It's a thing

Dogen makes much of shikan-taza as being the whole of practice. "Although it is said that there are as many minds as there are persons, still they all negotiate the way solely in zazen." 

He's not wrong. Stillness is where you find true-ness. At the same time, his monks had to get up and go clean the zendo sometime, and there was also construction, maintenance, cooking, water carrying and farming going on. His explanation was that at the root of all this activity there is still that same stillness. Whether or not you fan yourself, air is air.

When we lived for eight years in the outskirts of one small city and I worked in the larger city across the river, I often biked to work along established bicycle routes and across the wide river on a bike bridge, a scenic round trip of some sixteen miles. In heavier weather, I took the bus.

Bodhidharma splits up practice in much the same way. If wall-gazing does it for you, he says, gaze away! It is, when you do it, the entirety of practice. On the other hand, everything else is waiting for you as practice: the whole of life's activity. One of my hardest-working spiritual teachers, a Hutterite, Barbara Maendel, put it drolly when handing out our farm chores from a seemingly endless list: "a change is as good as a rest."

Zazen is the bicycle. Just get on it and go. In heavier weather, a change is good too. Just get on the bus and go.

Life practice is the bus. If you're sitting in the doctor's waiting room, sure, you can work on your stillness, but also there's the check-in and the visit, which may provide vexations. The arriving and the departing may stress as well -- that near-miss in the parking lot, say. Everything seems to push and pull. To deal with these as Dharma practice, form Dharma life habits.

Bodhidharma breaks life practice into four parts: absence of resentment, acceptance of circumstances, absence of craving, and accord with Dharma. 

To form the habit of not resenting can be a big change in lifestyle for many of us. It means accepting circumstances just as they are, with no craving for them to be any different. That doesn't mean don't swim when you fall into the water, it just means don't spend your swimming energy on uselessly grieving the fall or being angry that you were bumped. Swim. 

Accord with Dharma means embodying Buddha's truth by living the six wisdoms (paramitas). Six tools are available to bring us to the place of non-resentment: giving, ethical discipline, patience, effort, meditation, wisdom.

"Giving" is practice in being kind, a way of cultivating a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Ethical discipline" is self-regulation: holding anger, greed and delusion in check, we foster a cooperative, productive and peaceful community.

"Patience" is practice in accepting circumstances as they are; it's rooted in letting go of the past and especially the future, allowing the community's cooperation, productivity and peace to unfold unforced.

"Effort" here is not the willful struggle that might be envisioned by the ascetic, but the steady self-application to practice that leaves behind the constructed self composed of greed, anger and delusion. This too benefits the community.

"Meditation" in the midst of life practice is that stillness in the doctor's waiting room, increasingly expanding into the visit and the coming and going. You may call it equanimity. It is beneficial to the community.

"Wisdom" here is "prajna," an ongoing appreciation of the ontological truth of the Dharma: "thusness." An insight into thusness is provided by the idea of dependent origination: all things are what they are together, in the same nowness, and nothing exists separately. As our illusion of separateness fades, our actions spring from this realization, and we benefit the community.

shonin painted six rocks, each with a paramita, as mnemonic devices. What, she's 76.

To see Dogen's practical application of the principle of life practice, samu practice, read his "Instructions to the cook," Tenzo Kyokun.

If you only have wild grasses with which to make a broth, do not disdain them. If you have ingredients for a creamy soup do not be delighted. Where there is no attachment, there can be no aversion. Do not be careless with poor ingredients and do not depend on fine ingredients to do your work for you but work with everything with the same sincerity. If you do not do so then it is like changing your behaviour according to the status of the person you meet; this is not how a student of the Way is. (tr. Anzan Hoshin and Yasuda Joshu Dainen)

Hongzhi sums up. "You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the ten­dencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness."

The bicycle in good weather carried me to the entrance of the building where I worked. I arrived exercised and healthy, ready to benefit the community.

The bus, in heavy weather, stopped right in front of the same building. I arrived rested, composed, ready to benefit the community.

Not saying I always rose to the occasion. But that clear circle of brightness -- it's a thing. We should all look into it.

 -- shonin 

No aversion

 I get questions about hermitary cookery.

There might not be much to tell; I'll try.

There are as many ways to cook and eat as there are people. Some ways are just "I'll eat whatever they parachute into this refugee camp" or "well, I sure hope I get to eat in the rapidly approaching afterlife." In other words, eating, let alone cooking, is a privilege in the world, more so, perhaps, than when foraged food was all there was to be had.

So, I'm conflicted about what may appear to be showing off. On the other hand, mindful eating can be an exercise in responsible behavior. I do think that my solitary routine, now established, is less wasteful, more nutritious, and healthier than before. While that may not do much for the world, it does something. Dogen tells us a little is a lot in Buddhist practice. You never know where a given small yet sincere practice will take you, but usually not to anyplace those around you will regard as a hindrance. Taking proper care of yourself takes care of others in many ways, often unforeseen.

