Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘mindfulness’

265. Grandmother mind

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , on 21 September 2022| Leave a Comment »

grandmother-1_custom-9fc121820404197bbae50a16e9363940e4a7e6a3-s800-c85

One night at the dinner table I posed three questions to our granddaughter, who has now entered fourth grade.

“What is something,” I asked, “that children are interested in but grown-ups are not?”

“Pokemon,” she replied, not skipping a beat.

“What is something that grown-ups are interested in but children are not?”

“Economics,” she replied, a knowing look in her eyes.

“And what is something that both children and grown-ups are interested in?

“Food!” she answered.

Perhaps it was time to eat.

The subject of food—and of late, food insecurity—is indeed of universal interest. Its importance transcends nations and cultures as well as generations. In Zen teachings, food is regarded as one of the four essential gifts for which we should be grateful, the other three being clothing, medicine, and shelter. Yet, though food is fundamental to our existence, regardless of who we are or where we live, it’s fair to say that there are as many customs, strictures, and prohibitions regarding the preparation and consumption of food as there are societies, ethnicities, and varieties of religious experience.

Zen is no exception, though in Western Zen, especially among lay practitioners, there are few hard and fast rules. According to the “Five Contemplations” chanted before meals in Zen monasteries, we are to consume “only those foods which nourish us and prevent illness.” (Fritos are out of the question). Moreover, we are to “eat mindfully, so as to be worthy” to receive our food. By so doing, we will “realize the path of understanding and love.” If you spend time in a Western Zen center, as in its Asian counterpart, you are more than likely to be served—and often to assist in the preparation—of vegetarian meals. But what, exactly, you will eat is on the whole of less consequence than the attitude to be cultivated in preparing and consuming it.

If you would like a taste, as it were, of that attitude, I would recommend exploring the many Zen-inflected cookbooks currently available to the Western reader. A good place to start would be Edward Espe Brown’s Tassajara Bread Book (1974), the bread-making bible of the “whole-earth” movement, and his memoir No Recipe: Cooking as Spiritual Practice (Sounds True, 2018). In the latter book, Brown, a celebrated chef as well as a Zen priest, embraces an intuitive, improvisatory approach to the art of cooking. Also of interest is 3 Bowls: Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery (Harvest, 2000), by Seppo Edward Farrey and Nancy O’Hara, which offers innovative, hybrid recipes not found elsewhere. My own well-thumbed favorite is A Taste of Heaven and Earth (Morrow, 1993) by Bettina Vitell. Like Farrey, Vitell is a former tenzo (head cook) at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. Emphasizing the sensory dimension of cooking and eating, her wide-ranging book integrates perspectives from the Zen tradition with simple but delicious vegetarian recipes.

Underlying all of these modern examples, however, is Eihei Dogen’s thirteenth-century classic Instructions for the Zen Cook (1237), in which the founder of the Soto Zen tradition articulates the basic principles of Zen cooking. Foremost among them is an attitude of wholeheartedness—or, in today’s parlance, of being “all in,” however menial the task at hand. Concomitant to this is the principle of equality: we are to treat the lowliest turnip with the same respect as we would the most exotic rice. Most striking, at least to the modern Western reader accustomed to hastily prepared food, is Dogen’s explanation of robai-shin, commonly translated as “parental mind.” Cultivating robai-shin, we train ourselves to treat both the food we are preparing and the utensils we are using as if they were our children, affording them infinite care.

Robai-shin is sometimes translated as “grandmother mind.” And in her book Alive Until You’re Dead (Shambhala, 2022), the Zen teacher Susan Moon, herself a devoted grandmother, opts for this alternative translation. “Grandmother mind” deepens the concept of parental mind to include the qualities of warmth, empathy, wisdom, and compassionate understanding, tempered by grandmotherly sternness when required.

This attitude need not be limited to cooking. Nor is it the exclusive province of literal grandmothers. In the true spirt of Zen, Moon widens the concept to encompass anyone engaged in the interactions of everyday life. “If a young male monk can develop grandmother mind,” she writes, “then a person of any age, gender, and social status can develop it. You don’t have to be a grandmother to give your coat to someone shivering in the cold. A particular nod of recognition is due to all the grandfathers who are devoted to their grandchildren. Grandmother mind is simply a figure of speech. Even grandfathers can have grandmother mind.” Moreover, she notes in her conclusion, “Since we will become ancestors after we die, whether we like it or not, we might as well practice now by loving the beings we meet with grandmother mind, even if we aren’t grandmothers and even if they aren’t children.”

