Painted Rice Cakes

Apropos of our discussion regarding  Zhuangzi's Useless Tree, here is a short chapter from the autobiography of Soko Morinaga, Novice to Master: An Ongoing Lesson in the Extent of my own Stupidity (2002), a book I strongly recommend. Morinaga was an abbot of Rinzai Zen, the other main kind of Zen in Japan, known for shouting and sticks. The book is a marvel, a series of profound parables in the form of anecdotes, and almost completely free of Buddhist jargon.  There Is No Trash  “Follow me,” directed the roshi, and he assigned me my first task: to clean the garden. Together with this seventy-year-old master, I went out to the garden and started sweeping with a bamboo broom. Zen temple gardens are carefully designed with trees planted to ensure that leaves will fall throughout the entire year; not only the maples in autumn but also the oaks and the camphors in spring regularly shed their foliage. When I first arrived, in April, the garden was full of fallen leaves. The hum...

I have been thinking a lot about how we are approaching Dōgen through our conversations, specifically the terms we deploy in order to try and grasp the kind of experience, state of mind, mode of being etc. he is gesturing toward. I have to admit that I am still utterly perplexed, but want to try and sort out some of the potential issues we might face.     The first stop we have to make is in what I assume is one of Dōgen’s most important concepts. If I am wrong, and non-dualism is not actively operative in his work, then the rest of this will be moot. But on the assumption that it is, there are a few things that seem important. First, the concept of non-dualism does not appear to be homogenous, so we have to be careful to pay attention to which specific version Dōgen might have in mind. The first way that we might think of non-dualism is through Advita Vedanta. There, non-dualism seems to mean that there is only one substance or essence, that is, Brahman or Atman, and everythi...

I thought I would add to the blog something I was trying to articulate towards the end of class last Thursday, in order to try to see it more clearly and to understand its implications a little better. In broad terms, I understand Buddhism—particularly in its origins—to be challenging the common-sense idea that there is a substantive connection between one moment and the next. Nāgārjuna turns his critical gaze upon everything from motion and change to the Tathāgata and nirvana, but the underlying argument is consistent throughout.  Versions of the argument in the Pali texts are applied both to the temporal and spatial dimensions, but they amount to the same thing: moments and things are not continuous with each other, but are instead discrete. Non-Buddhist metaphysics, on the other hand, might say that A and B are genuinely connected  to each other by a causal relationship that they have in common, and the robustness of this causal connection is the reason we can say that...

  The monastery gate affected rust, but this was an optical illusion. By exposing coat after coat of red-dirt primer, the resulting bumps and crevices simulated aging. This had the advantage of appearing decrepit to casual passersby, the grounds uninviting in their assumed impoverishment. Mike the UPS driver tapped one foot until finally a young monk cheerfully swung open the right panel of the gate. Mike carried a shoebox sized package wrapped in brown paper.   Young Monk: I’ll take that. [He holds both hands out, palms up and slightly cupped as if it to receive it in sacrament.] Mike: Can’t. Instructions are it has to be hand-delivered to some guy named Dogen. Young Monk: I’m new here. I don’t know any Dogen. Let me find someone who does. Wait here. * * * Tenzo: You have a package for Dogen? Mike: Yes. Tenzo: I’ll take it. It’s probably his favorite dried apricots. He says the fresh ones are too sweet. They need air to ripen. Mike: Like I told the other g...

The chapter Cleansing reminded me of an old joke. I found a version of it: Two young novice monks had not yet renounced their addiction to cigarettes, so the first one approached the Abbot: “May I smoke while I pray?” The Abbot said no. So that same novice was startled to see his friend smoking the next day, AND to learn that the Abbot had given permission. “You have to know how to phrase it,” the friend said, laughing. “You asked if you could smoke while you pray. I asked if I could pray while I smoked.” (Source: https://www.stewardshipoflife.org/jokes/ ) What is going on? Two reasons for the different answers. Firstly, each question consists of a main and a subordinate clause. “May I smoke?” is the main clause of the first question, and “while I pray” the subordinate clause. The two are reversed in the second question. The main clause, having a subject and a predicate, can stand alone meaningfully, whereas the subordinate clause is meaningless without the main clause. Th...

  "Know that in this way there are myriads of forms and hundreds of grasses [all things] throughout the entire earth, and yet each grass and each form itself is the entire earth. The study of this is the beginning of practice." I am to study the grass, immerse myself in the grass, know the grass, BE the grass. There are hundreds of types of grass, each with their own form and distinctness. When I searched for an image of grass, I even discovered a special type of grass that is best for dog owners. How does getting lost in the grass help me practice? What happens if I think only about grass and leave my to-do list unchecked, for now. I walk outside barefoot and my first encounter with it is how it feels on my feet. My grass is sparse out here in the country so it is mixed with a lot of weeds, some are prickly and they crunch underneath my steps. If we haven't had rain in some time this is much more unpleasant to the soft skin of the underside of my pedals. I think I have ...

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future,  And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. ...       At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor            fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance           is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call lit fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement           from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still            point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. ...                                                           Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousn...