The practice of a true person

 

 

What gives me hope for the viability of Zen more than almost anything else is the extent, which is pretty wide, of appreciation for Tenzo Kyokun, Dogen's Instructions for the (Monastery) Cook.

Here is a passage to which I have returned multiple times:

When you take care of things, do not see with your common eyes, do not think with your common sentiments. Pick a single blade of grass and erect a sanctuary for the jewel king; enter a single atom and turn the great wheel of the teaching. So even when you are making a broth of coarse greens, do not arouse an attitude of distaste or dismissal. Even when you are making a high-quality cream soup, do not arouse an attitude of rapture or dancing for joy. If you already have no attachments, how could you have any disgust? Therefore, although you may encounter inferior ingredients, do not be at all negligent; although you may come across delicacies, be all the more diligent. Never alter your state of mind based on materials. People who change their mind according to ingredients, or adjust their speech to [the status of] whoever they are talking to, are not people of the Way. -- Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community : A Translation of the Eihei Shingi ed./tr. Leighton and Okumura

When we make a judgment or show a preference, we impose a delusion on what's right in front of us, ignoring the co-dependent arising of all things. Buddhist ethics is training in thusness; that which is before us, rather than that which we wish is there or wish not there.

We can cover much, if not all, of the precepts by means of a single term: "honesty." Honest living simply precludes stealing, lying, misusing, murdering, willfully injuring, gossiping, disparaging, and disrespecting. Buddha spelled out these things because training in honesty is hard.

Dogen points out that the stakes are quite high. Though he continually refers to "just sitting" as the entire Buddhist project, he explicitly sets a high bar for the behavior that gives "just sitting" a chance to even happen: "People who... adjust their speech to whoever they are talking to, are not people of the Way."

We might try being honest to our vegetables and see if it doesn't feel a bit like training in "right doing." 😄 

As for the attitude while preparing food, the essential point is deeply to arouse genuine mind and respectful mind without making judgments about the ingredients' fineness or coarseness....  Although they create relationship to buddha, [donations that are] abundant but lacking [in heart] are not as good as those that are small but sincere. This is the practice of a [true] person.