Middle of the Road Zen – Balm on a Hot Day

If all you can manage mentally in this hot weather is to look at moving traffic where nothing much happens then this is for you. For around six minutes somebody in Melbourne Australia is featured doing formal zazen in the middle of moving cars, she or he is not moving! I’d have been happy just to watch to the end with nothing happening, but something does! If that is too much excitement in this heat-wave we are all enjoying in Britain at the moment I suggest sitting very still, not in the middle of the road, with a wet flannel on your head. Keep cool.

Back in the day when the monastic kitchens would heat up to impressively high temperatures I’d wear a wet bandana on my head and from time to time spray a fine mist around the kitchen from a spray bottle. Anything to help keep the kitchen staff keep their heads. One day we registered 100f while a monk fried chips on the griddle.

As we all must know already there is a real danger to health when the temperatures stay consistently high day after day. Vulnerable people such as the elderly the young and those with certain medical conditions can suffer from heat-exhaustion and worse, heatstroke. Let’s watch out for each other out there.

Thanks go to Walter for the link to the video.

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