_______

Susan Moon, Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch (Shambhala, 2022), 57, 62.

Illustration by Nicole Xu.

 \

Read Full Post »

262.The pleasures of inscription

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , on 19 July 2022| 3 Comments »

Pen 2 ps

To mark my most recent birthday my wife gave me a Conway Stewart fountain pen. Conway Stewart & Co., Limited, the most venerable name in British fountain pens, was founded in London in 1905. During the First World War, their handcrafted pens were used extensively by soldiers writing home from the front. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill enlisted a Conway Stewart pen to sign important wartime documents. More recently, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh were presented with Conway Stewart pens to commemorate their golden wedding anniversary. Known as the Wordsworth Shingle, my particular pen is a delight to hold and behold. And to a degree exceptional in this day and age, it affords what I would call the pleasures of inscription.

Foremost among those pleasures is the sensuousness of the experience: the sensation of the pen’s nib pressing against the page. Whether light or heavy, that pressure and its attendant sensations can be felt when using any writing instrument, but with a fountain pen they are far more varied, nuanced, and subtle. I would liken them to what I feel in my left-hand fingers when pressing the nylon strings of the classical guitar, sensations that vary according to the placement of the finger-tips and the string I’m pressing down. Placing (or, rather, misplacing) the finger-tip between the frets requires more effort and creates more tension than placing it next to the fret. The bass strings, being metal-wound, also require greater effort. (more…)

Read Full Post »

253. The habit of gratitude

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , on 24 November 2021| Leave a Comment »

Bowing in gratitude

However much we may differ in other ways, nearly all of us share one common trait. We all have bad habits. And for those of us who are married, one of the chief functions of a spouse, it often seems, is to point them out.

My personal repertoire of unfortunate habits includes leaving cupboard doors open in our rather small kitchen. After opening one to fetch a plate or bowl, I sometimes neglect to close it. So it was the other day, when I banged my knee on a lower cupboard door, and my wife kindly noted that if I stopped leaving cupboard doors open, I might also stop banging my knees, or my head, as the case may be. Perhaps after a day of nursing a sore knee, I have finally got the message and will make an effort to mend my ways.

Such efforts can sometimes be successful, at least where behavior is concerned. Far more difficult, I have found, is any attempt to change one’s habitual attitudes. By their very nature, habitual attitudes are resistant to change. Driven by what Buddhism calls “habit energy,” they bear a force as powerful as tornadoes and no less capable of causing serious damage. As with habitual behavior, each time we voice or demonstrate a particular attitude, be it kindness or hostility, reverence or derision, we reinforce that habitual attitude and the energy behind it, making it all the more difficult to change.

One such attitude is that of habitual complaint, which seems close to universal. Is there anyone among us who can emulate the example of Sono, the woman in an old Zen story who ended each day by saying, “Thanks for everything. No complaints whatsoever”? For one thing, the habit of complaint has probably been with us from the cradle. And for another, we have plenty of things to legitimately complain about—the environmental degradation caused by fossil fuels, for example, or the polarization of our polity, or, not least, the dramatic rise of toxic noise pollution in American life. But all that said, the habit of complaint, as distinguished from the justified choice to complain, is one we might well prefer to eliminate, for others’ sake as well as our own.

Unfortunately, if there is one thing that recent research on habits, as reported in such books as Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit (2020), has determined, it’s that few if any of our deeply ingrained habits can be entirely expunged, as if they were ugly stains in a carpet. Yes, we can become aware of our habits, as Zen teachings describe, through the practice of mindfulness, and thereby gain a modicum of control. But, as Duhigg convincingly explains, the most effective way to change a habit, behavioral or mental, is first to become aware of it, and, second, to consciously replace that habit with another.

