Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘Whatever you do: washing your face, even walking on the street… and encountering the so-called severe winter weather, [like] trees on the mountains in the severe weather. You cannot handle the severe weather, so-called Minnesota winter, according to your feeling and emotions. If you deal with winter like this, you cannot live here. [Laughter.] But make your mind calm and see the severe winter. It’s beautiful! You have never known it before.

I have been already ten years in Minnesota: gradually I understand. [Laughter.] I love very much severe winter. And each different change of the seasons are really beautiful in Minnesota.

So you have to see severe winter in terms of your emotions and feelings, but simultaneously you have to see the winter with the whole universe, the rhythm of nature. That is beautiful; it’s really beautiful. Because it’s completely beyond your feelings and emotions, et cetera.’ (from Katagiri Transcripts)