Painted Rice Cakes

I have been thinking about this sentence that appears at the end of “Painting of a Rice Cake”: “Know that the entire heaven and earth are the roots, stem, branches and leaves of the tall bamboo” (448). What strikes me about this passage is just how Vedic the image is. Compare this to Ṛ g Veda 10.90, “Puru ṣ a-S ū kta, or The Hymn of Man”, which tells of the creation of the world through the dismemberment of the cosmic giant, Puru ṣ a: “the moon was born from his mind; from his eye the sun was born. […] From his navel the middle realm of space arose; from his head the sky evolved. From his two feet came the earth, and the quarters of the sky from his ear. Thus they set the world in order” . Or, recall the opening lines of B ṛ hadāra ṇ yaka Upani ṣ ad : “The head of the sacrificial horse, clearly, is the dawn—its sight is the sun; its breath is the wind; and its gaping mouth is the fire common to all men”. Vedic literature is inclined to think by analogy in this way; to suggest that...

  When I think about the Tenzo, I cannot but stand at some distance because the work entails a certain mastery—both skill in cooking and access to an equanimous attitude rooted firmly in oneself. Never have I been responsible for making sure five people eat, let alone 50, 75, or even 100, but If I consider the possibility of letting down an entire monastery, then I am filled with dread. It would be hard to let myself off the hook if I screwed up dinner for everyone. There is a heartiness in taking on such a high-risk task. A master of this sort can make the most difficult maneuvers look fluid. When you watch a master at work, like how I imagine a Tenzo, one wants to ask about their consciousness.   Is it as unimpeded as their actions?    The fact that a Tenzo is a monk suggests a mind free from many of the hang-ups otherwise associated with someone living in this dusty world. A monk is free from attachments, distractions, and I presume they have more wisdom than I ...

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84NSRd5vKo     (copy and paste to YouTube to watch a short video if it doesn't appear as a link) The above link to a short 3 minute video about turning a clay pot on a potter's wheel is the perfect visual to go along with the final bit from Painted Rice Cake which states, "When you understand this teaching with your body and mind, you will thoroughly experience the ability to turn things and be turned by things. If this is not done, the power of the study of the way is not yet realized. To enact this ability is to actualize the painting of enlightenment."  We've been discussing how much, if not most, of life is made of 2D images. I can sit in my recliner in front of my giant window and look out to a tree row with blue sky and a sunset behind it, but in my 3D world I still see a flat 2D image of what is real and has dimension several yards away from me. This class, we discussed the idea of a painter. It felt as though we kept com...

  (PC: Random old photo Peter (Pan Yi) discovered near Jiaxing, China) While going over some old photos I came across this image of a woman (or a girl, possibly) washing clothes in what looks like a lake.   It is either at sunrise or sunset, and she is completely against the light.  From the contour we may roughly make out that she is squatting on some long and narrow wooden structure, with a basket behind her.  We cannot see her hands, but the ripples emerging from them unfold beautifully in light and shadow.  The water further from the action looks completely tranquil -- the bright reflection of the sun (or is it a lens flare?) shines on it, wrinkleless. I then started to imagine what it would look like if Dogen ever wrote a Kyokun (訓誡) on clothes-washing. What would the Monastic Standards for laundry and cleanness be? Below are some imaginary Laundry Kyokun .  Join me in the Comment area! "Always fold with care the dirty robes, s...

  A fragment actualizes with wisdom-eye looks back Who is the maker? Hungry eyes swirling with the wind of time coalesce compounding conditions in form reaching Land of Painted Rice Cakes Whole and sated   My friend Jean, a talented portrait artist, sent me a new piece she’s working on, using an interesting novel technique that begins with actualizing the completeness of a very complex particular, before unfolding or materializing into a whole face. And, yet the whole face can be seen by the seer inside the blank canvas, as though it is waiting patiently, possibly even eagerly or hungrily, for the painter to finish or complete him. His eye seems to stare imploringly for the creator to bring him to life in finished form, although he seems complete in and of himself through the incredibly detailed beauty of the fragment. It reminded me of Vimalakirti’s wisdom-eye with which  “one sees only insofar as there is neither sight nor nonsight…the entrance into nonduality,”  s...

  Well, my initial thought for this post was dealt with extensively in class. As I mentioned with my opening question, I was stuck on the first section, utterly bewitched by the complex web of ideas and various levels of meaning packed into only a handful of sentences. I am still rather puzzled, but now from a different level given what we discussed in class.    We talked quite a bit about difference, distinction, as well as sameness, unity and or oneness, even if only implicitly. What I wonder, though, is what is meant by difference, distinction, sameness and unity? We often take these kinds of terms for granted, thinking that we know already what they mean, and proceed to deploy them as such in trying to categorize, schematize or simply understand a given author or idea. However, it seems to me that there is a way in which these concepts are deeply problematic, and through thinking critically and sincerely about them, some irresolvable tensions manifest. What we have to...

