The Zennist

Eating habits, attitudes and opinions

I am beginning to hold the view that our eating habits are much like the attitudes and opinions we hold, that is, we engage with what we like—not what, in the long run, is good for us.  Perhaps the comparison even goes further: we find it next to impossible to change and give up what we enjoy and makes us feel happy like little children.

I chose the analogy of eating habits because it is so much a part of our life, almost like breathing and drinking water.  When we celebrate a holiday or someone’s birthday, we haul out the tasty food.  When our life is in transition many of us use food to remind us of better times.  But it goes much deeper. 

As my old pappy used to say, “It’s not what you eat, it is what is eating you.”  And this is where I make the turn to the attitudes and opinions we hold dear that are very often not our own but that of our culture which could be very wrong; simply implanted into our heads at school or from the television.  These attitudes and opinions are somewhat like junk food.  They are everywhere but not of lasting benefit and help as we struggle through this life.  What is even worse, people expect us to think and to hold attitudes and opinions like they do—we have to be a part of the consensus.  There is sometimes a penalty if we don’t.

When we step into the spiritual world of Buddhism we have to dump our long held cultural attitudes and opinions that run counter to the fundamental teachings of the Buddha such as there is no transmigrant, no life after death and no such thing as karma.  If we don’t give up these opinions we are not being open minded or really studying Buddhism.  Maybe what we really want is to be able to have our cake and eat it, too.  Said again, we don’t really want to shed our cultural attitudes and opinions which run counter to the teachings of the Buddha.

Over the years, while I have seen an interest in Buddhism such as Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, I have also seen Buddhism get westernized insofar as we still can’t fully bring ourself to believing in nirvana, a transmigrant, a spiritual body that is deathless (dharmakaya), an afterlife, and karma.  About the only thing we like about Buddhism, in general, is meditation.  But Buddhism offers so much more.  At its most elementary level it teaches us that there is life after death; that this is one of many existences we will have as we go up the learning curve to reach the telos of full awakening by which the universe becomes our play ground.

 

Putting down the bag, folding hands

A statue that we see quite often in a Chinese restaurant is the rotund "Laughing Buddha" otherwise named, Budai (布袋).  He was a very Zen-like character.  One story about him goes like this:

"Once there was a priest who walked in front of the Master (Budai). The latter touched him on the shoulder, whereupon he turned his head. The Master said "Give me a cash." The priest said, "If you first tell me a word of Truth, I will give you a cash." The Master put his bag on the ground and folded his hands." (transl. Helen B. Chapin)

Most people who read this think it's pretty cool.  Some Zen students or their teachers imitate it by lifting up their staff then putting it down or by doing other odd things.  None of this gets to the heart of what Budai was expressing.  When Budai sat his big bag down then folded his hands, in essence, he did the exact same thing as the Buddha did when the Buddha simply held up a flower then blinked and in response to this, Mahākāśyapa just smiled.  Both of their actions appear to be physical but both saw what ordinary people could not see, the dynamic universal substance (體) that animated both of their physical functions (用).  Does this sound preposterous?  Well, it is not.

We always have to keep in might that the Buddha had a very simple and elegant teaching.  There is the conditioned reality consisting of phenomena including our bodies all the way to our consciousness.  Attach to this and you are in deep doo-doo.  You will enter samsara never to escape from it.  Then there is unconditioned reality known sometimes as nirvana.  No, you cannot see it or sense it.  It is beyond the reach and range of sensory consciousness (sorry).  It is primary, first, original—we can call it the One Mind (S., ekacitta).  In Zen this becomes essence (or if you like, substance) with function as its expression.  On this same track, Zen master Hui Hai says:

"This functional manifestation proceeds from the fundamental "substance" and it is by means of it that we return to that "substance". Since "substance" and manifestation are one in reality, the fundamental and its manifestation do not differ from each other." 

Back to our rotund Budai.  He was continually aware of this unconditioned essence which he called "Mind" which he said is the most intelligent and the most spiritual thing.  Budai said of Mind that it is continual movement (i.e., dynamic), moreover, self-existent (absolute) ; and there is nothing which it is not.  It is before one's eyes, the true great way, yet one sees not a hair of it—how strange.

