Tagged: Zen
okayu
Master Dogen, the founder of the Soto School of Zen Buddhism in Japan, wrote that there are ten benefits to the traditional rice porridge (okayu) served at Zen temples. They are: it gives the body healthy color, increases strength, does not sit heavy on the stomach, extends life, makes the voice clear, aids digestion, prevents colds, relieves hunger, relieves thirst, aids excretion. All important and healthy benefits. In my quest for good health, I have been searching the internet for some authentic okayu recipes, and found a few here, here, and here. I also just returned from my local health food store and picked up some instant brown rice hot cereal from Arrowhead Mills. We’ll see how my little food experiment works. I suppose if I eat like a zen monk these next few weeks, I’ll lose weight and feel a little better about the approaching beach season in Maine. I’m also thinking a little more metaphysically about Dogen’s advice to the Zen cook. He writes “Prepare the rice today for tomorrow’s gruel.” Zen’s emphasis on the present moment, and its dismissal of the past and future as things that don’t really exist and therefore shouldn’t be worried about, sometimes leads people to believe that Zen doesn’t care about the future or is somehow completely impulsive. Not true. Living in the present moment also means taking care of the future. If you want to eat tomorrow, you’d better plan to shop today. Planning for tomorrow’s gruel doesn’t represent an obsession with the future. Just a common-sense approach to it. An American Zen teacher, when asked what the meaning of Buddhism is, replied “Doing what’s required.” And yet, the next question might be: what kind of rice porridge are you preparing tomorrow? Or more deeply: what kind of person are you preparing to be tomorrow? If you don’t know the answer, your grocery shopping might be in vain.
miracle medicine
Although my eye feels better, my body has not been filled with light lately. An emotional healing process and all the pressures of daily modern life had taken their toll. As I set off on my walk, with Spiritualized’s muted, beautiful, new album on my headphones, it started to rain. I was planning a six-mile walk, and this was no way to begin. But I pulled up my hoodie, kept my had down, and after a few short minutes, the skies began to clear just enough, and I could see streaks of sun behind the grey clouds. I actually took my headphones off so I could hear the birds singing. Sometimes one walk can change everything. I am reminded this morning of a brochure I picked up in he lobby of the Adventist hospital where my son was born almost eight years ago. It was called “Walking: The Miracle Medicine.” It advocated walking as the best form of exercise, as well as a vegetarian diet, and abstaining from smoking, alcohol, and caffeine. There was a religious message as well, and although I do remember the word “God” used a few times, I can’t say the message was overly preachy. This small tract basically advocated living a pure life, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that. I don’t know where that little pamphlet is today (I managed to keep it for at least a few years) but I am always reminded of its message whenever I go for a walk. Walking isn’t just good for the body. It’s good for the spirit. On a walk, you can let you mind off its leash. I started a book today called Eat Sleep Sit by Kaoru Nonomura. It’s about the author’s yearlong experience training as a Zen Buddhist monk at Japan’s most rigorous Zen temple, Eiheiji. founded by Dogen in the 13th century. His experience begins with a walk to the temple gates. After a meal and a night’s sleep, “I turned and looked back. Yes-that was where I’d stood so long the previous day…In the end I’d shed my sandals and crossed the threshold. The place was the same as yesterday, but I myself was changed. During the single night I’d spent behind that door, everything that had made me me had disappeared.” The person that leaves the house in the morning with raindrops falling on her head is not the same person that returns to the house two hours later with sunshine on her face. Likewise, the person that goes to sleep at night is not the same person that wakes up in the morning . This process continues our entire life. In fact, it is our entire life. Thankfully.
oak tree
A monk asked Master Zhaozhou: “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma (the first zen patriarch) coming to China?”
Zhaozhou: “The oak tree in the garden.”
Click here to read Mumon’s comment.
those people
I’ve seen a few bumper stickers around the city where I live that read: “Annoy a Liberal: Work Hard and Be Happy.” But it would seem that conservatives are the folks who are most annoyed right now. Henry once wrote “Surely joy is the condition of life” and I wholeheartedly agree. I do work hard and I am happy. And I am a liberal. So I guess that means that I am annoying myself. It reminds me of that wonderful Sprint commercial where The Man is sticking it to himself. Conservatives are upset because we might actually pass a health care reform bill very shortly. It’s Communism! they shout. It will be the downfall of our republic! The fear-mongering has reached a fever pitch. But really, we’ve seen this all before, haven’t we? The political tactics that have been used by conservatives since before Reagan can be summed up in one sentence: The government is going to take your money and give it to Those People. Those People are the lazy ones. Those People are the ones that can’t get an education, a job or health insurance because they just aren’t working hard enough. Conservative pundits love to shout from the rooftops that they are only saying what they are saying because they love this country. But what they really care about is selling advertising. That is their primary motivation. Unfortunately, reasonableness doesn’t sell. But racism, bigotry and fear always rake in the benjamins. I know that most Americans are reasonable, and that our country has a wonderful way of correcting itself. If the laws that are enacted reach too far, we have a perfectly good and time-tested way to change them. It’s called our government. Vote the Bums Out! Isn’t that what we hear every two years? And guess what? It works. I survived Nixon and Reagan and both Bushes. But I also survived Carter and Clinton. Sometimes my taxes went up and sometimes they went down. Otherwise, my life was my own. I am sure I will survive the Obama years as well. Why? Because I work hard and I’m happy. If believing that some of my money should go to helping poor people, then I guess that makes me a Communist. I just wish we could get back to a world where we all viewed one another as friends and neighbors, not as enemies. As a Zen master once said, “Once you make distinctions (between good and bad) you are already in hell.” I would love to have a reasonable, quiet conversation with Rush or Glenn someday, but I also know that a “Fireside Chat with Glenn Beck” won’t pay his light bill. Though it pains my liberal soul to say it, the truth is that the Sean Hannitys or Bill O’Reillys of the world don’t really want dialogue, but neither do the Keith Olbermans or the Rachel Maddows. To perpetuate your own view only so that you get to stay in your TV host’s chair certainly makes for good ratings and lucrative advertising dollars, but it might not be the best method for civilized public discourse. Only if we can begin to view each other as human beings first, Americans second, and whatever political party we belong to a distant third can we even begin to fix what ails us. Please remember: Those People are Us.
empty your inbox
It’s Friday afternoon and my Outlook inbox at work is empty. Much like Master Dogen’s advice to prepare the rice today for tomorrow’s gruel, or Joshu’s advice to wash your bowl, I would recommend this practice whenever possible. I would also advise you empty out your mental inbox each day as well. Start each new day from scratch if you can. Wake up like your bed is on fire goes the Zen wisdom. Become reborn every morning. Don’t hold onto the past if you can help it. I had to yell at my five-year-old son last night because he wouldn’t come to the dinner table. He cried and I felt like an ogre. This morning, he hugged me and said he loved me. I hugged him back. All was forgotten. Don’t hold onto passing emotions and turn them into legends that inform your current behavior. In one hundred years, who will remember the point of your anger? Each day, empty out your physical and mental inbox. Wash your dishes tonight so that tomorrow your bowl will be clean.
one thing well
It would seem that my recent posts are getting shorter and shorter. Maybe I’m distilling some collected wisdom down to its essence. I don’t know. In any case, here’s another quote I found stashed away in one of my document folders. I suppose it can apply to any creative endeavor, or just plain life:
“Do your best at each and everything. That is the key to success. Learn one thing well and you will learn how to understand the ten thousand things. Ten thousand things are one; this is the secret place of understanding you must find. Then everything is mysterious and wonderful.”
-Archery Master Awa Kenzo
empty-handed zen
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed — that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?
I’m not sure who wrote this, but I reread it from time to time. That one pure and clear thing, not dependent on birth and death, is what I have been searching for all my life. Can we find this pure and clear thing in the midst of our daily lives? That is the real challenge.
monday zen
Imagine this situation: The alarm goes off at 4:30 am. It’s still pitch black outside, and cold. You’re under three layers of blankets, warm in your cocoon. You should get up and go to the gym, that’s why you set your alarm, but today it’s Monday and that means it’s just too difficult. Why not just stay in bed awhile? Sound familiar? This is our daily dilemma. Not just whether or not to go to the gym, but whether to abide in inertia, or keep going. A Zen teaching I read years ago said that we should get out of bed in the morning as if our bed is on fire, and go to sleep at night as if it’s our final rest. The underlying message is that whatever we do, we do it fully and mindfully. To continue: So you manage to get out bed (at 6:00 am) but then you are presented with the fact that you have to perform about fifty small tasks just to get out the door in order to arrive at work on time. Then your car doesn’t start and while you are fiddling with some engine cables under the hood, you step in a pile of dog shit. Now you really wish you hadn’t gotten up that day. But what can you do? Just live and breathe right into that moment with dog shit on your shoe and keep going. Dainin Katagiri Roshi, in his book Returning to Silence, says, “In everyday life there is no excuse. One day you like your life, the next morning you don’t. Finally, all you have to do is just live. This is pretty hard and very painful because from day to day, you have to do something in this situation where you feel as though you cannot move an inch at all. You have to get up in the morning when you have to get up, wash your face when it’s time to wash your face, have breakfast even though you don’t like it, go to work and take care of your life…Nevertheless, right in the middle of this situation we have to be refreshed constantly. In sickness, in despair, in hard work, in easy work, whatever it is, happy or not happy, you must be constantly refreshed. To be refreshed is to digest your life completely. This is Zen teaching.” So I ask you: Can you be refreshed with dog shit on your shoe, late for work with a car that won’t start? If you can, you see the Dharma clearly and are close to Buddhahood.
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 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.
