baking bread, naming trees

I baked two loaves of bread the other day. This might not seem like such a radical thing. People have been baking bread for centuries. I got the idea from the book I’ve been reading, The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson. In it, he says “if you can make bread, you can do anything. It’s amazing how much confidence baking bread gives you.” My family and I have been eating this bread, which is so much more substantial that supermarket bread, for three days now, enjoying it with our dinners or toasting it for breakfast. It’s a gratifying sight to see your three-year-old son eating the bread you baked. I’ve cooked many meals for my family but for some reason making bread has been the most fulfilling cooking I’ve ever done. And it’s thrifty. Another of Mr. Hodgkinson’s mantras is to “reject waste, embrace thrift.” He advises us to throw out the telly and stop buying magazines. These devices just entice us to buy things we don’t need. Ride a bicycle, the thriftiest invention ever! I just saw an ad on television for Lowe’s, a chain of home improvement stores. Spring is here, and so now we must start our “outdoor projects” Gene Hackman, their paid spokesperson tells us. We are forever working, even during our leisure time. “Let’s build something together” Mr. Hackman exhorts. More like “Spend a lot of money at Lowe’s, using your Lowe’s credit card, and then go home because now you’re on your own, friend.” Commercials never tells us that spring is here and now it’s time to lay in the grass, do nothing, and watch the clouds pass overhead. For the stores, there’s no money to be made in promoting idleness. But it feels so much better to be thrifty than to shop. Shopping will never gratify us. That’s why we keep doing it. If we were ever really gratified, we’d stop shopping tomorrow. But that’s not in the stores’ best interest. To always keep us wanting for more is their philosophy. But what a sweet victory thrift is over waste! For example, I found a free book in a donation bin a few days ago, a guide to identifying trees of North America. It’s one of these old fashioned Golden guides, with colorful drawings instead of photographs. I didn’t pay a cent for it, and yet my children and I have been enjoying looking at trees and trying to find them in the book so as to name them. We found out that the tree in our front yard is (probably) a Norway maple. We’ve lived in our house for almost ten years and never knew that. For the longest time the tree in our front yard was just named “tree.” But now it has a name. And just yesterday my son said that when he got out of preschool he wanted to “look for trees.” Now that’s much better than television.

spilled wine

This past week, I had the occasion to come across a small book that I found in a used book shop while on holiday with my family in Portsmouth, NH . It is entitled A Record of Awakening by David Smith. The subtitle is Practice and Insight on the Buddhist Path. Written in his own hand, this self-described “ordinary chap”, a gardener from England, tells of his deep awakening while practicing the Way at a Threravada Buddhist monastery in Sri Lanka. I won’t be a plot-spoiler, but suffice to say that if you are sincerely interested in the Dharma, this may be quite an eye-opening book for you. It was extremely inspirational to me, an ordinary chap myself, to read the story of the enlightenment experience of someone who had no advanced education or special knowledge, just a sincere desire to awaken. At the end of his account, he gives a few words of final advice, and one of his phrases resounded very deeply with me. He says, “Immerse yourself in the Dharma, dive into it like you would a pool of cool water on a hot summer’s day, but never get out!” This past weekend I also had the occasion to experience a brief illustration of why it is so important to practice. I was at my in-laws’ house and as I was pouring red wine into a glass, it spilled all over the countertop. As I attempted to clean up the mess, I knocked over the wine glass and it almost shattered. I swore out loud, anger flashing. My daughter was right behind me, and heard me. She wanted to know what the matter was. In that instant I realized how foolish I must have looked, getting so upset over some spilled wine. That ever-present Me was wronged once again, by these mindless, inanimate objects. Upon reflecction, I saw the folly of thinking that we can somehow control every situation we find ourselves in. Shouldn’t we expect that if we open the bottle carefully, and slowly tip it towards the glass, that the wine will flow smoothly? But no. Despite our best plans, the wine spills or our car refuses to start or we lock ourselves out of our house or we lose our eyeglasses. But just who is it that gets so angry? I think practicing the Dharma can show us that there’s no one here to even get upset. Or maybe that I shouldn’t be drinking wine.

day four – one thing

Multigrain pancakes for breakfast, then a 20-mile bike ride. Bright, sunny day. My Soen Roshi diet is pretty much out the window. I was going to attend a sitting group this morning, but I realize I have a greater affinity for solitary meditation. I’m more of a Bodhidharma kind of guy. I checked out a copy of the Mirror of Zen by Korean Zen Master So Sahn. I started reading it, and page one stopped me in my tracks:

“There is only one thing, from the very beginning, infinitely bright and mysterious by nature. It was never born, and it never dies. It cannot be described or given a name. What is this “one thing”?

Like Joshu’s “Mu!”, this question is like a hot ball of iron in my gut that I can’t get rid of.

day three – bright dharma

Toast, yogurt, and eggs for breakfast. A medium Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with cream and sugar. So much for rice gruel. Still, I feel like I’m making progress. This morning, Saturday, I had no schedule, no timetable. I walked downtown with my three-year old son on my shoulders and realized that everything is the perfect, bright Buddhadharma. The sun was shining in the blue cloudless sky. We did errands together. Returning bottles at the grocery store, saying hello to neighbors, going to the sporting goods store to buy a pouch of “baseball gum,” even the dirty dishes in the sink, the messy house, the unraked yard, and the unmade bed all perfect in themselves, asking nothing, desiring nothing. Lately, I was getting depressed again, feeling like Tanzan, sending out my thoughts into the great silence of the internet. But today, even that silence echoing back to me was perfect. No mirror, no dust alighting. Today, I was filled with happiness for about three hours straight. I tried to think of a reason for why I should be so happy. Did I need a reason? I almost felt guilty for my happiness. Shouldn’t something be wrong, shouldn’t I be troubled? But no, no reasons came for my joy. It was just there, just so, with no restrictions. So now I say to you: Put down your questions, put down your striving, put down your doubt, put down your worry. As it says in the Heart Sutra, “There is no wisdom and no attainment. There is nothing to be attained.” Everything is perfect exactly as it is right now.

day two

Rice porridge this morning with milk and honey, using a recipe from the Three Bowls cookbook I mentioned a few posts ago. In his advice to the Zen cook, or tenzo, Master Dogen says we should prepare the rice today for tomorrow’s gruel. In his journal Soen Roshi, commenting on the preparation of his monastery for winter, says, “Everything that needs to be attended to is done, yet no trace of effort is apparent.” These thoughts express the Zen spirt perfectly. When you do something, burn yourself up so there’s nothing left. After breakfast, I started to cheat a little. I had one cup of coffee because my PG Tips wasn’t cutting it and I was in such a foul mood. I could sense that I was giving off angry vibes. For someone who has caffeine every day, it’s startling to see your true nature without the drug. I swam 30 lengths on my lunch break today. So far, so good. Hoping to resist the temptation to stop after work and buy beer. Am I breaking the Fifth Precept if I have three beers tonight while sitting on the couch watching baseball? Does that count as “misuse of alcohol?” Friday night, Red Sox/Rangers at 7:05 pm: for me this is what Mara, or temptation, looks like.

day one

For mid-morning meal, two cups of PG Tips tea, one bowl of rice cereal with milk. So far, so good. No coffee cravings yet. I think when you’re dieting, coffee can be the root of all evil. It stirs up the passions and makes those hungry ghosts come out.

For lunch, and my last big meal of the day, a green salad with various beans and vegetables, and one cup of vegetarian hot and sour soup. I’m unable to swim today due to work constraints, but I will take a brief walk on my lunch break. Right now it’s 11:47 am, so if I don’t take another meal until tomorrow, I’ll be following those early Buddhist precepts I spoke of. I’m guessing I’ll need an apple before then, however. It’s strange…even though I have just eaten, I find myself already thinking about my next meal. There must be a fear of starvation reflex that gets activated when you diet. I’ll be doing my four miles tonight, and I may have some nuts or a glass of milk before bed.

