Beyond the material differences (schist, sandstone, granite, copper, and wood), these five statues from South, Southeast, and East Asia exhibit stylistic differences and cross-cultural, even cross-religious, byproducts. Images of Siddhartha develop new identities—a Buddha, a bodhisattva, a teacher, a mountain ascetic, and even a Confucian official—to assist local audiences on their path to enlightenment.

Gandharan

This Standing Buddha (fig. 1) is one of the earliest images of Siddhartha. It depicts him as an enlightened one, wearing monastic garb (sanghati), holding its hem in his left hand. His topknot (ushnisha), a dot-like tuft of hair on the forehead (urna), and his elongated earlobes help identify this figure as Buddha. The missing right hand may have formed the “fear not” mudra. An appearance devoid of adornments affirms Siddhartha’s renouncing his royal status and worldly possessions.

Depicting Siddhartha in human form was a new trend in the first century CE. It was a departure from the older Indian tradition in which metaphorical symbols substituted for the human presence of Siddhartha: the Bodhi Tree represented enlightenment, the wheel Buddha’s teachings, etc.

This artistic shift coincides with the establishment of the Kushan Dynasty (30–375 CE), with its capital at Begram in Gandhara (today’s northern Pakistan). Gandhara is the easternmost area that the army of Alexander the Great conquered in 330 BCE. This led French scholar Alfred Foucher in 1905 to attribute the source of the anthropomorphic Buddha to Greek (Hellenistic) art—he named the trend “Greco-Buddhist art.” Gandharan buddhas’ stylistic similarities to Greek sculptures—including the Buddha’s European countenance with high bridged nose, wavey hair, and mustache; classic contrapposto (bodyweight on one leg while other relaxed); and a toga-like sanghati—helped his argument.

This theory of Western inception, naturally, did not sit well with scholars from the East. A counter-theory, proposed by Ananda Coomaraswamy in 1927, declared the Indian origin of the human-form Buddha. His investigation focused on the sculptures from Mathura, Kushan’s second capital in northern India and a well-established pre-Kushan artistic center.

Mathuran

The Seated Buddha (fig. 2) from Katra mound demonstrates the Mathuran sculpture style, carved on the local red sandstone. The Buddha’s perky appearance, with his round face and fleshy, ample torso, exhibits the region’s robust aesthetics, which go back to Mauryan-dynasty art (322–185 BCE). The youthful air of the Mathuran Buddha contrasts with the reticent mien of the Gandharan Buddha.

Iconographically, this statue is of the Buddha, who wears no jewelry, holds his hand in the “fear not” mudra, and bears wheel symbols on his palm and soles. But according to the donor’s inscription on the base of the throne, the image is of a bodhisattva. This confusion may derive from still developing iconography, or reflect a local tendency to envision Siddhartha as a bodhisattva.

Thai Theravada

A schism among Buddhist practitioners led to the formation of two major schools: the Theravada and Mahayana. The Theravada tradition, which spread throughout South and Southeast Asia, emphasizes the individual’s monastic path to enlightenment. This led to more images of Siddhartha as a monk than as a bodhisattva.

Artistically, Theravada buddhas follow the Indian sculptural style of the Gupta dynasty (320–c. 500), which fine-tuned the human Shakyamuni into more of a divinity. The copper statue of Buddha Preaching from Thailand (fig. 4) demonstrates how regional artists copied the Gupta prototypes—the serene face, perfectly aligned tufted hair, smooth but broad shoulders, tapered waist, straight legs, and smooth, near-transparent sanghati robe.

A special regional feature appears on the hands: each forms a ring with the thumb and index finger, raised to the chest. This mudra, called the vitarka (teaching wheel), modifies its Indian predecessor that positioned the hands asymmetrically with the right hand raised and the left hand resting on the lap. The parallel and symmetrical positioning of the wheels displays the regional characteristics specific to the Mon ethnic group’s Dvaravati Kindom in today’s central Thailand. The vitarka gesture symbolizes the Buddha’s teaching, as he is said to have “turned the dharma wheel” when he taught his first sermon. Incidentally, this hand gesture would later appear in images of Amida Buddha in Japan.

Chinese Mahayana

The first regime that supported Mahayana Buddhism in East Asia was the Northern Wei dynasty (386–535) in China. The stone carving Shakyamuni Buddha (fig. 3) at Longmen’s Binyang Cave demonstrates how Indian art became Chinese. Emperor Xuanwu ordered the cave constructed in honor of his parents, a Confucian filial act, and his heir, Emperor Xianming, completed it in 534.

The seated Buddha on a lion throne shares iconographic traits with the Mathuan Buddha but departs in overall appearance. The bulky and stiff Binyang Buddha and his company wear official Confucian ceremonial robes. This Shakyamuni takes a guise of a Confucian teacher to reach out to a wider Chinese audience.

Zen

As Mahayana Buddhism further divided, it established new branches. Zen Buddhism, originally Chan in China, attracted the elite military class in Kamakura and Kyoto in Japan. Zen’s emphasis on training and self-disciplining resonated among warriors. In such a milieu, Zen practitioners saw enlightenment not as a goal but a process.

Siddhartha Descending the Mountain (fig. 5) from Fukuzo-ji monastery depicts Siddhartha not as a buddha but as a human who perseveres through ordeals. It portrays Shakyamuni’s disappointment for not reaching enlightenment despite his ascetic training, a popular subject in Zen. His glass-inlaid eyes, a Kamakura-period artistic invention, indicates energy, while his hollow-cheeked face and exposed ribs reveals his austere asceticism.

Depicting the emaciated, ascetic Siddhartha has Kushan-dynasty precedents that portrayed Siddhartha as a meditating skeleton. Resorting to hyper-realistic mode, Kushan art reminds us of Siddhartha’s teaching of the middle path between the two extremes of indulgence and austerity.

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From cradle to grave, each individual contributes to the world’s narrative, acting out their unique part in the drama of life, until the curtain falls and the stage clears. At death, they leave empty-handed, taking nothing except karmic energy—wholesome or unwholesome—cultivated during their lifetime and then channeled into the next cycle of rebirth. Born without a penny, one also departs without a penny, raising the question: What is the purpose of our earthly visit?

Exploring the meaning of life involves delving into religion, philosophy, cosmology, and ethics. Life’s purpose can vary among individuals, but a common thread emerges: humanity’s pursuit of happiness. 

The Elusive Nature of Happiness

Happiness, an abstract concept, differs across cultures. In societies that value material comfort, many believe happiness stems from wealth, reputation, or power. Yet, achieving these does not guarantee lasting fulfillment. The poor, aspiring to financial security, may perceive the rich as perpetually happy. However, why then do so many billionaires feel unfulfilled?

Warren Buffett, a legendary investor and one of the globe’s wealthiest individuals, maintains a modest lifestyle relative to his fortune. He resides in a simple home in Omaha, Nebraska, which he purchased in the 1950s, and is known for his frugal habits and unassuming demeanor. Buffett often says his personal contentment is not derived from his wealth, but instead, it emanates from his love for his work and the relationships he cherishes with friends and family. His perspective challenges the common assumption that happiness is directly tied to wealth, highlighting that even immense financial success does not guarantee personal fulfillment.

Transitioning from a contemporary billionaire to a historical literary figure, the story of Leo Tolstoy offers a similar insight. The Russian author of War and Peace, Tolstoy enjoyed widespread fame and considerable wealth. Yet, as he disclosed in My Confession, he felt profoundly empty and miserable despite his success. In his final years, Tolstoy’s disillusionment grew so intense that he fled his home. His deteriorating health and increasing despondency ultimately led to his lonely death at a small rural railway station. Clearly, possessing wealth, reputation, or power does not inherently lead to happiness, and chasing them can have karmic repercussions. 

The situation is much the same for sensory stimulation. Some people believe that beauty for the eyes, pleasant sounds for the ears, and delightful tastes for the tongue will bring them happiness, but the pursuit of such pleasures can in fact be dangerously counterproductive, leading to distress rather than joy. These pursuits, focused on self-gratification, can further foster greed, anger, and delusion. Even if sensory pleasures provide satisfaction, the happiness is fleeting and superficial, often resulting in more trouble than it’s worth. The cycle of desire and frustration can leave one wondering why they ever pursued such temporal joys in the first place. 

From a worldly perspective, the desire to satisfy the senses is natural, and there is no harm if done in moderation. However, understanding that happiness does not arise from merely indulging the senses is crucial. Considering sensual pleasure as the ultimate life goal is misguided.

Cultivating the Mind: A Path to Lasting Happiness

People have diverse needs and hopes at various times and under different circumstances. Once these needs and hopes are met, they generally feel happy. For example, a little money can satisfy the urgent needs of someone who is penniless. For someone who is sick, a quick recovery is a blessing. And for a loving mother, seeing a rebellious son finally transform into a responsible and hardworking individual brings tremendous joy. However, this type of happiness is temporary. Once experienced, it soon dissipates. 

With a never-ending flow of needs and hopes, can someone be truly and forever satisfied? How, according to Buddhism, might one remain happy every day? The answer lies in maintaining a calm and pure mind. The question then arises: How can you keep your mind calm and pure? 

When adversity strikes and you feel angry or distressed, your mind is signaling that it is overwhelmed by greed, anger, or delusion. You may have lost your composure. You may have become disturbed, agitated, or depressed. In these moments, you might resort to lying, cursing, angry tirades, or even physical violence. Without self-reflection and the ability to exercise self-control, you risk further straying into confusion and obsessive compulsion. However, those who manage to maintain a calm and pure mind through mental stabilization and introspection, such as samatha and vipassana, remain impervious to extreme feelings of love or hate regardless of the circumstances. Consequently, they tend to lead lives filled with serenity, contentment, and peace.

Finding a Serene Abode Within

Generally, human beings strive for a happy life, and as we discussed above, cultivating the mind is essential to achieving happiness. Buddhism describes the world we currently inhabit as “saha,” a Sanskrit word meaning tolerable. This implies that while happiness exists in this world, it’s fleeting and transient, whereas pain and dissatisfaction are omnipresent and difficult to avoid. This is not a gloomy portrayal; it simply reflects the reality of human existence. Given these circumstances, the pursuit of mental and spiritual balance becomes essential. 

Balancing joy and suffering involves establishing self-awareness through meditation, cultivating compassion and loving-kindness, understanding the nature of impermanence, and engaging in meritorious actions and speech. Additionally, it’s critical to practice detachment from possessions and relationships—not to become indifferent, but to find an equilibrium where happiness does not depend on external factors. Mastering these practices enables us to navigate the vagaries of life with resilience and wisdom.

True happiness begins with thinking holistically about the truths of our existence and the universe. The buddhadharma illuminates a path that not only can help us navigate the external world but also leads us toward an internal sanctuary, a serene abode within the mind.

In light of the Buddha’s teachings, we might ask, what is it like to truly cultivate a peaceful abode for the mind that doesn’t attach to transient worldly concerns? The following verse, attributed to Zen master Wumen Huikai (1183–1260) explains this beautifully:

In spring, the bloom of myriad flowers, 
Autumn’s moon lights the quiet hours. 
Summer breezes soothe our sleep. 
Winter cloaks in snow so deep, 
With not a single worry to confine, 
The universe itself is wholly divine. 

“Not a single worry” is akin to “no attachment.” If we are free of worries, we enjoy the beauty of any season, and happiness is an everyday gift. 

The Zen adage “Every day is a good day” emerges as a profound reminder, encouraging us to recognize each day’s inherent value and beauty. True contentment lies not in material pursuits, but in appreciating each moment of our existence. We can recognize the opportunity within each day to engage in meaningful work for ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Enduring happiness stems from our internal journey toward self-awareness and mind cultivation. I encourage you to reflect on how these teachings can be applied in your own life as you traverse the complexities of modern existence and uncover a serene abode within.

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I am of the nature to age.
I am of the nature to become ill.
I am of the nature to die.
I will be separated and parted from all that is dear to me.
I am the heir to my actions.

While at Sati, and later as a volunteer at the Zen Hospice Project (now Zen Caregiving Project), I reflected silently on each line, feeling the emotions that arose with each statement while trying to remain as still as possible with the agitation. Reflecting on the five remembrances is a fact check, and this helped me become more authentic with people who were in their last days of living. Authenticity requires recognizing and releasing the culturally laden, death-denying strategies for making people (and myself) feel good about dying by reassuring them (and myself) they’d survive. Fact check: they were on an accelerated dying path, along with the other twenty-plus people in the hospital unit, and no royalty-minded, faultily constructed facade of immortality could obscure that reality.

In the Buddhist chaplaincy world, we remind ourselves that we are constantly in the state of dying. But in the broader culture of a booming cosmetics industry, we are constantly fooled into believing that if we have the means to secure a drink from the fountain of youth, we will never age, become ill, or die. Through our cultural investments in cosmetic obscuration and longevity, we are set up to experience devastating shock when we inevitably encounter illness and death.

How often should you reflect on the five remembrances? Whether a fact check in the form of the five remembrances is needed occasionally or frequently depends on how averse you are to facing the realities of aging, illness, and death. Living where we live, in this society, I would suggest engaging in this reflection practice at least monthly to counter the cultural illusions of permanence that lead to shock and despair when reality dawns.

