Day of Awaking

 

Last night may have been the coldest night we'll see in 2024. I hope it's the coldest night we'll see. The low temperature last night fell down to 17° F (-8° C), which may not sound too cold for my Northern friends, but homes here in Atlanta weren't built with those temperatures in mind. My furnace ran all night, non-stop, but couldn't keep up with the cold - the indoor temperature actually dropped 2° overnight despite the furnace, and parts of the house felt considerably colder.

The forecast predicts that things will warm up for the rest of the month, with overnight lows above freezing after tomorrow and highs up to 68° on Thursday. We've seen plenty of cold days in February and March in the past, but I think (hope) we've seen the worst that January's going to throw at us this year.

I don't like the cold.

Buddhism puts great emphasis on the current moment, and Zen talks about "the eternal now."  We're encouraged to experience and concentrate on what's happening right here, right now, and not fantasize about a future or indulge in nostalgic thoughts about the past.

That doesn't work for me, at least with regard to the cessation of suffering (which was the Buddha's whole point). It's cold right now, intolerably so, but I can just hear the ancient Zen masters saying, "Cold is all there is - everything else is either memory or imagination. Deal with it." 

But impermanence is also everywhere.  What we experienced today will be gone tomorrow, and we know this because it wasn't here yesterday. Rather than wallowing in my frigid suffering, I take comfort in knowing that soon "now" will be warmer, and someday even "hot." Maybe even "too hot," but I'll deal with that when the times comes by recognizing the heat is just as impermanent as cold.

This works for me with a lot of things.  Boredom, anxiety, excitement, infatuation, desire, disgust - all these things will pass with time and it's better (for me) to recognize their impermanence rather that to attach to the moment.

A monk once asked Zen Master Tozan, "How can we escape the cold and heat?" Tozan replied, "Why not go where there is no cold and heat?" "Is there such a place?" the monk asked. Tozan instructed, "When cold, be thoroughly cold; when hot, be hot through and through."

As long as we are living in natural surroundings, we cannot avoid heat and cold, but we can get rid of the mind which is fearful of, uncomfortable with, or uneasy around heat or cold. 

The Stoics advised us to look at a situation and ask ourselves if there is anything we can do about it. If yes, then do it, and if no, then don't worry about it. The best way for me to not worry about it is to remember that although I'm shivering now, I wasn't always shivering and there will be a time when I will no longer be shivering. This too shall pass.

Instead of abiding in this shivering moment, take a step back and recognize its impermanence.

Works for me.