"You cannot eat a recipe."
Shunryu Suzuki, on the relative value of religious teaching.
(Photo of the epilogue to an 18th century Guru Granth Sahib manuscript, wherein the scribe shares his ink recipe, courtesy of Sikhmuseum.com and Wikimedia Commons.)
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
This is one of Carl Sagan's most repeated quotations, and it has all the genius his fans came to prize in him: brief, direct, plain-spoken, trenchant. Less noted is the pure Zen that Carl – a convinced, though deeply respectful, atheist – also encoded here. It's a complete and concise summary of dependent co-arising. Easily recalled and memorised. The only part I might gently dispute is "from scratch".
Making a pie – any pie – requires all of Creation.
Carl was referring to the fact that every atom in the ingredients, and all the physics required to produce, process, and bake them, and all the energy all that takes, from generating the materials to heating the oven to your own mental and physical effort, has to proceed from somewhere. As do we, down the eons-deep path back to the Big Bang. Every day and each step of which has engineered, in excruciating detail, not just your dessert recipe, but indeed, the mind that ponders it.
Skip one spec? No pie for you.
Kind of makes you want to tip your baker, eh?
Contemplating this truth helps me to think like a grown-up. To understand that circumstances have a long tail of origination – and that's after you've determined what those circumstances really are – a step people tend to drop. And that until you've delved as profoundly and as honestly as possible into both questions, you've no right to an opinion.
And that's just for scientific matters. (AKA the kindergarten of the intellect.) Make it a human issue, and it's back to GO.
Zen has that peculiarity of all religions, that it hawks an esoteric, unknowable Dharma, then metes out a drumline of simplistic rituals that followers are told is "Zen". Despite the obvious irony, there's a certain logic to this, but the problem is, that as in all binary systems, we tend to judge the superficial wing "fundamental" and dismiss the other as pretty but impractical.
Because given the choice, humans will cleave to observable, assessable behaviours while suppressing the justification for them.
Which is why our rules never work.
So today I'm sitting with Carl Sagan-roshi's teaching:
If you wish to avoid half-baked practice, you must first create the universe.
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
6. Be quiet in body, mind and spirit. Don't hurry either in speaking or responding, distrustful of your own urgency.
7. Be firm in your convictions, but be always willing to embrace the truth.
– A Franciscan hermit in my Bluesky sangha.
(Statue of St. Francis meditating courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
Survival = Anger x Imagination.
[…]
Today I am walking between water, two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen, and the energy expelled is named Forgiveness.
Sherman Alexie.
(Drawn from The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. I elided two lines referring to life and struggle on the reservation, in order to demonstrate the universal reach of Alexie's work. This passage is typical of the koanic images he often uses to convey concepts the discursive mind might be unwilling or unable to grasp.)
(Photo courtesy of József Szabó and Unsplash.com.)
"No man is too big to change a diaper, but some are too small."
– An Evangelical radio preacher whose name I didn't catch, encapsulating the true man of no rank principle of Zen.
(Photo courtesy of Tembinkosi Sikupela and Unsplash.com.)
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This week I happened on Andrew Springer's Why I Hate Paul (And The Religion He Made Up), an essay on the vital question of what the hell St. Paul is doing in the Bible. This has bothered me since childhood: the promotion of a random convert, not even a disciple, to Christ's equal. Christ's superior, really, given that the Church typically defaults to Paul over Jesus.
I heartily recommend Springer's article to anyone who has been or is now a Christian; it's lively and well-argued, and no doubt good companionship for Christians who find themselves blessed with a surabundance of hell-raisin', God praisin' fellows, but little in the way of actual fellowship. (Ah, memories…)
As for me, I'm grateful for my deep and broad Christian journey, which taught me a great deal about spiritual discipline and ethics, and comes in handy every day of my Buddhist life.
It also taught me to appreciate the paucity of Bible-babble in Zen. In my 24 years on the path, I don't think I've once seen a Zenner smack another about the head with a sutra, trying to win a point of practice. In this we beat the Christians cold, but all coins have two sides; our lack of scriptural literacy leaves the door wide open to innovation, with the usual questionable results. I grazed this issue some years ago in Are Teachers Necessary?, wherein I explored an abuse of the Buddha's teaching that's entirely as egregious as the cult of St. Paul.
What really brought this to mind for me in the Springer piece was his citing of a contention, roundly accepted by competent Bible scholars, that six of the 13 documents attributed to St. Paul in the Christian Bible aren't even his. In other words, almost half of St. Paul's contribution to Christian teaching is in fact fraudulent.
And guess which of those two lists is most problematic, from a Christic perspective?
Because where Paul appears to contradict himself, rescinding acceptance he'd extended before, the reversal occurs most often in the apocryphal material.
Hence the training I received on my Christian path: that written wisdom is frequently wangled to please worldly authorities. And that since we're called by and to the Holy Spirit, we must be careful not to replace it in our religious practice with idols of paper and ink.
