In this article I pretend to show that the influence of Zen Buddhism and haiku model in the work of Paulo Leminski is not just limited to a series of thematic topics, but it is essential to the formal development of his short poetry. This influence is parallel to other languages, as photography and publicity, and is also combined with the proposals of the concrete poets, which were interested too in japanese poetry. Finally I analyze diverse versions and translations of one of his last poems, in which the expressive possibilities of emptiness are observed.