Cut Cabbage

 

I’m a poor but happy follower of the Way
whatever happens takes care of my needs
last night the west wind blew down an old tree
at daybreak firewood covered the ground
windblown white silk wreathed the red scarps
dewdrop pearls adorned the green cliffs
my survival has always depended on what’s present
why should I tire myself out making plans

-- Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine 

I'm interested in the traces I feel I can sense of the effect of the word "Way" in various minds. Ask the average Taoist or Zennist about it, and you can hear some overlap in their replies, but it's not a matchup, the way their image of "noodles" or "ocean" might be. This leaves me wondering what idiot came up with the word "Way" in the first place. Trying to confuse us, eh?

The more I muse on all this, the more I feel like candles and chants risk more hindrance than help. When it's time to cut up some cabbage, just pick up the knife and cut cabbage.

-- shonin

Rice and veg

 

I grew some things and chopped them up. I steamed them enough to call them blanched, and steeped them in rice vinegar and honey.  

It's not like I can't or don't buy groceries, but occasional water-bath canning gives one the cheery sound of lids popping, and a sense of life going ahead.

Pop. Pop. Six or seven times, then go look at the moon.

This is preparation for a winter in the hermitary. 

Pickled veg is famously what Asian hermits have with their rice (when they have rice), especially in winter. Stonehouse recalled having gone through a hundred crocks of pickles, more or less, at his hermitage.

Stonehouse  had a hermitage, whereas I merely have a hermitary, that is, in my case, a she-cave attached to a comfortable home. Sincerity comes in bursts of a few seconds; I feel I would make a terrible Zen leader. 

That's all right. We are bubbles on the stream. When I see three seconds of sincerity, I jump on -- free ride! 

In the morning, rice and veg.

-- shonin 

 

Forty-some years I've
Lived in the mountains,
Ignorant of the world's
Rise and fall.
Warmed at night by a stove
Full of pine needles;
Satisfied at noon by a bowl
Of wild plants;
Sitting on rocks
Watching clouds and empty thoughts;
Patching my robe in sunlight;
Practicing silence
Till someone asks
Why Bodhidharma came east,
And I hang out my wash

-- Shiwu (Stonehouse) tr. Red Pine

Nap time

 

 

I have been reading Zen poets.
Cold Mountain resents his limp,
his former married life,

his former neighbors,
and envies, I suspect,
the beauty of youth.

He's at his best
lying on moss, letting
icy creek water

clean his ears, or so
he says. I'll trust him
on that; it's not like I have

no resentments of my own!
Stonehouse is enamored
of his little clay stove

which he feeds leaves
while he sits close, listening
to gibbons down the mountain,

howling. Does he ever invite
them to tea? I'll trust that
he does, and lets them

sit warm with him in the long
winter. Great Fool is
my favorite; when not tacking

calligraphy to his walls
by his lone oil lamp, he
sets out briskly in rain

to ask housewives for
a little rice, and visit
children who bounce balls

and count. I lean back
in my squeaky chair
and sip a bit of yard

tea, this one mostly cats'
ear and stinky bob herbs.
Gee, if I could write poems

like these three, what would
that be like? Dogen said
don't write poems at all,

as narrative is a trap.
Please note: Dogen wrote
hundreds. One more

sip, and it's nap time for me.

-- shonin

In Place 49

Once a month a silent retreat

with sangha, otherwise

every day no other sound

than wind, or rain, or creek.
 




The old woman's current community meets monthly at a rural home an hour's drive from her farm, to spend the day in group zazen and a few other practices. She's torn between her habitual hut practice and the notion that Buddhism requires company -- what even are precepts for in the middle of nowhere, alone? But every beloved poem by Han Shan, or Stonehouse, or Ryokan convinces her she's doing real work. As does the rain, as does the moon behind clouds.


    Movement isn’t right and stillness is wrong
    and the realm of no-thought is confusion 
    instead the Patriarch didn’t have no-mind in mind
    any thought at all means trouble
    a hut facing south isn’t so cold
    chrysanthemums along a fence perfume the dusk 
    as soon as drifting clouds start to linger
    the wind blows them past the vines

    -- Stonehouse (Shiwu) tr. Red Pine

In Place 43

Inspired by her stairs,

the old woman undertakes

to clear more stream bed;

instant rock garden





Between the stones she has tucked comfrey, mint, and mosses. In drought, she waters the stones, hopefully keeping the “garden” alive till winter.

Plans and events seldom agree
Who can step back doesn't worry
We blossom and fade like flowers
We gather and part like clouds
—Shiwu (Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine)

In Place 10

Books, lamp, her mother's desk,

a small cot from which, lying down,

she may observe trilling leaves

of spring and fall cottonwoods

Most of her books are studies of women in Buddhism and some books by Eihei Dogen, Hongzhi, Shunryu Suzuki, Kosho Uchiyama, Ryokan, Red Pine, Shiwu (Stonehouse) and Han Shan (Cold Mountain), along with several collections of Chinese poetry translated by Kenneth Rexroth. The collection changes as the old woman's studies change. From the cot there is an especially intriguing view of young cottonwood and ash trees just across the small creek.

In my hut, I listen to the evening rain
and stretch my legs without a care in the world.

-- Ryokan (tr. Abé and Haskel)
 

In Place 2

Retired from public life, she moves in, old

eight books she's written here 

not bad books, yet she must admit

she has failed to save the world





"Failing to save the world" in this instance means having attempted, without much impact, to promote to society at large an agrarian subsistence lifestyle as a response to resource depletion and climate change. Those who speak for corporations proved to have the louder voice, and like many others the old woman has been worn down considerably. She is trying a new approach.

To glorify the Way what should people turn to?
To words and deeds that agree
But oceans of greed never fill up
and sprouts of delusion keep growing

—Shiwu (Stonehouse) (after Red Pine, tr.)

In Place 1

Decades ago, a playhouse for her children

but too much window glass for their play

by the fence it stands now, forlorn, lost;

neighbors' horses seem amused






This image was probably taken about 2010, when the playhouse had been mostly unused for almost two decades. The shade tree, a Douglas fir, is already looking a little stressed, perhaps partly because the playhouse was built so near it when it was a small sapling.

     I move my table to read sutras by moonlight
     I pick wildflowers to fill my altar vase

     -- Shiwu (Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine)

Use edges and value the marginal

About leaves that generally get stripped and tossed away.

1. Go out to where either your greens have made a whole lot of big side foliage you don't use at table, or have gone to seed producing volunteers (volunteer chard shown), and gather about forty leaves.

2. Stuff your Excelsior or Excalibur or solar dehydrator with them, or just lay them out in the sun. 

3. When they're brittle, fish them out and strip dry matter from midribs. Clean up and crumble to desired consistency. 

4. Dry can (bake) in jars and open to use as needed. Good for up to five years in our experience.

Kale, collards, chard, beets, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, dandelions, false dandelions, lamb's quarters, turnip, arugula, garlic, onions, young bean leaves or knotweed leaves, chicory, plantain, nettles, maple and lilac flowers, nasturtiums, kohlrabi, lettuce, and tatsoi, along with herbs to taste can all be included in this. The more variety, the better nutrition, and they all taste about the same in this form.

You could live a long time, comparatively speaking, if shut in by a pandemic, for example, on just five pounds of dried veggie crumbly and a hundred pounds of rice. (Be sure you have also secured a supply of water.)

You could, with a little acquired knowledge and some persistence, do this entirely with foraged weeds even if you have no garden.

Use in breads, soups, frittatas, quiches, on meats, on potatoes, in eggs, power drinks, hot cereals, salads, wilted salads, stir fries, etc. Also can be added to feeds such as poultry feeds.

Caveat: spinach, chard and amaranths contain a lot of oxalic acid and so there are those who should not consume them in quantity.

After twenty years of nights beneath the moon 
and the clouds to find myself old is hard
crows come looking for food at the altar
monks return with empty begging bowls
others work the waves for shrimp and clams
I swing a hoe in the mountains
when Solomon’s seal is gone there is still pine pollen 
and one square inch free of care

  -- Stonehouse (tr. Red Pine)

(To be continued)

Work well

From right doing, right work naturally flows. It is understandable if one has had to keep working at a fast-food place to help support one's children, but one must also keep an eye out for a better livelihood, as fast-food places poison the population.

In general few jobs meet this principle, as the world system has grown toward wage slavery to enrich those already rich, to most of whom the prospect of such enrichment doing harm to the population is of little or no concern.

It can be helpful to learn a craft or trade that may provide safe and nutritious food, clean water, goods or services that are as free as possible of harm through exploitation -- or debt, which is exploitation at one remove (including the system whereby corporate entities prioritize shareholders rather than the good of society and the biosphere).

It can be objected that looking into the probable effects of work is attachment to outcomes. Not necessarily. The spirit of one's commitment to the eightfold way is to acquire a certain level of skill in not doing harm, not to acquire praise or reward for so doing. Remain in the now and just do well.

I may be white-haired and nothing but bones 
but I’m versed in the work of daily survival 
in fall I pound thistles in a wooden mortar
in spring I dry vine buds in a wicker tray
I buy Solomon’s seal from a peddler down below
for seaweed I rely on a monk from across the sea
but who would have guessed at seventy-seven
I would dig a pond for lotus roots and water chestnuts

-- Stonehouse, tr. Red Pine

(To be continued)