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Showing posts from June, 2017

Shojin: Your Every Day Life is Enlightenment Itself

In Japanese Buddhism Shojin is a word used to denote elevation of the soul through intense focus on a single task.  It's most often used to describe the ritualized cooking of vegetarian meals in Buddhist temples known as Shojin Ryori. During  the preparation of Shojin Ryori cuisine monks go to the market and "greet" their vegetables.  First, they smell each one individually.  Then  they use their fingers to massage the plant, and investigate it's texture. After that, they return home and slowly chop each one by hand.  Nothing is wasted.  The use of machines (including refrigerators) is frowned upon in Shojin Ryori, so cooks buy only as much as they need for a meal, and utilize every part of the plant. They spend hours grinding spices with a pestle and mortar.  And then they create a dish which carefully balances the colors, textures, and flavor profiles of every ingredient.  The end result is that the mundane, task of cooking vegetables is turned into a l

Gun Violence and the Illusion Of A Separate Self

     I was 15 years old when the Columbine High School massacre happened.  It was an incredibly sad and traumatic day for our nation, and I remember the utter confusion on everyone's faces as they discussed it.  The idea that someone could pick up a gun and start killing people at random was beyond comprehension.  And we honestly thought that a tragedy like that would never happen again in our lifetimes.        But we were wrong.  In fact, 155 mass shooting have occurred this year alone, and it's only June. Honestly, I'm not even surprised anymore when news of a massacre pops up on my social media.  I'm just sad.  Why do we have to be so cruel to one another?      Personally, I think it's because we're trapped in the illusion of a separate self.  We've divided ourselves into increasingly smaller groups (Democrat vs. Republican, Rich vs. Poor, Boomer vs. Millennial, etc.), and all of that dividing has left us feeling isolated and afraid.  And our fea

Gardening and the Bodhisattva Vows

One of my earliest experiences with growing food came when I practiced at a Zen center that had a garden.  In Zen, manual labor is considered an important part of spiritual development, so I spent every Saturday cutting grass, pulling weeds, and shoveling horse manure into vegetable beds.  "Shovel shit and become a Buddha!" was the running joke between me the other students.  It was difficult at times, but there was a brutal honesty in the work that I found appealing. If I cared for the plants properly, they would grow and provide food for people.  If I didn't, they would die and I'd have to start over from scratch.  There was no complexity or intrigue involved in the process.  What I put into the vegetables beds was exactly what I took out.  It  was karma in it's purest form. These  days, I have a garden in my backyard.  And I'm happy to report that the plants are still teaching me the dharma.  Lately, they've been teaching me about the bodhis

Marine Corps. Training and The Illusion of a Separate Self

     When I arrived at Parris Island for Marine Corps. Recruit Training there were men from many different walks of life standing with me.  There were guys from the country who'd been hunting deer since they were 6 years old, guys from the city who'd never seen wildlife outside of Central Park, and then there was me.  I was a scrawny bookworm from the suburbs who was still trying to find himself.  We came from all walks of life, but our drill instructors stripped away any ideas we might have had of being different or better than one another.  They did that by taking away our identities.      First, they took our hair.  One by one, we sat in barbers' chairs and had our heads shaved.  Next, they took our clothes.  Our civilian attire was placed in plastic bags with our names on them with the promise that we'd get them back IF we graduated training.  Phrases like "Hurry up!" and "Keep moving recruit!" were shouted over and over again as we ran be