THE WORK OF BEING EMBODIED
Since many of us have never studied how to do this work of being embodied and relating with onions, cabbages, and potatoes, the prospect of digging in and persevering can be daunting. Often we are more accustomed to letting our awareness go to one of its more habitual haunts, which does not require physically putting our body (or imagined self) on the line. When you are unaccustomed to work, it may feel awkward and unfamiliar. You may find yourself in places where you do not know what to do. Initially, your reaction to being lost may be a wish to seek the familiar: Get me out of here, complains the voice inside. Get me out of here and back to what is familiar, where I know what I am doing and can be successful at it. Working in this unfamiliar place of not knowing rather than seeking a comfortable refuge is what marks the hero’s journey—your willingness to undertake rigorous adventure and in the process undergo transformation. Work also means handling innumerable moments of the same old stuff. Surprisingly, as you focus on finding your way (one celery stick at a time), you begin finding ease on the spot.
The Energetics of Zen Work
When you wash rice and prepare vegetables, you must do it with your own hands and with your own eyes, making sincere effort. Do not be idle even for a moment. Do not be careful about one thing and careless about another. Do not give away your opportunity even if it is merely a drop in the ocean of merit. Do not fail to place even a single particle of earth at the summit of the mountain of wholesome deeds.
ZEN MASTER DŌGEN
The Zen tradition of work is called soji. Much of it involves cleaning: the floors, the walkways, the toilets. When I was a practicing student of Zen back in the 1960s and 1970s, we Westerners—sometimes hippy and long-haired—would challenge our Japanese Zen teachers: “What’s so spiritual about clean?” Or as one koan puts it, “How can you clean what has never been soiled?”
Our mentors were quite patient with us, trying again and again to explain that it wasn’t that clean was more spiritual than dirty, but that we were practicing relating with things—touching them, tending to them, being in connection with them, not taking them for granted. When you practice this, you are living in another world, a world where things embody your spirit, where your presence gives things presence. We hardly have language for this: Things are simply things, aren’t they? Yet when you practice caring for, tending to things, things are not just things. They are an embodiment of your spirit.
They are an embodiment of Source. To clean with this spirit or understanding is to tend the Sacred Body, to live in Sacred Space.
So we clean to create and develop a relationship between the one cleaning and that which is being cleaned. Often the object of our efforts is already clean—for example, the floor of the meditation hall. Although it is already clean, I clean it. Now in relationship, I know the floor in my body, in my knees and my hands, and I can ask the floor to ground the room and everyone practicing. I am held, supported, and I am touched, as I have touched the floor.
It is very similar to reincarnating into your own body: “I live here.” Thus, to clean is to reincarnate into the world by touching it, in this case with a damp towel. Body to body we meet and smile a slight smile. “Welcome home,” we say to each other. “Nice to see you again.” The more closely we relate with food, pots, pans, bowls, utensils, sponges, mops, the more they reincarnate with us. Mystery of mysteries—the power we have is the power to pick up a broom. Gathering wood and carrying water, we make ourselves at home here on planet Earth—“supernatural power and marvelous activity” is the age-old Zen expression for this wood-and-water activity.
Curiously, I hesitate to write about soji because I do not want to lecture or sound like I am giving out directives. Everyone has choice about what to do with their time here on earth and how to do it. Work seems to be an area where we assume we do not have choice. There are things you have to do, and when you get done doing them, then you can spend time doing what you enjoy. In his down-to-earth book What Are People For? Wendell Berry wrote about the pleasure of work. “What fun,” his granddaughter remarks after a day of labor—but as a culture, the sense of energetically manifesting work seems sadly lacking. Pleasure is lying on the beach or surfing the net, not using your hands to connect with the world. Yet without connecting to your body and the world, the sense of home, ease, and contentment is often absent. We create it by living it, or we may wander.
In Zen we say: “Throw yourself into the activity. Burn yourself completely.” It’s a practice that some of us choose, a generosity of spirit, an abundance of hands, finding out what to do, how to do it. Discovering how to give life to life, a life of the spirit manifesting in the material world, the inner coming to the surface and connecting with what is outer.