With respect to the habit of complaint, the prime candidate for such replacement is the habit of gratitude. As the Zen teacher John Daido Loori once pointed out, it is nearly impossible to bow in gratitude and complain at the same time. Likewise, the attitudes of grievance and thankfulness are largely incompatible. In contemporary American life, it’s fair to say, the presence of the former threatens to overwhelm the latter. Many of us expend far more energy complaining than we do expressing gratitude. But the restoration of a proper balance between complaint and gratitude, at both the personal and societal levels, will probably not happen all by itself. It will take concerted effort. And giving thanks once a year—or even once a week—or noting our good fortune from time to time will probably not suffice.

What is needed is an active, regular practice. Bowing every day in gratitude, as Loori recommends, is one such practice. Making a daily list, as others have suggested, of those things for which one is—or might be—grateful is another. Having recently adopted that practice myself, I can attest to its efficacy. Indeed, having made it one of my daily rituals, I have been surprised by the number of things I have to be grateful for. The list, it would seem, is endless.

Whatever practice one chooses, however, the important thing is not so much the means as the ultimate aim: the habitual attitude being created, cultivated, and integrated into one’s everyday life. It is all very well to celebrate Thanksgiving once a year or to count our blessings at periodic intervals. But with disciplined daily practice, the habit of gratitude can become more than a matter of lip service or pious self-congratulation. It can become an authentic way of being: the governing principle behind our every action and the lens through which we view our troubled world.

______

Photo: A two-year-old recovered coronavirus patient bowing to a nurse outside a hospital in East China.

 

 

Read Full Post »

243. Meditation in time of plague

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , on 24 February 2021| 4 Comments »

For people suffering from hypertension, panic attacks, insomnia, and other anxiety-related afflictions, many doctors now prescribe meditation. As a longtime practitioner, who has experienced the benefits of meditation over and again, I heartily endorse that prescription. But “meditation” is a large category. And even if you narrow it to Buddhist meditation, what you are speaking of is a loose aggregate of teachings, forms, and practices, some of them more useful than others.

Here in the midst of a pandemic, when most of us are experiencing fear, anxiety, and uncertainty on a daily basis, any meditative practice that purports to be helpful needs to address that emotional landscape. At the same time, that same practice will be most beneficial if it also enables the practitioner to remain engaged and realistic. Absent that realism and engagement, meditation can become yet another form of escape, and its overall benefit will be limited at best.

Of the many Buddhist practices available and accessible to newcomers, I would recommend two in particular. The first is drawn from the Theravadan school of Buddhism, as practiced in Southeast Asia. The second is rooted in the Chan and Zen schools of medieval China and Japan. Worthwhile as these practices are in separation, they are even more so when skillfully combined. At once contrasting and complementary, they address the need for stability and concentration, on the one hand, and on the other, the need to remain open and fully aware of a rapidly changing social reality. (more…)

Read Full Post »

191. The habit of complaint

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , on 31 August 2017| 2 Comments »

I once had a neighbor who rarely stopped complaining, chiefly about his ailments. On one day it was his allergies, on another his asthma. On rare occasions, when his body was being relatively compliant, his monologues might briefly turn to other matters, but sooner rather than later they came back to his maladies. He seemed incapable of changing the subject.

However pronounced, my neighbor’s habit of mind was not all that unusual. The activity of complaining is as embedded in human nature as the verb describing it is in the English language. Complain derives from the Latin plangere, which means “to lament or bewail.” From the same root come plaintive, plangent, and of course complaint.  If you are of a certain age, you may recall that physical afflictions and disorders, which are now euphemistically called “issues,” were once known as complaints. There were back complaints, neck complaints, stomach complaints, and many more. Some were real, others imagined. All caused the sufferer to complain, which is say, lament, often to no avail. (more…)

Read Full Post »

162. True intimacy

Posted in 1, meditation, Zen, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 19 August 2015| 2 Comments »

800px-Blue_Cliff_Monastery_-_3In its most common usage, the word intimacy hardly suggests a spiritual context. Enter the word in your browser, and you are likely to turn up references to the bedroom, the boudoir, and Britney Spears’ line of designer lingerie. Yet the root of intimate, from which intimacy derives, is the Latin intimus, which means “inmost.” And a desire for true intimacy–for connection with one’s inmost nature–is fundamental to many spiritual traditions, Zen Buddhism included. “Intimacy,” writes the Zen teacher Jakusho Kwong, “is at the heart of all of Zen.” (more…)

Read Full Post »

159. Ethical attentiveness

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 14 May 2015| 3 Comments »

Wooden monkReading a brochure from the Laz-y-Boy company the other day, I came upon the claim that Laz-y-Boy, Inc. is “being mindful” with respect to the environment. I was heartened to find that reassurance, but I couldn’t help wondering whether the company was voicing an authentic concern or merely striking a fashionable attitude.