The laughing Buddha

Yes, I bet you’ve seen this Zen Buddhist monk in a lot of Asian restaurants.  Some call him the “laughing Buddha.”  His Buddhist name is Pu-tai or in pinyin Chinese, “Budai.”  His name means “cloth sack”.  He is said to have lived in the 10th century.  Very much of an eccentric Zennist, he wandered from town to town with his sack carried on a stick slung over his back, being almost like a Chinese Santa Claus.  He was always giving sweets to children.  Supposedly, his real identity was Maitreya, the future Buddha.  He is depicted in the last of the Ten Oxherding Pictures.  

Once Pu-tai walked up to an Buddhist priest and said "Give me some money.” The Buddhist priest said, "I will but first tell me a word of Truth, then I will give you money." Promptly, Pu-tai put his bag on the ground and folded his hands.  Another time, Pu-tai was standing in the street, when a Buddhist priest asked him, "What are you doing here?"  Pu-tai responded, "I am waiting for him."  The Buddhist priest then said,"He has arrived."  Then Pu-tai said, "You are not him." The Buddhist priest then asked, "What distinguishes this person?"  Pu-tai said,  "He will give me money."

Quite profound, Pu-tai also wrote this song.

Only the three minds (past, present and future) are the Buddha. In the ten directions (N., S., E., W., N. E., S. E., N. W., S. W., and zenith and nadir) of the world, (the mind) is the most intelligent, the most spiritual thing.

In all things, it has a wonderful use. It is a pity that beings (do not understand).  There is nothing so real as the mind.  

In continual movement, it is self-existent, and there is nothing which it is not. To those who have left their homes, with no business to pursue, it is an endless source of study.

If one has before one's eyes, the True Great Way, one sees not even a hair (because !all is empty)-strange!

The manifold methods of the Law, how do they differ? Mind is every-where the same. (When one understands this) what necessity is there to exert one's self to search the sutras's meaning?

When the king of the mind (i.e., the Self) naturally cuts off (attachment), then all is harmony. The wise who understand this, need not to study.

There are in reality no common herd and no sages; what then is there? It is not necessary to distinguish from others the sage who has no need outside himself.

Without price is the pearl of the mind; by its own nature, round and pure. Ordinary people are different; have they not misunderstood the emptiness of things?

Men can indefinitely enlarge the principles they follow, and thus comprehend the ever-extending nature of the Way. To become ever more pure and noble, this is to be in harmony with the nature of the Way.

One takes one's staff and climbs the old road to the place of one's origin, without the slightest rancor against those who do not listen to the Sound” (Helen B. Chapin, “The Ch'an Master Pu-tai”,  Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Mar., 1933), pp. 47-52).

Mexican Coca-Cola and Zen

If Zen Buddhism were Coca-Cola, Western Zen would be like the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) type served in a plastic bottle.  The real Zen, still found in some parts of China and Korea, would be like Mexican Coca-Cola made with cane sugar and served in a thick glass bottle that has a real old-fashioned metal cap on it.  

Those, my age, who can still remember drinking Coca-Cola back in the good old days (before 1980)  say Mexican Coca-Cola is the real deal; authentic to the last drop.

I find it interesting how we turn away, or are easily led away, from tradition, all for the greater profit and glory of the company or the institution, when it doesn’t have to be this way.  In the case of Western Zen it turned away from the mystical side of Zen, that is, realizing our nature and becoming Buddha (C. chien-hsing ch'eng-fo) deciding, instead, to go the route of self-help psychology which, frankly, has nothing to do with the tradition (C., tsung) of Zen Buddhism. 

I am sure not everyone will agree with me.  There is a big market in self-help Zen which essentially teaches that zazen is a panacea for all of our worldly troubles.  Just sit!  But I prefer the old fashioned Zen of Tsung-mi and Huang-po, to mention just two names.  Their Zen is spiritually more satisfying just like Mexican Coco-Cola is more satisfying than the HFCS kind in the plastic bottle.