Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982
1985 ~ Peter Muryo Matthiessen and Zen Community of New York
(Preface - Excerpt)
Tiantong's first phrase of winter:
Old plum tree, bent and gnarled, all at once opens one blossom, two blossoms not proud of purity, not proud of fragrance; falling, becoming spring, blowing over grasses and trees, balding the head of a patched-robe monk.
Whirling, changing into wind, wild rain, falling, snow, all over the earth.
The old…