Dogen wrote a small treatise, the title of which can be loosely translated "Instructions for the Monastery Head Cook (Tenzo)," which was/is intended as a guide to ethically feeding, in effect, a commune. 

Also the position tends to be a rotating one. Everyone has already been told to tough it out if you prove to be untalented, and by gosh they had better be thankful for it. So it's great that I, an untalented cook with only one patron, don't at all mind most of my mistakes. If it's truly inedible, just apologize to it with a gassho and add it to the compost.

In my movements and attitude, to the extent possible for me, I follow the "Instructions to the Tenzo. "

Here's the kitchen. The hut is nine feet wide. Most daily use items fit along a six foot section of one wall. Some supplies and less frequently used items are stored under or above the sewing table, alongside the opposite wall. Indoor plants and a basin and ewer share the space, along with baskets of fabric and sundries.

You can see I'm a pack rat, dating back to days of actual rather than currently simulated poverty. Everything here is hand-me-downs. I think that matters in the case of an attached hermitary, because I'm duplicating equipment already available in the kitchen of the household. But that kitchen, in a 1950s starter bungalow, is also tiny and the other family members have their own dietary requirements. We stay out of one another's hair, so to speak.

The hut has one wall outlet with its own circuit breaker, good for up to twenty amps, which enforces attentive power usage. The tiny fridge is on all the time, so the kettle and microwave and rice cooker and space heater can be used in twos but not in threes or fours. This enforces some discipline and thinking ahead, especially in winter.

As homesteaders/nomads, we used to cook on a smallish wood stove, the top of which enforced a similar discipline: a pot of water for washing dishes might take up half the surface and a Dutch oven with beans or bread in it taking up the other half. We inverted their lids and set bowls of whatever on them to simmer. My current efforts reflect the frugality of those years.

Back in the day

I forage very locally, mostly on this one city lot.

We don't use herbicides or pesticides, so I safely wander around the yard, then the garden. What draws my interest? In season, chicory, dandelions, nipplewort, narrow leaf plantain, crimson clover, deadnettle, cat’s ears, blackberry leaves, fir or spruce needles, money plant, parlsey, sage, rosemary, thyme, Bigleaf maple flowers, willow leaves, herb Robert, and crop foliage such as kale, chard, beet greens, squash blossoms and leaves, pea and bean foliage, corn silk, and the like.

Out of season, many of these are not as bitter as some foraging websites will tell you, and if worst comes to worst, for the pot I steam first and reserve the bitter stock to give to my house plants or garden.

Often the yard is so productive I don't even make it into the garden. That's the maritime Pacific Northwest for you.

I bring my treasures into the hut and decide how they will be used. My cookery revolves around making tea (tisane) first. If what I gathered appeals to me as tea only, I put that in the tea strainer, set the strainer in a cup, run the kettle and pour boiling water over the foliage. It won't make much color in the cup unless there is something like beet greens, or I've dried the foliage, or I'm adding green tea or perhaps Darjeeling. That's fine. Minimalists need not be nutrition maximalists, let alone flavor maximalists, except perhaps if they can afford some loose-packed Darjeeling.

This tea is to have when Zooming with the sangha, or a friend, or while reading, or just watching the moon cross the window.

Next, I notice it's meal time. Some things that we all like to eat raw, I have to eat only a little of or not at all, so I do tend to focus on the steamer.

The little Aroma rice steamer, which is the heart of the hermitary kitchen, was handed down because it forgot its time limit for making rice. So I have to keep an eye on it for that cycle. I may use that for rice, or lentils, or root vegs, but I don't need a lot, and I'm not a fan of the coating on the metal liner you're supposed to cook in. My porcelain eating bowl fits inside the liner. So I put an inch of water from the pitcher (rain water, if it's fresh) inside the liner and set the bowl in that. 

I'm also not fond of the plastic steamer basket that came with the appliance, so that added to my interest in learning to cook in various ways in the bowl.

I then cut up any root vegs I'm using, including skins if possible, or pour in the rice or lentils, and add water, salt, spices as needed. Set on Rice or sometimes twice on Steam. Udon I find I can make on Steam (5 minutes), though the consistency might not be to everyone's taste. Summer vegs such as zucchini should wait out the first five minutes and then be thrown in, chopped. Density is my guide here.

Meanwhile, if I'm adding greens, I have options. I might use what's in the strainer, if it's not anything I really shouldn't try to eat (for example, willow bark). Or I may choose to roll up some dandelion and chicory leaves with onion greens in a leaf of collard or kale and chop small, then check to see if the carbs are done, then turn off the rice steamer, pop in the greens (and maybe small tomatoes and such), and close the lid for some residual-heat cooking.

The bowl will be a little hot to fish out of the liner with my fingers, as there's little room along the sides, so I grab the bowl with a handy pair of side-cutting pliers and set it on a coaster. Here I may add more seasoning or soy sauce as desired. I pour some water in a cup and keep it handy, or if the broth is palatable, I'll use that, and sit down and eat.