I’ve spent much of my life studying how to work, especially in kitchens—the dishes, the pots and pans, the floors, the compost; being a busboy, a waiter, a dishwasher. And when I say studying, much of it involves how to give myself to the activity rather than begrudging my time and my attention, letting my heart return and abide in things, simply giving myself. Sometimes it seems so old-fashioned, so embarrassing—menial labor, which implies humble, unskilled, low status, inferior, degrading—yet repetitive, warmhearted efforts often create convivial space, home.
I am trying, of course, not to make this a matter of good and bad, right and wrong, as there are homes with objects strewn about that feel friendly, and similarly, immaculate spaces that feel claustrophobic. The feeling is in the air.
As a claim to fame or recognition, physical labor does not especially qualify. When I write up my bio for leading a retreat, I mention the books that I’ve written rather than saying that I clean up after myself in the kitchen. So, being sincere and hardworking at menial labor is not something I do for acclaim but an activity that brings the world alive, as well as invigorating me in the process. And frankly, I’ve never found I could eat acclaim the way I can feast on a breakfast omelet.
When I was first practicing at the Zen Center, in 1965, during work periods Katagiri Roshi would run bent over across the zendo, pushing a towel wrapped around a block of wood to polish the floor. Watching him was an inspiration. I marveled at his grace and humility, his sheer athleticism: he’s bent over running across the floor! Back and forth, back and forth. He wasn’t there to direct the work but to do it—an incarnate example of Zen practice. He put his body on the line with focus and energy, sincere and wholehearted, without complaint, without bragging. Though fifty years have passed, the image is still vivid. That was Zen! I know we’ve all seen photos of Zen masters sitting imperturbably, but for me, Katagiri Roshi’s racing across the zendo is the picture that stands out. We don’t just sit there; we make it happen. We don’t stop to think about it; we get down and dirty.
If you are curious and pause to consider, you’ll have occasion to look at how you view what you are doing. You’ll see if your work is a way of complying to prevent criticism, if you are doing chores as though by rote, looking forward to getting off and having time for yourself, or perhaps you sense your work is an offering that you choose to share with others, as a gift you receive and pass on. You may believe that you are a maid slaving away or a bodhisattva saving inanimate beings, or you may be on the sidelines watching.
To start where you are, take responsibility for what you are doing. If you have a default approach to work, such as avoiding it when possible, please reflect whether that’s your choosing. Albert Einstein, that closet Buddhist, once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” New choices coming from the depths of your being will bring new life.
Everybody Loves Raking
There is no need for you to be a great person. In your limited activity, you should find out the true meaning of yourself . . . If you pick up a small stone, you have the whole universe.
SUZUKI ROSHI
“Everybody loves raking as a temple activity,” my friend Gil explained to me after he returned from his sojourn practicing Zen in Japan and vipassana in Southeast Asia. “In Japan they say, ‘When you rake, just rake,’ while in Southeast Asia they explain, ‘When you rake, watch your mind.’ So in Japan, the monks can be seen raking energetically, sometimes stirring up a cloud of dust, while in Southeast Asia, the monks sometimes stand unmoving with a rake in their hands.”
When I shared Gil’s story with our Zen Mentor Sojun Mel Weitsman, his response was, “Sounds like the monks who stand unmoving still think their minds are up here,” his index finger rising to point to his head. In Zen, activity itself is also mind. Watch the moving!
Though raking is an excellent example, the story brings to mind that there is more than one approach to daily life: eating, sleeping, cooking; work, errands, perhaps a commute; partners, children; the gym, a hike. Action and reflection are each important, and we would do well to cultivate a workable balance between being energized to get things done and being attuned to tracking our awareness. Still, when it comes to working in a kitchen with an anticipated meal time, I want to see work happening—that is, I want to see bodies in motion, arms and hands tending to the details of preparation, the onions and carrots being cut, the bowls and pots being cleaned. If you want to stand still watching your mind, you can do that on your own time or in someone else’s kitchen. In my kitchen, I ask for focus on the work at hand.