Over the past two decades, the practice of mindfulness has assumed a prominent place in American life. In the vernacular of our times, mindfulness has gone mainstream. American corporations, particularly those situated in Silicon Valley, have embraced the practice, chiefly as a means of reducing stress and increasing productivity. So have the military academies, the health-care system, the prison system, and, more gradually, public schools and higher education. Yet, as the practice has gained in acceptance, it has sometimes lost sight of its origins in Buddhist meditation, and a central component has often been left behind. (more…)

Read Full Post »

152. Put it in neutral

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 8 October 2014| Leave a Comment »

Chevy interior cropped“Put it in neutral, Bud,” my father said, quietly but firmly. It was the summer of 1958, and I was learning to drive. The car was a 1950 Chevrolet sedan with a three-speed transmission and the gearshift lever on the steering column. “Three on the Tree,” it was called. Learning to put the lever and the Chevy itself into neutral was my first lesson.

It might also be the first lesson for the Zen practitioner. Wherever else it might lead, the practice of Zen meditation begins with finding, establishing, and maintaining a neutral center, both for the body and the mind. Neutrality may well be the body-mind’s most natural condition, but for many people it is far from habitual. In a culture as competitive as ours, neutrality is often not an option, much less a state to be cultivated and explored. To do so requires training and sustained attention (more…)

Read Full Post »

144. This

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , on 26 February 2014| 2 Comments »

Original calligraphy by the Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh.

Original calligraphy by the Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh

“Support for NPR,” announced National Public Radio’s Sabrina Farhi during the holiday season, “comes from Pajamagram, makers of matching holiday pajamas for the whole family, including dogs and cats.” After listing several other sponsors, Ms. Farhi concluded with a single declarative sentence:          “This . . . (pause),” said she,  “is NPR.” She might have been delivering a dramatic monologue, so pronounced was her emphasis on this and so protracted the ensuing pause.

Ms. Farhi has since abandoned that mannerism, but its temporary recurrence on Morning Edition, morning after morning, brought to mind the prominence of the word this, similarly isolated, in the Zen tradition. Generally speaking, in Zen practice this refers to undifferentiated reality, prior to the imposition of conceptual thought. “Just this,” a phrase familiar to Zen students, is what we experience when we penetrate the filter created by dualistic concepts, particularly such ego-centered dualities as “self/other,” “I/they,” and “mine/not mine.” To remain in continuous contact with this, while also questioning its nature, is central to Zen practice. And to lose touch with or misconstrue the nature of this is likely to bring suffering upon oneself and others. (more…)

Read Full Post »

102. Consistency

Posted in 1, tagged , , , , , , , , on 22 March 2012| Leave a Comment »

Toward the end of the February 22 Republican primary debate, John King asked the candidates to define themselves in a single word. “Consistent,” replied Representative Ron Paul. In the ensuing commentaries, Dr. Paul’s response met with wide approval, even by those not partial to his views. “I’ll give him that,” Jon Stewart wryly remarked.

Ron Paul’s response stood out from the others, not only because it came across as honest and accurate but also because it pointed toward his history rather than his temperament. Where the others laid claim to laudable traits of character—courage, resolution, cheerfulness—Ron Paul alluded to his public record. By so doing, he appealed to conventional wisdom, which holds that a candidate may best be judged by what he or she has said and done. “Ask me,” wrote the American poet William Stafford, “if what I have done is my life.” Under most circumstances, the answer would probably be yes. And should the next question be, “Who am I?” the standard of judgment might well be the same. The self exists in time, and a person may best be judged by examining his or her background, actions, and abiding traits of character. By such means we hire an employee or choose a doctor or pick a president. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »