April–June 2016, Volume 43
Features
Buddhism and Food
Today, both in advanced and developing countries, unbalanced and irregular diets have caused obesity; lifestyle-related diseases, including diabetes; and high blood pressure. Eating disorders caused by mental stress are also a serious problem in many countries.
While a third of all food produced in the world is reported discarded or left to spoil, almost a billion people do not get enough to eat. This situation accompanies a waste of labor and energy in producing food and puts stress on the global natural environment. Grains such as wheat and corn have become targets of profiteering on the global stock market.
In these circumstances, some people are looking to Buddhism for the knowledge and means to make their diet healthier for their body and mind as well as the world they live in. Some people, for example, try a vegetarian cuisine developed in Zen monasteries in Japan called shojin ryori. Other people seeking a healthier diet try “mindful eating,” an approach rooted partly in Buddhism that encourages full concentration on the process of eating.
Food is one of the three basic necessities of life, along with clothing and shelter. Can Buddhism, which advocates the control of excessive desires, including gluttony, address today’s issues related to food, at both the individual and global levels? With this question in mind, we will explore relations between Buddhism and diet, overviewing Buddhist attitudes to food and eating.
Features
The Karma of Food
by David R. Loy
If we don’t need to worry about disrupting genetic “essences” such as the original and natural DNA of a plant or animal species, doesn’t that liberate us to do whatever we want technologically?
Overcoming Ignorance about Food
by Eating Spiritually by Yi Chan Su
Eating is a yardstick that measures the depth of one’s sensibility about human nature, religion, and life. Similarly, the processes of getting food and gaining spiritual enlightenment are like the two sides of a coin; spiritual enlightenment is parallel to awakening to the meaning of food.
Shojin Cuisine: Cooking from the Heart
by Mari Fujii
Preparing food that combines [the] five tastes, five colors, and five ways of preparation [the basic concepts of shojin cuisine] results in a well-balanced meal. . . . Shojin cuisine is an art of cooking with these concepts in mind, and that is why people who partake of it say it brings them peace of mind.
Mindful Eating: How North Americans Use Buddhist Meditation to Heal the Body, Mind, and World
by Jeff Wilson
Faced with . . . widespread suffering in relation to food, many people are turning to Buddhism in search of possible solutions. After all, Buddhism is, at its root, a set of practices and insights designed to eliminate suffering.
Why Not One Grain of Rice Should Be Wasted
by Kenichi Furuyama
If our current food wastage continues unchecked, it will undermine the global environment and may even in time threaten the survival of the human race.
Essay
Old Insights for a Hectic World: What Can an Eighteenth-Century Zen Master Teach Us Today?
by Masaki Matsubara
Hakuin’s voice in his Yasenkanna still resonates today, but with purposeful and intelligible transformations, in a larger context of the healing and awareness practices of meditations.
Buddhism and Social Engagement (4) Toward Transnational Movements
by Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya
Buddhist social movements are . . . becoming global, gradually going beyond specific regional and cultural contexts and developing into transnational movements addressing common issues such as world peace, human rights, and environmental destruction.
Kanenuiakea: A Living Faith and Practice
by Glen Kila and George Williams
Because Hawaiian culture has been reconstructed from myths and stories that represent a child’s level of understanding, the depth of its spirituality has not been seen or appreciated.
Interview
Making Women Use Their Influence for Good, and Their Power for Good Interview with Pastor Esther Abimiku Ibanga, Recipient of the Thirty-Second Niwano Peace Prize
The Niwano Peace Foundation awarded the thirty-second Niwano Peace Prize on May 14, 2015, to Pastor Esther Ibanga of Nigeria for her courageous efforts to promote women’s empowerment and peaceful coexistence. On May 15, Dr. Hiroshi M. Niwano, chair of the foundation, interviewed Pastor Ibanga at Rissho Kosei-kai headquarters in Tokyo. The interview highlighted the importance of promoting peace activities based on a maternal way of thinking.
