No heat or cold: Surrender and submission in spiritual practice Barry Magid January 12th 2013

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The Blue Cliff Record, Case 43 No heat or cold

A monk asked Tung Shahn, "When cold and heat come, how does one avoid them?" Tung Shahn said, "Why not go where there is no cold or heat?" The monk said, "How is it when there is no cold or heat?" Tung Shahn said, "When it's cold, it kills you with cold. When it's hot it kills you with the heat"

Next weekend I’ll be attending the annual Lay Zen Teachers’ Association meeting up in Garrison. As part of that meeting there will be discussions about teaching and the student-teacher relationship. They are again increasingly open to discussion of psychological issues involved. As part of that I’ve sent all of them one of the chapters of my book as a basis for some of their discussions on the student teacher relationship, so I thought I would read that chapter to you today, based on the koan, No Heat or Cold.
[See: Magid, Barry. 2013. Surrender & Submission: No Heat or Cold. In Nothing is Hidden: The Psychology of Zen Koans. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.

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