Frost...
The Four Unalterable Instructions on Purity by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua:
...Those who seek the Bodhisattva Way must first be as pure as glistening frost in keeping these four rules of deportment. The first thing you must do is cultivate these four rules of deportment: not taking life, not stealing, not committing acts of sexual misconduct, and not lying. The prohibition against sexual misconduct refers not only to lust with the body, but to lust within the mind. You must get rid of both in order to transcend the wearisome dust. If you don't get rid of your thoughts of lust, you cannot get out of the dust.
The same goes for killing, stealing, and lying. These four rules of deportment are extremely important. You should become as glistening white as frost. You should be completely white, without the least bit of defilement, with not one black fleck in the white.
Venerable Master Hsuan Hua:
...we should remember that when our Patriarch Shakyamuni Buddha was on Ice Mountain it was a lot colder than in an icebox -- for it basically was a mountain of ice, far more freezing than a simple box of ice. Yet he sat in meditation for six years there, bitter as it was, and afterwards achieved Buddhahood. We here living in the icebox should at all times remember that it was on ice mountain that our ancient Patriarch Shakyamuni Buddha accomplished the Way – not on fire mountain...
 
 
 
Venerable Master Hsuan Hua:
Transcendental dharmas are just included within worldly dharmas and Bodhi is included right within affliction. You can’t say you want to separate from affliction to look for some other Bodhi, for if you look apart from affliction, there is no Bodhi, because affliction is just Bodhi—if you don’t know how to use it, it’s affliction; if you know how to use it, it’s Bodhi. It is like water and ice: Bodhi is like water and affliction is like ice. Ice isn’t water and the water isn’t ice; however water is ice and ice is water. Water and ice are analogous to Bodhi and affliction. The ice becomes ice from water, and the water can change into ice. When the ice melts, it becomes water. Living beings are Buddhas; enlightened you are a Buddha, confused you are a living being. Although the Buddha and living beings are two different words, they are basically the same. They are basically one…
…The Buddha is like water and living beings are like ice. The Buddha is like the piece of ice that has transformed into water. At their source, water and ice are the same, but they look slightly different.
 
 
 
  
  
Frost on car windows...
 
 
 
  
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Water
Dew and dewdrops
Raindrops
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