WHAT THE CAVES ARE TRYING TO TELL US                                                                                           (image from the article)   I came across a 2017 article by Sam Kriss about cave paintings (linked above) and I thought it was relevant to the Painted Rice Cakes reading. Cave paintings embody the idea that artistic representations are somehow more than just an image. It is a fun read and pretty short, but I'll include some of the passages that made me think of our class readings: "There's a powerful magic in representation, the gift of creating the world in simulation, the ability to turn charcoal and ochre into something that is also a real horse: might it have had an effect on the horse its...

The Zen Monastic Standards states, "In deciding the morning and noon meals, the amount of food and number of dishes, the tenzo should consult the other officers. The six officers are the administrator, assistant administrator, treasurer, disciplinarian, tenzo, and head caretaker. After the menu is decided post it on boards by the abbot\"s residence and the study hall." This seemingly mundane practical detail from the Instructions to the Tenzo opened my eyes to the compassion of this tenzo-practice. The six senior monks gather together every day to discuss the day\"s food offerings; they are not above such details and are obliged to face them daily. What kinds of things do they discuss? The produce of the monastery garden, alms offerings, purchases, the budget, the need to replace old or broken utensils, personnel issues, complaints...Do these six officers ever disagree, do they ever grate on each other? People can have intense feelings about food. Then, collectively...

I keep finding myself wondering: what, exactly is the painted rice cake? Is it a symbol? Does it represent something? A class of things? Reading “Painting of a Rice Cake”, my great temptation is to think about this image as though it was a metaphor for something. This assumes that the rice cake somehow harbors within it the unifying logic that holds this short text together; if I can crack the riddle of the meaning of the rice cake—or so my thinking goes—I will gain insight into the whole. Although I am increasingly suspicious of any attempt to find Dōgen’s skeleton-key, here is a highly provisional swipe in that direction. What follows is a crude oversimplification of what seems to be happening in these six short pages. What does it mean that a rice cake is painted? In the West we often interpret representational painting—or, more broadly, representation as such—as a false copy of an otherwise real object. The actual rice cake and the painted rice cake, we might say, have two diff...

I ’m going to imagine that I wrote a book about a rigid cosmology, a set of useful beliefs, that is new and helpful. People read the book and take it to be my belief system. At core of that book is a catalog of divine characteristics with recognizable colors and other attributes that people can find and look at inside themselves. Q : Are these objects you write about universal to all humans? A : Probably. I haven’t worked with anyone who didn’t find them. Q : Do you experience them? A : No, not so much.   Q : Did you experience them? A : Yes, much more so.   Q : What happened? A : As each one explained itself to me, it got me all buzzy, and once it had completed its self-explanation, I never saw it again.   Q : Why do you think that happened? A : I have noticed that anything of wisdom has to depart, perhaps to make room for more wisdom. But more so, I think that I push out things I have already learned for another reason. If it sticks around, i...

  "All Buddhas are realization, thus all things are realization. Yet, no Buddhas or things have the same characteristics; none have the same mind." "A painted rice cake is your face after your parents were born, your face before your parents were born." "As Buddha dharma is real, a painted rice cake is real." There are many opinions about makeup. Some see it as an art form, some as a necessity to even leave the house, some as complete vanity. Wherever you may land on the idea of makeup, I hope you'll continue to read this post and see through the rice cake and discover deeper beauty. As I applied my makeup this morning, I always start with my eyes, I thought about painting. My face was a canvas and I had carefully chosen tools and colors in front of me to choose from, like a Tenzo would carefully choose his ingredients and tools. I thought about how my face was transforming before my eyes, as I worked on my eyes....anyway. I use a magnified mirror as I...

 When I was younger, I used to open up picture books and try to climb inside. Back then, the separation between painted image and material form didn't seem insurmountable. I was always surprised (and somewhat disappointed) that I didn't easily slide into the book,   à  la A-ha's "Take On Me" music video. The way I interacted with the material world   was the same way I approached an experience with things like picture books. Maybe this wasn't such a silly tendency after all: "they are painted in the same way, and they are examined in the same way" (445), "all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas" (446). "Know that a painted rice cake is your face after your parents were born, your face before your parents were born" (445). I liked how this passage collapsed the distinctions of past, present, and future. There is something else there, that can be understood but not measured (like the description o...

  "When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas." This remark on paintings of the buddha reminds me of an experience I had in a painting class with a Tibetan Thangka painter in Mcleod Ganj, India. I was in town for a week and went to work with the painter for a few hours each day. The first day, I expected to jump straight into getting paint on the canvas--Thangka paintings are known for their incredibly fine detail work, which surely would occupy the bulk of my time in class. However, we spent the first two days practicing how to draw the Buddha. My teacher was emphatic. There was such specificity to adhere to when it came to proportions and positioning. How the hands were placed in the lap. The cross of the...

  "There are few who have ever seen through this painting of a rice cake , and none of them has thoroughly understood it. How is this so? When I inquired of a few skinbags in the past, they had never questioned or understood this matter. They were unconcerned with it, as if it were someone else's gossip."    ("Painting of a Rice Cake," tr. Tanahashi)