Accounts of Zen eating 

Even in the off season, Hayama’s Imperial Village is well-guarded. A combination of guards and police patrol the beach and the lazy commercial district where, on a late February afternoon, full-timers shuffle to and from the grocery store and retirees stroll. We are here to visit the Zen master’s second house, to air it out and to put the pizza oven to good use. 

We came, if you don’t mind me saying, in a vintage 1970s Mercedes, retrofitted with high quality speakers and a CD player for listening to the top jazz hits. Once we’d arrived, I was put to the task of sitting in a large recliner and watching the roshi’s favorite movie, The Five Pennies (1959). In it, Danny Kaye plays Red Nichols, the great jazz cornet player, who comes from a small town to New York City, where he makes it big. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Deguchi-sensei is flipping pizza dough, making sauce and arranging toppings in front of the giant, copper oven installed ten years earlier. Suffice it to say, I hadn’t imagined this part of Japanese temple life. Later in the afternoon, we walked up the hill to a cafe and restaurant owned by the roshi’s friend. On a patio overlooking Sagami bay, three elderly men sat together eating dessert with coffee and talking congenially. One, I could make out, was a retired soccer coach, another a prominent judge and the third the owner of the property. 

These were the Zen master’s closest friends, men with very little attachment to Buddhism, John Kenneth Nelson reports from an interview that, “If temple members could hear what their priests talk about in casual conversation, they would faint.” Being from a prominent temple, the roshi had several stories about performing the funerals of the rich and famous, or being their beneficiaries. He enjoyed the company of people with diverse interests and was impressed by talent and prestige. Though thoroughly secular, the conversation seemed harmless to me, ranging from accounts of the children to the news and back to sports. “Spring will come,” said the restraunteur, looking down the hill to the beach break. I was eating a premature ice cream sundae and reevaluating my idea of a religious life. 

For a period in February, I stayed in pilgrims’ (ohenrō) lodgings at a Shikoku temple, in the mountains above Takamatsu. There, the abott and a small staff grew herbs, which they sold to supermarkets under the name Zen Herbs Inc. Hot peppers, mint, and other herbs grew in several greenhouses across the temple property. Come harvest time, they are picked by two volunteers, bagged and brought to a small but organized back room, where several plastic folding chairs surround a wood table. My job was then to sit and sort through the leaves or peppers, separating them by size, color and imperfection. It was warm in the room, and the local news played low. We took frequent breaks for ten minutes at a time, during which there was hot barley tea, damaged oranges and thin cookies to eat. Leftover orange peels were then composted and an offering made to the hungry ghosts. 

For all its interest in the effects of Zen on the body, particularly in terms of the benefits of meditation, there has been comparatively little English language scholarship on eating in modern Japanese temples, particularly small ones, where the abbott may live alone with his family, or in the company of one or two monks. While shojin ryōri is still widely available for tourists to sample, or prepared at larger temples by the tenzo, meals during my temple stays included spaghetti, squash soup, potato salad and white beans. I observed an appreciation for what tastes good and a willingness to experiment, though these things did not seem to detract from the ritual around food.

Breakfast, directly following morning zazen and cleaning, remained a resolutely formal occasion during which we observed silence. Three nesting bowls, large, medium and small, held rice, miso and pickles. We always ate unbelievably fast, but moved slowly in cleaning and wrapping our bowls in their furoshiki. They were then returned to the cabinet under a name tag for use the next day. Once the table was cleared and the dishes done, services had ended. It was then the time to freshly grind and make a pot of drip coffee, whose beans were sorted by the hawk-eyed abbott. Meanwhile, Sachiko would prepare dessert, sometimes melon or zenzai or a red bean pancake. Mostly, though, our sweets came from a giant wicker chest against the wall next to the abbot’s designated chair. Inside was a trove of packaged black sugar, manju, imokenpi and candy. There was also a near constant supply of edible gifts, whether omiyage or temple offerings, that included delicacies from Tokyo’s finest confectionaries. During my month’s stay at this temple, I ate dessert very happily every morning. Frequently, the dessert ritual lasted more than an hour, sometimes two, when the conversation came easily and the coffee particularly good. Spoiled, I developed favorites and looked forward to the bounty that weekend memorial services afforded. 

The Japanese Buddhist establishment, some sects more than others, have been mightily criticized for their excess, love of finery and secular culture, much of which is funded by temple families who pay for annual memorial services. Buddhists are instructed by the sutras to treat priests with “generous hospitality,” and we can assume that this includes money gifts as well as okashi and expensive fruits. In a day’s work, the roshi will sit in silent meditation for several hours, meet with grieving families, hear koan recitations, listen to jazz on his McIntosh system, enjoy an Italian red and unwind with an Eddie Murphy movie. There is no contradiction in these things, even if they are acknowledged with a wry smile. Ritual eating and ritual is rather flexible in these terms. Whether this signals a Zen for the 21st century, or a Zen off the rails, I’m not qualified to say.