So when pursuing the Zen matter in my own piece, I was neither surprised, nor particularly dismayed, to find that one of the most poignant moments in Buddhist scripture has been trafficked to political ends. Specifically, that whereas the Buddha preached and demonstrated throughout his life that no human outranks another, the cited sutra makes him "repent" of this on his deathbed, commanding Buddhist monks to accept social hierarchies.
Yeah, that's not blasphemous or anything.
As a Christian, I learned that angels neither wrote nor protect the Bible, so we must study our scripture minutely, always aware of where it comes from, where it's been, and who would stand to lose under its authentic counsel. Where that counsel appears to waver, you seek a higher power.
My comments on that bit of sutric softness met with some scorn at the time. I think I've quoted my favourite example before: "Sounds like Mara." (In case anyone thought devil-baiting wasn't a Buddhist thing.) Which is ironic for a religion – and here I refer specifically to Western Buddhism – chiefly founded by more or less indignant refugees from the Church.
So let the record show that the courage to exercise clear-seeing in scriptural study, and to signal potential tampering when suspected, came straight out of my Christian schooling, and I recommend it to anyone who's determined to get off this merry-go-round.
Because the counterfeit passages are fully as valuable as the authentic ones.
(Photo of the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra courtesy of The Metropolitan Museam of Art and Wikimedia Commons.)
A Substack meditation on the emotional lives of men has been making the rounds. Fruit of Drunk Wisconsin, whose timeline is one of those digital live traps that will keep you scrolling and surfing all day if you're not careful, Men Only Want One Thing (And It's Disgusting) is that rarest of things: a brief, well-written rumination on the never-asked question of what men want.
Given cultural assumptions on this matter, if you're not a man, you likely haven't the slightest accurate idea.
If, on the other hand, you're one of "those" men, you'll probably be disgusted by the whole thing. Look, brother, the writer warned you.
And if you're here among us left–overs, you may feel that welter of repressed, conflicting emotions that signals a direct hit.
For further proof, check out the comments below the Substack post. Important: read the text first, and only afterward the comments. If you reverse that order, you'll lose the ability to read the post at all.
Because bombarding a challenge with self-mocking parody is the jiu jitsu of the reflective male. (If you thought it was middle school insults embedded in dripping sarcasm… see "those" men, above.)
Let the author of this pithy, penetrating, precise manifesto be Exhibit A.
I'd say "I feel seen", but the truth is I feel x-rayed.
(Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com and a generous photographer.)
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With a motorboat you get there faster,
but with a sailboat you’re already there.
(Winslow Homer's Breezing Up courtesy of the National Gallery of Art [US] and Wikimedia Commons.)
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.
Exodus 23:2
(Photo of Fudo Myō-ō statue courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
I practice the religion that suits me.
The one that says I'm right and you're wrong.
That I'm the ideal, and you the mistake.
We all do that.
Except the most lost,
Who commit the sin their sanghas condone
In full knowledge.
(Photo courtesy of MC1 Chad J. McNeeley, the United States Navy, and Wikimedia Commons.)
"It's the hole that makes the doughnut."
The I Ching. (Probably.)
(Pre-certified doughnut courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
I brought rather austere food when I sat 100 Days on the Mountain. Lunch and dinner were an identical bowl of rice and beans, spiced up with hot sauce, and curried after about the midway point. I brought very little in the way of snacks or sweets.
(I don't recommend this approach, by the way. An important practice point I learned out there is that discipline can be as egocentric and obstructive as indulgence. It's wise to keep your diet simple, wholesome, and habitual. It's unwise to eat like a zek.)
But breakfast came from a large trash bag, and it's these morning meals I remember with the most affection. Because from those unpromising origins rose each morning a braw bowl of zenola.
Zenola is a marriage of trail mix and cereal developed in the months before I left, for the express purpose of launching each day of practice. The ingredients supply essential nutrients deficient or absent in my other staples. And the rainbow of bright colours and flavours is a proper party when you're living on rice and beans.
The recipe is as follows:
30 lbs rolled oats (I like thick-cut the best)
1 1/4 lb powdered milk
3 3/4 lbs salted mixed nuts
1 3/4 lb each:
cranberry raisins
dried apples
dried apricots, bananas, or other fruit
1 1/4 lb crystalized ginger
(If you don't require a metric tonne of zenola all at once, reduce these quantities proportionally to get the amount you want.)
At a cup a-piece, this comes out to about a third again more than 100 breakfasts, but when you're living alone it's a good idea to bring more food than you think you'll need. (And also to store it in several secure places.)
I almost always ate this in cold water, but you can use boiling water for a soft and steamy bowl. I find rolled oats most satisfying uncooked, but once or twice, on biting cold nights when I needed encouragement, I rustled up hot zenola and tea by the light of my candle.
Under the strict daily regimen, this stuff became such a treat that I used it as incentive, denying myself the pleasure if I rose too late. Other times it was a reward, to celebrate milestone days or cheer me up in bleak moments.
In all of these occasions, zenola was hearty and sustaining, and excellent support for practice.
An intoxicant is any external source that draws you deeper into yourself, your beliefs, your egocentrism, and away from direct experience of the real, present moment.
Samsaric life is floating down a river of intoxicants; it’s difficult to go against the flow but it’s the only hope.
