With palms together
Good Morning Everyone,
The sun just rose over the Organ Mountains, offering both brilliant light and searing summer heat. We in Las Cruces are desert dwellers. Our environment is typically hot and dry. We are now, however, on the back side of the rainy season, although not much rain has come our way, still, the air is wet and the heat creates a sauna within which we sweat. Those of us with refrigerated air are prone to stay inside; those with swamp coolers, well, let’s just say swamp coolers are not at all effective in humidity. People who live with swamp coolers in a humid environment suffer. Yet, refrigerated air also brings suffering. When we stay inside and our bodies adapt, our ability to go out of doors is compromised. As with Old Tozan in Case 43 of the Blue Cliff Record, “How do we escape heat or cold?”
In either direction, there is suffering. Life is like this, with every in-breath there is birth and the construction of our world, with every out-breath there is death and the destruction of our world. How can we escape it? This question reminds me of another koan, Case 83, “The ancient Buddhas and the pillar merge --- what level of mental activity is this?
Yesterday morning I sat in the courtyard witnessing the sun rising over the mountains. I began to sweat. I felt my body giving up its water. And then, I saw the sun in a sweat drop. The sun was -- and was not-- in the sweat drop. There was heat and not heat at the same time. Heat and cold are words we use, they point to something we add to a given moment, just as by suffering we mean: things are not the way we think they should be.
Can we enter a stone pillar? Can we abide in heat or cold without being hot or cold? Can we encounter our daily life as it presents itself and appreciate it fully?
Of course we can, but will we?
Only our practice knows.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
The sun just rose over the Organ Mountains, offering both brilliant light and searing summer heat. We in Las Cruces are desert dwellers. Our environment is typically hot and dry. We are now, however, on the back side of the rainy season, although not much rain has come our way, still, the air is wet and the heat creates a sauna within which we sweat. Those of us with refrigerated air are prone to stay inside; those with swamp coolers, well, let’s just say swamp coolers are not at all effective in humidity. People who live with swamp coolers in a humid environment suffer. Yet, refrigerated air also brings suffering. When we stay inside and our bodies adapt, our ability to go out of doors is compromised. As with Old Tozan in Case 43 of the Blue Cliff Record, “How do we escape heat or cold?”
In either direction, there is suffering. Life is like this, with every in-breath there is birth and the construction of our world, with every out-breath there is death and the destruction of our world. How can we escape it? This question reminds me of another koan, Case 83, “The ancient Buddhas and the pillar merge --- what level of mental activity is this?
Yesterday morning I sat in the courtyard witnessing the sun rising over the mountains. I began to sweat. I felt my body giving up its water. And then, I saw the sun in a sweat drop. The sun was -- and was not-- in the sweat drop. There was heat and not heat at the same time. Heat and cold are words we use, they point to something we add to a given moment, just as by suffering we mean: things are not the way we think they should be.
Can we enter a stone pillar? Can we abide in heat or cold without being hot or cold? Can we encounter our daily life as it presents itself and appreciate it fully?
Of course we can, but will we?
Only our practice knows.
Be well.