Tenzo meets rice cakes, on my face. -Ms Diaz
"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 investigate my skin, paying attention to every detail, memorizing every contour, wrinkle, blemish, age spot, etc. I thought about how I feel when I have no makeup on vs when I have a full face of makeup. My emotions do change: I feel more confident, more comfortable, and open when I have makeup on.
I wondered to myself if wearing makeup increased my value, made me more real somehow. There was a time in my life when I would not leave the house without at least SOME makeup on. I couldn't stand the thought of someone seeing what I saw when I looked at my face without makeup. Today, as I studied what was in the mirror before I had applied the face paints to my "rice cake" I saw my ancestry. I thought about the line about the painted rice cake being my face before and after my parents. I can look at my face and see where I came from, and I can also think forward to my grandchildren and beyond. I am real. I am actualized. I am a thing with characteristics and thoughts, in a line of countless other things with their own characteristics and thoughts. I am certainly unique as the line says, "none have the same mind."
I thought a lot about the Tenzo as I went through the ritual of painting my rice cake-face. Choosing each tool carefully, each color carefully. I thought about what colors might express my mood, coordinate with my chosen adornment that would sit next to my face. I was careful and thoughtful like the Tenzo, and contemplative like the Buddha.
My painted face is as real as my unpainted face. I used to want to hide my unpainted face, afraid someone else would be turned away from its bland appearance. I hid myself and closed myself off from the world in many ways out of fear. I thought my painted face had more value and was somehow more real. I wondered which version of me was the real and true depiction of my soul. Was I the sad, reclusive girl who wasn't wearing makeup at the grocery store and trying to hide herself? Or was I the confident, open girl who had done her makeup that day and so wasn't afraid to be seen? As I consider these readings of the Tenzo and the Rice Cake, I can now answer, "yes."
Yes, sometimes my emotions are all over the map. Yes, sometimes I'm painted and sometimes I'm just a rice cake. But every version is realization, every version is real, every version is true, every version has merit and value. Carefully choosing colors and tools to create a painting on a canvas of my history and my future is just one way to express the actualization and manifestation of the many characteristics that make me one with everything else. But it is not the only one. When I'm an unpainted rice cake, I'm still a painted rice cake.
"Thus, although it is neither born nor unborn, the moment when a painted rice cake is made of rice flour is the moment of actualizing of the way." I am the rice cake, the rice cake is me, and we are the way.
You may find me in the Wal-Mart without makeup, but if you ever discover me there in my pajamas please ask me how I'm doing! My way might be lost.
I love this! We have many different versions of ourselves, and it is all too easy to fall into the trap of ranking them: we take pride in some versions, and feel ashamed of others. Here, I see you accepting different versions of yourself without judgement, instead acknowledging that they are all you.
ReplyDeleteThis post also made me think about the temporal aspect of different forms of art, and how traditionally (in the Western art canon, and speaking very generally) certain forms of art are favored over others because they are viewed as more enduring. A chalk drawing done on the sidewalk, makeup, and a (tangible) painted rice cake won't be there for a long time (unless they are photographed, or someone remembers them later on). The rain will wash away the chalk, the makeup will be removed as one gets ready to go to sleep, and the rice cake is to be consumed. Paintings and sculptures might give the illusion of timelessness, when really they are just as temporary as the chalk drawing, makeup, and rice cake. Or maybe the chalk drawing, makeup, and rice cake are just as timeless as the paintings and sculptures in the gallery.
Thank you for reading and commenting on my little post. Yeah, you got it! Every version of the rice cake, painted or not, is a connection to something real, something enduring through generations. There is no value needing to be assigned to the painting. The value lies in the connections and the hunger we feel is truly for connection. I think that's why he says at the end that a painted rice cake is the only way to satisfy hunger. It is a tangible (whether 2D or 3D) connection to what is real.
DeleteI was so caught by the end of your line, "I wondered to myself if wearing makeup increased my value, made me more real somehow." It prompted me to ponder what we mean by "real," what makes us "feel real," what affirms our reality to us. There are so many lines in Ch. 41 that play with my sense of "reality." To take one example:
Delete“Now, the fluctuations of the tall bamboo and the plantain are a painting. Those who experience great awakening upon hearing the sound of bamboo, whether they are snakes or dragons [ordinary or extraordinary practitioners], are all paintings. Do not doubt it with the limited view that separates ordinary from sacred.”
I wonder whether the closing sentiment about the ordinary and the sacred could be brought to your reflection. To me, it suggests that man is inclined to distinguish the mundane, practical, and everyday from the holy, sublime, and elevated, but the text invites us to see this distinction as a limitation. There is no tidy boundary between base and sacred. When we separate the two, we are apt to miss opportunities to encounter or experience the sacred in the small things. We walk around in search of some awesome, rare, transcendent realization, all the while failing to see “that the entire heaven and earth are the roots, stem, branches, and leaves of the tall bamboo” -- the "normal," natural, plentiful--even plain--world that surrounds us.
So, perhaps we can think of your consideration of the bare face vs. the made-up face as a separation of the ordinary and the sacred. Of course they are both you, both real, both powerful. Because the distinction we want to draw between natural and painted is misguided. If "there is no pigment in the paints,” then how could the painted face obscure the "real" face?
“As the entire world and all phenomena are a painting, human existence appears from a painting, and buddha ancestors are actualized from a painting.”