虛堂和尚語錄 8.87

8.87

至節小參：「今年寒勝似去年寒，去年無氷；去年寒勝似今年寒，今年有雪。去年寒，十一月十二日是書雲之日，今年寒，十一月二十四日是至節之朝，候候不相謾，物物還對偶，衲僧家，有有不被二十四氣之所推遷者，水邊林底捫虱負喧，有有不被二十四氣之所管帶者，拋家失業久歷風埃。還有不關造化底麼？」擊拂子：「陽氣未回吹律琯，野梅先發向南枝。」

Informal gathering on the winter solstice: "This year's cold surpasses last year's cold, [yet] last year there was no ice; last year's cold surpassed this year's cold, [yet] this year there is snow. As for last year's cold, the twelfth day of the eleventh month was the day of noting the clouds; as for this year's cold, the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month is the morning of the solstice. The seasonal nodes do not deceive each other; things and phenomena pair with one another. Among the house of patch-robed monks, there are some who are not driven about by the twenty-four solar terms, catching lice and sunning their backs by waters and under trees; there are some who are not tended to by the twenty-four solar terms, abandoning home and forsaking livelihood, long weathered by the wind and dust. Is there still someone who has nothing to do with creation and transformation?" Striking with his whisk: "Before the yang breath returns to blow through the pitch-pipes, wild plums bloom first upon the southern branch."