I think I’m going to call this my Soen Roshi diet. More thoughts on food from the master, again from his journal: “Although it is austere, my diet is nourishing. While I eat only one meal a day, it is filled with delicious tastes, and I am extremely grateful to nature for this bounty. It consists of nine types of food: black beans, green beans, azuki beans, white beans, soy beans, sesame seeds, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, and brown rice. While chewing these things one after the other, I mix buckwheat powder with water. I also eat radishes, carrots, greens, fruits, seaweed, and pine leaves – whatever is available. I don’t use fire; I eat everything raw. Recently I have stopped using salt, unless it occurs naturally, as in seaweed. I take all things as they come in nature.” (Sounds a little like my friend Henry D. Thoreau with his bean patch. )

non-working lunch

I just came back from a “working lunch” where we listened to a speaker as we ate. This is a pretty common practice in business, where we eat but we can’t really pay attention to the meal that is nourishing us. The food was free and the speaker was engaging, but something was missing. During events like these, because our attention is split between eating and listening, we can’t bring mindfulness to either. I would like to institute a policy at my workplace where we eat in silence, much like the formal meals given at Buddhist monasteries called oryoki, then once we have given proper attention to our nourishment, we can shift our full attention to other matters. And yet, can you imagine the reaction if I suggested this? It goes against the cult of multitasking that we’ve all had to adopt. Somehow we’ve come to believe that if you can’t do two or three things well, and all at once, that there must be something wrong with you. But what really ends up happening is that we don’t do any of these mutiple tasks well, and because our attention was somewhere else, we weren’t present for any of them. So that time has slipped away, and we’ve spent it unskillfully. I say we all eat in silence, really take the time to taste, appreciate and enjoy our food, and then we can talk all we want. That way, we don’t lose time, or our lunch.

renewal

Lately I seem to be more of an aggregator of information than a creator of original content. But like a good book that you thrust into a friend’s hands with a “must read this” plea, I feel like sharing these bits of wisdom that I come across in the hopes that you might glean some spark or insight from them. As for my own vows, it looks like another time for renewal. Like Soen Roshi, I too have been consuming the metaphorical demon rice cakes. Even though I have been swimming 30 lengths in the pool on my lunch hour, I still can’t seem to turn the corner on my exercise regimen. I am trying to use the Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei as my inspiration for my nascent running program (four miles every day no matter what) but that hasn’t gotten off the ground yet. I’m doing about three days a week worth of running and walking. I know my mood improves when I exercise, so I have to do it, come rain, shine, or darkness. My diet at first glance appears good, but too may late-night Red Sox games have done damage to my willpower. Today I’m buying a cookbook called Three Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery by Seppo Ed Farrey and Nancy O’Hara that I hope will help my diet. In the Buddha’s time, it was common for monks to eat only one meal per day, and to eat nothing after noon. Extreme, yes. And not very conducive to a householder’s life. But I’ve got to find some way to make my vows stick.

demon rice cakes

More thoughts on food from Soen Roshi’s journal, dated Autumn, 1931:

“On October 3, I made a vow to live on one meal a day, following the teachings of early Buddhist scriptures. This has resulted in a new-day clarity and expansiveness in my life…Since making that vow, I have been experiencing the joy of practicing it. One evening I hear a Zen teacher tell in his lecture about eating forty-nine sweet rice cakes at a time when he was young. I am appalled. But on the way back, I stop at a bakery and buy one of those cakes. It is like the initial gunshot breaking the silence. It creates explosive desire. One calls for another, and another. I become so angry, even while devouring this unhealthy food, that I feel like a demon.”

nabokov’s sandwiches

Perhaps due to my own dietary struggles, I’ve always been fascinated by what others eat, especially creative or spiritually advanced people. Maybe I believe that there is a direct correlation between someone’s spiritual or creative achievements and what they eat. Either the food produced the state of mind, or the state of mind in a sense dictated the diet. In either case, I love the little details. Take this, again from Eido Tai Shimano Roshi’s introduction to the book Endless Vow: The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa, “Even at Ryutaku-ji, Monk Soen went his own way…His strict diet, which he had devised for himself while living in his hut on Mount Dai Bosatsu, made it difficult for him to take his meals with the other monks. He ate no cooked food. When traveling by train or boat, he took no meals in restaurants and bought no prepared food; he would pick up banana peels and apple cores others had thrown away, wash them, and save them for his meals.” This was the diet of one of the towering figures in the transmission of Zen Buddhism to the West. Or I’ve heard the story of a Korean Zen master, who, when on an isolated retreat in the forest, ate nothing but boiled pine needles, so much so that his skin turned a peculiar shade of green. When Vladimir Nabokov was living in Cambridge, MA during the 40’s and cataloging butterflies at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Biology, he used to pack a “flask of milk and a few sandwiches” for his lunch. First, I love the phrase “flask of milk”, but I have always wondered what was in those sandwiches. I’d like to find out and make my lunch out of that same, bright stuff.