Where Is There No Hot or Cold?
by Leslie Sann
Cold! If the thermometer had been an inch longer we’d all have frozen to death. ~ Mark Twain
Zen Koan:
Q: What can be done about the extremes of weather, the hot and cold?
A: If you are so concerned, why don’t you go someplace where there are no variations in temperature?
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m reporting from the Chicago area where we’ve had extreme weather this winter. We’re talking -20 Fahrenheit without the windchill. I woke up one day to an email from a friend in Oklahoma asking if I was okay. The lead story in the news was that it was colder in Chicago than it was in the Antarctic.
Today I canceled a road trip to a cabin in the woods that has no WiFi or cellular connection. A trip designed to support me in completing the writing of my second book. We have had a series of ice storms and the roads are treacherous. Better to breathe another day tucked inside my cozy home.
The weather is one of those things that shows us we’re not in control of our outer circumstances. Yet we can go to the place where there is no variation in temperature.
Where do you imagine that is?
When you find that place it can be a life-changing awakening. When you discover the answer you’ve come across the pearl of great price.
To me the place where there is no change in temperature is what I’m going to call our true center or essence. Some call it presence. Some call it the Divine, the Soul, the True Self, Home. It doesn’t matter what you call it. What matters is you get to know that place inside of you.
You’ve already been there. You may or may not remember. It is beyond thinking, beyond feeling, beyond the movement of the body. It is that which sources our inhale and our exhale.
There’s no good, bad, right or wrong in this place. No rules or judgments. No hot or cold. Wind or rain. Storms or disturbance. It’s a place of beingness. Pure awareness. In this place of true center, it matters not if it’s -20 Fahrenheit with snow, ice and howling wind. It doesn’t matter what the news is reporting. It doesn’t matter if you have an ingrown toenail or it is time to have a haircut. It is a place of peace and joy regardless of outer circumstances.
Here is the good news.
You’ve never left.
Just like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, you imagined yourself in a dream of a faraway land where it is cold and snowing. You forgot where YOU really are. All you have to do is turn your attention within, tune into your heart, take a breath in, and call yourself Home. Ahhhh… there’s no place like home ….
Blessings and Peace,