This can be a wet way to eat, so I often pour off the liquids to drink. This is a matter of taste; in Japan folks eat the solids, then drink liquids from the bowl as a chaser. Great! I have to spend a lot of time in my zero gravity chair and pretty much only eat there, so draining the bowl first saves me trouble with wet chin and fabric.

I mostly rotate four "recipes" based on rice, then potatoes, then lentils, then noodles, through the two daily meals and there is my week. For snacks there might be a deadfall apple or whatever comes my way.

I used to do a lot more drying of fruits and foliage than needed for the winters and now mostly just set aside some of my foraging to dry on a hardware-cloth shelf in the "greenhouse," or chop it all up to stuff into an ice cube tray, maybe with a bit of olive oil, for itinerant use.

Aside from this routine, I grind mixed grains in the Corona once a year and jar it up for the occasional breakfast with apple butter, and if I have extra fruit or root vegs on hand I may get out the small graniteware water bath canner and make preserves or pickled vegs to use over the winter, in very small jars.

 
The herb Robert and willow are part of my efforts to treat leukemia. 

I wouldn't ask anyone to try to duplicate my diet, but I do encourage experimentation for those interested in simplifying. This kind of food prep and eating is adaptable to many situations, especially for anyone living alone in a small space. Also it is a very portable way to eat, though maybe not as Spartan as this: Cooking Without a Kitchen: The Coffeemaker Cookbook

By not unnecessarily frequenting restaurants and supermarkets, it is possible to simplify quite a lot. Some foods are becoming scarce and I like to think I am leaving it on the shelves for someone else. 

I think the complexity of our civilization has a lot of inflicted suffering to live down. Courtesy shows there is a commons of the heart.  🙏

-- shonin 

If you only have wild grasses with which to make a broth, do not disdain them ... Where there is no attachment, there can be no aversion. -- Dogen

The practice of a true person

My favorite Zen text is Tenzo Kyokun, Dogen's Instructions for the (Monastery) Cook.

Here is a passage to which I have returned multiple times: 

When you take care of things, do not see with your common eyes, do not think with your common sentiments. Pick a single blade of grass and erect a sanctuary for the jewel king; enter a single atom and turn the great wheel of the teaching. So even when you are making a broth of coarse greens, do not arouse an attitude of distaste or dismissal. Even when you are making a high-quality cream soup, do not arouse an attitude of rapture or dancing for joy. If you already have no attachments, how could you have any disgust? Therefore, although you may encounter inferior ingredients, do not be at all negligent; although you may come across delicacies, be all the more diligent. Never alter your state of mind based on materials. People who change their mind according to ingredients, or adjust their speech to [the status of] whoever they are talking to, are not people of the Way. -- Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community : A Translation of the Eihei Shingi ed./tr. Leighton and Okumura

When we make a judgment or show a preference, we impose a delusion on what's right in front of us, ignoring the co-dependent arising of all things. Buddhist ethics is training in thusness; that which is before us, rather than that which we wish is there or wish not there.

We can cover much, if not all, of the precepts by means of a single term: "honesty." Honest living simply precludes stealing, lying, misusing, murdering, willfully injuring, gossiping, disparaging, and disrespecting. Buddha spelled out these things because training in honesty is hard.

Dogen points out that the stakes are quite high. Though he continually refers to "just sitting" as the entire Buddhist project, he explicitly sets a high bar for the behavior that gives "just sitting" a chance to even happen: "People who... adjust their speech to whoever they are talking to, are not people of the Way."

As for the attitude while preparing food, the essential point is deeply to arouse genuine mind and respectful mind without making judgments about the ingredients' fineness or coarseness....  Although they create relationship to buddha, [donations that are] abundant but lacking [in heart] are not as good as those that are small but sincere. This is the practice of a [true] person.

We might try being honest to our vegetables and see if it doesn't feel a bit like training in "right doing." 😄 

-- shonin

Focus, focus!

 

Action, to be correct action, must spring from focus. If we react mainly to provocation, or take action aimlessly, our contribution will be correspondingly small. If we visualize a worthwhile project, and concentrate on it day and night, our impact will be the greater.

First we ascertain that our vision is "worthwhile." Then, whether we mean to create a one-acre food forest or manage a great nation's food system, we must focus on the task at hand and give it our all.

We can see, as we work through these principles, how each of them is a facet of a single principle. It becomes clear to us that right desire and right focus are practically the same. Right focus and right avocation, or livelihood, are also the same. The path is described as having eight parts so that we can absorb the lesson in manageable chunks.

Dogen uses the words "die sitting, die standing" to indicate the urgency we should bring to taking our path seriously. That doesn't mean don't have a sense of fun or play. It does mean not frittering away our minds endlessly on secondary, illusive matters -- a major trap for us in these times. 

Benefit others, which simultaneously gives abundant benefit to the self.

-- Dogen, Tenzo Kyokun, tr. Leighton and Okumura

(To be continued)