– insight from a fellow Zen hermit in my Twitter sangha.
(Photo of Oregon's Rogue River courtesy of Hamad Darwish and Wikimedia Commons.)
(Boletus edulis. Part of a generous outbreak that burst up not far from my house during the record rains of last month. Some of them were the size of dinner plates. Unfortunately I neglected to get a photo of one of those, but had quite a feast on the lot notwithstanding.)
incola ego sum
apud te
in terra
et peregrinus
sicut omnes patres mei.
Psalterium Sancti Hieronymi, 38:13
(English translation here.)
(Photo courtesy of Atlas Green and Unsplash.com.)
In fact, no-one seems to know where these memorable lines come from. One source claims it's a traditional Kenyan prayer, but I was unable to verify that, either.
As for me, its very anonymity is value-added. Those many pithy, compelling observations that knock around the world, repeated for generations, unattributed or misattributed, are often the most profound; the mere fact they've travelled so far demonstrates how powerful they are.
Any road, this one became a form in my Christian practice. Now twenty years further, having taken the Zen path, I see no reason to change that.
So may this teaching from the great Zen master Anon be a guide and a buttress to fellow seekers in the coming year.
The Truth Testimony
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth
From the laziness that is content with half truths
O God of Truth
Deliver us.
(Photo courtesy of Seiya Maeda and Unsplash.com.)
My very best wishes to all Rusty Ring readers, regular and irregular, on this Christmas Day.
May it be filled with warmth and light.
Both that you find, and that you make.
The first is luck.
The second, skill.
(Photo of Kinkaku at Kinkaku-ji [Rokuon-ji] courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
Family mostly gone. Friends busy with their own.
I never found a home in humanity. So here I sit.
There's a certain irony. I was always the Yuletide warrior: the guy who spent the year sourcing gifts, and immediately on first December, sent cards, decked halls, logged kitchen hours, all while listening to holiday music, alternating between seasonal radio and my ever-expanding battery of Christmas albums.
Who knew the holidays were yet another thing you eventually don't qualify for if you're not married?
I'm told there's an entire nation of us, we solitaries. Though we mostly don't know each other. Isolation is best performed alone.
But fear not. This isn't another treatise on the maudlin holiday of the outlier.
Because I've come to spread the good news of Zen.
I've said it before: Zen practice doesn't end suffering. It just helps you suffer better.
A fact of which I'm well-reminded in December.
Sure, I'd love to have a warm home full of love and children. Somebody to give to. Somebody to share with.
But I can always cherish the desire itself. In spite of our Western thoughtways – our conviction that life has a scoreboard, marking each passing second "earned" or "unearned" – just the belief in Christmas is joy enough.
There's also something to be said for standing outside of a thing to fully see into it. Clear-seeing is harder to pull off from too close.
As my world has shrunk to a room, I've gained a great deal of pleasure in this season. All that's going on around me. The responses that weather and light and sights and smells elicit. The memories, and yes, even the unrealised dreams.
They were good dreams. And I'm grateful that my society maintains this calendar month of sesshin to remind us of such things.
It's important to affirm that our insistence on separating people into winners and losers is delusion.
So this Christmas, as in the past, I'm once again listening to my Christmas radio playlist – over thirty holiday stations worldwide. And if it's hard to get too excited about baking for just myself, I've still got chai and sourdough coffee cake, and pumpkin soup for Christmas Eve, and hoppin' john on New Year's.
And I'll get to have Christmas dinner with my sister and her family. If my circle has dwindled to little more at this stage, it's also true that I look forward to that all year.
And the knowledge that even that isn't guaranteed, in this world of dew, keeps me treasuring it.
So once again I'll sit through midnight on New Year's Eve, holding mudra, minding my posture, and smiling inwardly as the fireworks drive this year out, never to be seen again.
And into that vacuum will immediately tumble… something else.
Creation is infinite. And I am small.
A heartfelt Merry Christmas to all my brothers and sisters. And if that's foreign to your practice, then at minimum, a deep December full of cheer and contemplation.
PS: If you've yet to discover Internet radio, and would like a taste, Christmas Radio Malta is one of my favourites. Their website player is dead, but you can click here on their stream URL to open it in your browser, or paste it into your media player.
I'm listening to it now.
(Photo of the Jellyfish Galaxy [ESO 137-001] and surrounding space courtesy of NASA and Wikipedia Commons.)
"You cannot eat a recipe."
_MET_DP238193_CRD.jpg)
This week I happened on Andrew Springer's Why I Hate Paul (And The Religion He Made Up), an essay on the vital question of what the hell St. Paul is doing in the Bible. This has bothered me since childhood: the promotion of a random convert, not even a disciple, to Christ's equal. Christ's superior, really, given that the Church typically defaults to Paul over Jesus. 
_-_Google_Art_ProjectFXD.jpg)
With a motorboat you get there faster,
I brought rather austere food when I sat 100 Days on the Mountain. Lunch and dinner were an identical bowl of rice and beans, spiced up with hot sauce, and curried after about the midway point. I brought very little in the way of snacks or sweets. 
