“Out of the tunnel, it was a snow country” is the opening sentence of Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata, a Nobel Prize winner. This was the feeling I had as I flew back from San Francisco, where I had joined the wedding ceremony of my son, Norimasa, Perfecting Dharma. On a night flight following successive flight cancellations, I arrived here a day later than scheduled.
In San Francisco the cherry blossoms are already blooming, not only at the Peace Plaza of Japantown, but also alongside the roads to Muir Woods National Monument. The redwoods and other trees are thriving and green and starting to bud. The temperature was in the mid 60s and even up to 72 degrees there, while here it is in the 10s. There, spring is already in full swing with flowers, but here it’s winter still, shut in with snow and ice.
I could see the bright morning star there, with other stars dimmed by the city lights. Even though we cannot see the morning star because of thick clouds, we can have it and even the full moon by sitting quietly in zazen. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, “I of the beautiful Japan,” Yasunari Kawabata quoted Dogen’s poem titled “the original face”:
Flowers in spring,
Cuckoo in summer,
The moon in autumn,
Snow in winter, cool and clear.
Whether in spring or in winter, summer or autumn, we have a good day, every day, in unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening, through zazen. “Come and see” snow flowers, red birds, the moon, and the crystal clear world!
2/9/11