Sometimes, those focused on remaining calm and contained are not always learning the skills necessary to perform, to function in the world. They may be stable and not raise their voice in the kitchen, but they don’t know how to make a salad dressing. They may meditate steadfastly but not develop their communication skills. While busy generating calm, beautiful states of minds, they are not developing the skills, capacities, and practices that could actually and realistically manifest delicious food or wholesome relationships.
To grow up in the real-life, how-to-do-it world cultivating explicitly useful ways to live well and harmoniously is the way of benefiting yourself and others—learning how it’s done here on planet Earth. Learning to prepare food, you are also studying how to handle emotions. So my interest in addressing and encouraging a spiritual life in the kitchen includes preparing beautiful food. Let’s make it happen. In this way, the more formal expression is, “Don’t look for nirvana outside of samsara.” You do not find the peace and serenity of the vertical world by ignoring or abandoning everyday reality. You study how to work with it. And when to rest.
As a committed Zen student doing residential practice under institutional supervision, I often practiced watching my mind. Still, I keep finding that if I am going to do something, I need intention, focus, energy, commitment, and I need to study how to prepare bean soups and vegetable soups or how to assemble a vinaigrette. Clearly I will need to connect my awareness to the things of this world so that they manifest as food. It’s up to me to make it happen. I’m going to work with things, and things are going to work with me. We’ll see what happens. If I don’t go into the kitchen, I don’t eat. Maybe things happen differently in your world.
Watching the mind tends to go along with accepting what’s offered, which is an important practice. Monks and nuns go out on rounds begging for food—take what you get. Originally they did not stay more than three nights in one place, although an exception was made for the rainy season. Apparently this did not sit well with the Chinese when Buddhism arrived there and the Zen school developed. One of the early masters was adamant: “A day of no work is a day of no eating.” Do things with your body. Don’t just realize the dharma; manifest it.
Let the fundamentally unstoppable energy of the universe come through into your activity.
Of course, when we have habits of mind that use physical violence to solve things, we could use some clear, careful observation so that we learn how to ride the waves of energy, producing a fire in the hearth rather than a thunderbolt. The energy that can destroy is also the energy that can nourish. By watching the mind, by tending the mind, we can discover how to modulate our energy and refocus our efforts on harmonizing rather than overpowering. And sometimes committing ourselves to simple, straightforward tasks is ever so helpful for transforming our energy.
Conversely, watching the mind does not activate great energy. You may become calm and tranquil, still and peaceful, and you may also daydream or offer an ongoing critique on reality. If this is an old habit for you, you may become very good at it. Applying the antidotes effectively, you may quiet your mind anew—and actually rake.
Sometimes, of course, energetic devotion to an activity is valuable for cutting through, whether it is the classic practice of bowing or work in the fields or in the kitchen. You devote yourself so energetically to a physical activity that you simply do not have time, energy, or space to think. Temporarily at least, you’ve cut off the tentacles of thought and emotion and actualized yourself freely. Some degree of your usual preoccupations can wash through and out.
How sweet is that?
Though I have done both of these practices extensively, when I am at a loss, I come back to do what you’re doing—cutting the carrots, stirring the soup. The interesting point here is that this is not a matter of determining what is right or wrong or deciding what is the best practice and then following the decision we have carefully weighed out. We do what is useful on the occasion, and if we’ve been observing, what we do accords with our personal aesthetic.
Simply put, for me pleasure arises when I use my body to do things. Naturally enough, difficulty, obstacles, and setbacks come along for the ride, and I pause in my doings to empty the compost bucket, clear the dish drainer, get out the cheese grater, wipe up the spill. Above-average baseball players get three hits for every ten at-bats; in basketball, making over half your shots is phenomenal. We miss because we make the effort. When you are not taking your shots, you are not in the game. I cook because I enjoy it. I study how to show up, be present and absorbed, without being tight or high-strung (not always hitting the mark).