The five remembrances can be written on an altar card and placed among the other precious altar items we will be parted from. They can be chanted on the full rotation of the moon to underscore the passing of time, perhaps as we recall Dogen’s exhortation: “Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken! Take heed, do not squander your life.”

Of course, a five remembrances practice need not be limited to a Buddhist context, for its truths are universal and can be contemplated as an important part of any spiritual path. Perhaps through this practice we can contribute to a culture where older people are honored, resources to care for the sick are more accessible, and we learn to say “goodbye” to the dying like we say “hello” to those being born—with deep appreciation for the gift of good health when we have it, the life stages of our aging, and our fleeting lives, without the shock and despair that prevent us from offering love and authentic care.

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Tell me, while I’m sweeping leaves till kingdom come, is it getting in the way of my life? Is it interfering with my life? Keeping me from my life? Only my imaginary life, that life of what-ifs and how-comes: the life I’m dreaming of.

At the moment that I’m raking leaves, at the moment I’m doing anything, it is my life, it is all of time, and it is all of me.

In the spring, the garden bursts to life and once again I see what time it is. It is time to weed. When I look up across the endless stretch of the job before me, I surely want to quit. But if I manage to regain my focus on what’s at hand I realize it’s just one weed. There’s always just one weed to do next. I do it weed by weed, and the weeds always show me how. I never finish.

Looking for greater meaning in life, some people think that housework is beneath them. I know that feeling well.

Looking for greater meaning in life, some people think that housework is beneath them. Cooking and cleaning are beneath them. I know that feeling well. Sometimes they seem so far beneath me that I can’t see the bottom. I can’t see the beginning or the end. Is there a point to doing the work that seems pointless? The work, with no visible end, no redeeming value, and no apparent urgency? Yes. It’s the wisdom of the ancient homemakers.

After Buddhism came to China, the Chan school replaced the tradition of itinerant alms-begging with communal living. It was practical, for one thing. And it was practice. Monastic training came to encompass all the work essential to everyday life—cleaning, cooking, and gardening—as well as meditation. For that reason we could well view the great Chinese masters as our progenitors in mindful homemaking, since many of their teachings point directly to the everyday chores we might rather high-mindedly neglect.

A monk asked Joshu, “All dharmas are reduced to oneness, but what is oneness reduced to?” Joshu said, “When I was in Seishu I made a hempen shirt. It weighed seven pounds.”

More than a thousand years have passed since Joshu gave that response, originating one of the many classic koans that recount his provocative teachings. To this day seekers are still struggling to find a way out of the shirt. What does it mean? What is he getting at? I don’t understand!

We don’t just struggle with a shirt in a Zen koan. We struggle with the shirts in our hampers. With the pants, the blouses, the sheets, and the underwear. Laundry presents a mountainous practice opportunity because it provokes a never-ending pile of egocentric resistance.

It’s not important to me. It’s tedious. I don’t like to do it!

The monk in this story is like the rest of us, seeking wisdom through intellectual inquiry.

The search for meaning robs our life of meaning, sending us back into our discursive minds while right in front of us the laundry piles up.

If we’re not careful, this is how we approach mindfulness: as an idea, one we rather like, to elevate our lives with special contemplative consideration, a method for making smarter choices and thereby assuring better outcomes. The problem is that the life before us is the only life we have. The search for meaning robs our life of meaning, sending us back into our discursive minds while right in front of us the laundry piles up.

In his commentary on this koan, the late teacher and translator Katsuki Sekida rinsed Joshu’s shirt clear of obfuscation. “Joshu’s words remind us of the keen sensibilities of people who lived in the days when things were made by hand. The seven pounds of hemp was woven into cloth and cut and sewn into a shirt. When Joshu put on his hempen shirt, he experienced a sensation that was the direct recognition of the shirt for what it was.”

The shirt, you see, is just a shirt. Feel the fabric, the weave, and the weight of seven pounds in your hands. The laundry is just the laundry. Pull it out of the hamper, sort by color and fabric, read the care instructions, and get on it with it. Transcending obstacles and overcoming preferences, we have an intimate encounter with our lives every time we do the wash. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but no one turns their nose up at a clean pair of socks.

