a young writer who adores a famous novelist. Instead of mimicking the sentences or the daily routine, she could ask what drew her in: perhaps honest attention to ordinary life. She can then pursue that in her own subjects and her own words.