Young Voices is a special project from Buddhistdoor Global collecting insightful essays written by high school students in the US who have attended experiential-learning-based courses rooted in the Buddhist teaching. Running in parallel with BDG’s Beginner’s Mind project for college students, Young Voices offers a platform for these students to share essays expressing their impressions and perspectives on their exposure to the Buddhadharma and its relationship with their hopes, aspirations, and expectations.
Chris Wong wrote this essay for the “Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard” class at Phillips Andover, a high school in Massachusetts.
Nirvana Starts in the Kitchen?
In the basement of the American Wisdom Association (AWA) in Billerica, Massachusetts, I carefully lifted my knife away from a plump red tomato that had been serrated in half and then diced to uniform chunks, its translucent juices staining the blade’s chrome edge. On this Saturday morning, I could hear the chanting from a hall of worshippers radiating through the basement floorboards. The frenzy of lay chefs clanking pots against stoves clamored behind me as the dull thud of my knife against the wooden chopping board kept the rhythm of this Dharmic melody. I felt no different then than I did a few weeks earlier while reciting the Kshitigarbha Sutra in this very temple. In that moment, I could feel the rising sense of stillness and, despite only knowing the upstairs Dharma—the path through chanting and meditation, I knew somehow that this was my Dharma door.
I used to assume that Dharma practices looked like meditation, Dharma talks, chanting, or manual labor. This is perhaps unsurprising because these are the upstairs practices with which most laypeople and monastics engage; an overwhelming amount of liturgy is also dedicated to this. However, in the Zen tradition, and in observing that moment in the AWA, it became clear to me that cooking could also be a Buddhist practice worthy of consideration.
In the Japanese Zen tradition, shōjin ryōri is a strict form of vegetarian cooking that is considered a path toward nirvana. The word quite literally means “zeal in progressing along the path to salvation.” Chefs practicing the shōjin ryōri tradition undergo years of training before even being allowed to use a knife—this process develops a reverence for the vegetables themselves. As Zen master Dōgen Zenji once said in his Instructions to Tenzo: a cook should “handle even a single leaf of green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha. . . . This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.” Shōjin ryōri embodies the practice of Zen where, within the great rigor that it takes to make vegetables into a culinary art form, practitioners find a space of stillness and wisdom.
I can’t say that my amateurish cooking can be classified as shōjin—which means devotion to pursue a perfect state of mind—but I can feel that the specific action of cooking allows me to put away my emotions. Then, I asked myself: even if it is not shōjin, is this a Buddhist practice? I reflected on how the journey of finding the perfect state of mind was more accessible to me though cooking than meditation, and saw how the conditions of my life had led me to this preferred means of practicing Buddhism. Growing up, my brother was a skilled chef and I adored his cooking. I also had an insatiable appetite and a love for food. All these karmic conditions made it easier to see that chopping vegetables wasn’t just a chore, but an action that warrants my full presence. The same can be said of any other task: in fact Chan master Sheng Yen said in a Dharma talk that the best Dharma door is what is most immediately present to us. For me, this was being in a basement, chopping vegetables.
Personally, the Buddha’s teaching of 84,000 Dharma doors is becoming clearer to me through cooking. I now see that the upstairs practices that I do, such as meditating, attending Dharma talks, and chanting, can help support how I approach the Dharma in the rest of my life. Master Sheng Yen uses a Chinese proverb to describe this lesson: “百鸟在树，不如一鸟在手,” which roughly means that a hundred birds in a tree are not worth one bird in your hand. So while I was trying to chase the Buddhist practices that seemed normative—such as meditation—I forgot the Dharma doors that I am more attuned to, or didn’t even know existed. Meditation is hard for most, and it is certainly hard for me. Eventually, the Buddha teaches that all Dharmic paths lead to the same place, so why should I take the long route?
Now, I implore you all to consider your own Dharma doors in life. Whether or not you’re familiar with Buddhism, notice the activities in your life that give you the ability to empty out all emotions and attachments, and take refuge in them—because in chasing the Dharma doors that seem to be flashing, we lose sight of the ones that we have.
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