“With only a change in perspective, the most ordinary things take on inexpressible beauty. When we don’t know, we don’t judge. And when we don’t judge, we see things in a different light. That is the light of our awareness, unfiltered by intellectual understanding, rumination, or evaluation. When we cultivate nondistracted awareness as a formal practice, we call it meditation. When we cultivate it in our home life, we call it the laundry, the kitchen, or the yard—all the places and the ways to live mindfully by attending without distraction to whatever appears before us. But it’s hard for us to believe that attention is all there is to it, and so we complicate things with our judgment—debasing the ordinary as insignificant and idealizing the spiritual as unattainable—never seeing that the two are one.

A monk said to Joshu, “I have just entered the monastery. Please teach me.” “Have you eaten your rice porridge?” asked Joshu. “Yes, I have,” replied the monk. “Then you had better wash your bowl,” said Joshu.

This famous koan is easy to view as a metaphor. Empty your mind and get rid of your notions of spiritual attainment. But suppose you don’t view the bowl as a metaphor? That might change the way you look at the dishes in your kitchen sink and instruct you just as thoroughly.

The kitchen is not only the heart of a home, it can also be the heart of a mindfulness practice. In cooking and cleaning, we move beyond ourselves and into compassionate care of everything and everyone around us.

Eating is our sole essential consumption and cooking is our one common charity, so you’d think its purpose would be obvious. Yet with a critical eye to the value of time and what we judge to be our higher talents, meal preparation may seldom seem worth it. Cooking for two? Not worth it. Filling the fridge? Not worth it. Sitting to dine? Not worth it. Cleaning up after? Not worth it.

In cooking and cleaning, we move beyond ourselves and into compassionate care of everything and everyone around us.

Nothing is worth the measure we give it, because worth doesn’t really exist. It is a figment of our judging minds, an imaginary yardstick to measure the imaginary value of imaginary distinctions, and one more way we withhold ourselves from the whole enchilada of life that lies before us.

If nothing is worth it, why cook? Why shop and chop, boil and toil and clean up after? To engage yourself in the marvel of your own being. To see the priceless in the worthless. To find complete fulfillment in being unfilled. And to eat something other than your own inflated self-importance. That’s what we empty when we empty the bowl, and a busy kitchen gives us the chance to empty ourselves many times a day.

A monk asked Joshu, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?” Joshu said, “The oak tree in the garden.” Enough about laundry and dishes, you might be thinking, what about the deep spiritual questions? Why do the great mystics strive so diligently for enlightenment if it has no more depth than what’s found in ordinary housework?

See beyond your house, Joshu answers, beyond the delusion of a separate self trapped by the false perception of what is inside and what is outside. This is true mindfulness: not the narrow boundaries of our conceptual abode, but the phenomenal world of the awakened mind. Joshu tells us to open our eyes and awaken in our own backyard.

Once again, Sekida prunes the intellectual interpretation that can obscure our clear sight. “There were many giant oaks in the garden of Joshu’s temple. We can well imagine that Joshu himself was personally familiar with every tree, stone, flower, weed, and clump of moss—as intimately acquainted as if they were his own relatives.”

Where is the place you know as well as your own family? Indeed, that is as proximate as yourself? It is the place where you are at ease with a full load, fulfilled by an empty sink, telling time by the leaves and weeds: making yourself mindfully at home in the home you never leave.

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My tendency to compare continued even when my eyes were closed, with the exception of brief moments of noticing my breath. With my eyes closed, my mind would become filled with thoughts comparing myself to other people in my life. I would think of one of my coworkers who was more successful than me. I thought of another who was not very good at some things, feeling thankful I wasn’t like him. I thought of another acquaintance who was very confident, wishing I could be more like her. When my mind was idle with nothing to distract it, I was incredibly surprised to learn that it often went straight to comparison.

I’d spent my life comparing myself to others, yet I couldn’t understand that I didn’t have a unique, separate and unchanging self.

When I returned from the retreat, I began to look at how my comparing mind shows up in my daily life. The situation was dire. I realized my tendency to compare was responsible for my inner fluctuations. At first, I attributed my comparisons to my lack of self-confidence. If I was good enough, I thought, I wouldn’t feel the need to compare myself to other people. When I played this game of comparison, I often found others to be more successful and better than me. I tried to do whatever it took to be better, especially at my job. Over time I realized that there was always going to be someone better out there. Trying to be the best was a strenuous effort — and one made in vain.

I learned to compare myself to others early in my life. As a young girl from the Middle East, I never fit into the stereotypes of how a girl “should” be. I wasn’t shy or submissive, which was enough for me to be compared with others in a negative way. For a while, I worked with a therapist to ease the burden of my comparing mind. I kept asking “When will I be a confident person and stop comparing myself to others?” The answer was always “with time and patience.”

