It was 92 F., the last two days in Falmouth. This is below normal for Atlanta (more like 95-99 and 90% humidity) where I lived for 37 years, but a heat wave none the less for us on Cape Cod. We sometimes approach sensory-awareness in Zen teaching, with the koan of "Hot Buddha-Cold Buddha."

This walking around entity (form) we call "Me or Self" is a field of sensory experiences that are always changing. First this, then that, and of course the other, and the former. When I was a teenager it was possible, but not always probable that a person could be hot and cool at the same time. So it is with our senses. For example, we might say we feel uncomfortable in our own skin, a situation is too hot to handle, they gave me the cold shoulder, they have ice in their veins. Yet we are not these things they are a nerve receptive interpretation of sensory experience.

We experience and it is the experience for that time frame that is us.

Again, I may be hungry, cold, dizzy, afraid, wet, and sleepy. That is who I am at the time. I am a different me depending upon conditions and variables. However, I am also capable of being so many experiences that the sum, that is more than just the form (bag of skin and bones) we call human/self. Being relative means both being real and being variable.

Which leads to our also being a Buddha in waiting. That is having the innate ability to see all of the above clearly as our existence. Being awake to this, that, and the other is simply experiencing life. So, hot Buddha or Cold Buddha means being fully aware of life /experience...

108 Bows Sangaku

---------------------------- Let me know if you will be attending the FSZS zazenkai on August 3, 2019 from 6:30 am to 3:30 pm...