虛堂和尚語錄 8.87

8.87

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."