With that time and patience, I was able to connect some root causes of my behaviors to my childhood experiences, but this didn’t increase my self-confidence, nor did it make me compare myself to others any less. I needed a better solution, and so I turned to the dharma.

When I did, I learned that the Buddha taught that the core of human suffering is ignorance, including our false view of a real self. In essence, there is a separate self being compared to others. I thought I was stuck in comparison because I saw myself as inferior to others. I was so sure that I was the problem, but the Buddha’s message of no-self tells us there isn’t a problem with you because there is no such thing as you. The problem lies in the human mind, which thinks there is a separate, fixed, and unchanging self to be compared with others.

This perspective was radical for me. I’d spent my life comparing myself to others, yet I couldn’t understand that I didn’t have a unique, separate and unchanging self. Luckily, the Buddha developed a system to relieve the pain caused by this misunderstanding: meditation. Mindfulness and concentration practice has allowed me to become more aware of my urge to compare. Over time, I’ve gotten to know the folds of my mind that like to compare one breath to the previous breath.

Knowing that this state of mind is not unique to me, knowing that there was no “problem” with me has been the greatest gift of this path. According to the dharma, the true nature of the mind is pristine and clear. There is hope to return to this true nature. With time, patience, mindfulness, and equanimity, I’ve begun to find the freedom I sought in the back of the meditation hall.

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I was born in 1980 in South Korea, the youngest of three children. We didn’t have any religious practices at home, but ethics and virtues, such as kindness, perseverance, and honesty, were very much emphasized by my parents.

In high school, at the invitation of a friend, I attended a Won Buddhist youth service for the first time. In the beginning, I thought of it as a fun social gathering, but later I found deeper meaning in dharma practice.

In 1998, I, with a group of close friends, entered monastic training to be ordained. At that time, most people around me thought that I would be the first to quit. So did I. But while most of my friends changed paths, I have not yet found any reason to leave the practice.

In 2008, after ten years of training, I was fully ordained and became a minister at the Manhattan Won Buddhist Temple. Besides my lovely temple community, I’m involved with various religious NGOs at the United Nations and serve as the Buddhist chaplain at Columbia and NYU. I’m very grateful to have all these opportunities to share the buddhadharma.

What is your practice tradition?
Won Buddhism. Won in Korean means “circle” and symbolizes ultimate reality and our buddhanature.

What is your current or next project?
Ongoing practice—a primary and lifelong project.

Favorite meditation practice?
My favorite meditation practice here in NYC is loving-kindness meditation. Every time I hear ambulance sirens, I wish whoever is involved in the situation to be safe, well, and at ease.

What dharma books do you recommend?
The Scriptures of Won Buddhism and The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic, by Gil Fronsdal.

Your favorite virtue?
Serenity. People respond differently to the same situation. This difference ultimately comes from a person’s state of mind.

Your chief characteristic?
Simplicity. With limited time and energy, I need to decide what matters most and do it. So I’ve been training myself to be focused and to let go of the unnecessary.

Your idea of happiness?
Being content with where I am now.

Your principal poison(s)?
Short temper. I’ve gotten much better, but still sometimes I can feel it inside, even if it’s not shown to others.

If not yourself, who would you be?
An enlightened one, in order to get a real sense of what it’s like to be enlightened.

Name three of your heroes.
Besides Buddhist teachers, Lao Tzu, Ryu Gwansun, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The natural talent you’d most like to have?
Musical talent. I’d perform before teaching dharma to get more attention.

Your favorite author?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Your favorite musician or group?
Kim Kwang Seok and Queen.

What’s for dinner?
I try not to eat dinner these days, but if I do eat, I will eat anything available in the kitchen.

A motto that represents you?
A life of gratitude.

Guilty pleasure?
Listening to rap songs. Since English is my second language, I don’t get all the fast lyrics and slang, but the energy of the music lets me connect with strong, aggressive emotions that I normally don’t connect with. I like the beat.

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Too often we feel that eating is something to get over quickly while we multitask. We eat while talking on the phone or working on the computer. It is the simplicity of just that we need to turn toward.

This moment is the only place where we are alive. Our original buddhanature, our natural mind, is not in some other place or some other time. It is, as the Shangpa tradition of Tibet says, “So close you can’t see it, so simple you can’t believe it.”

The more time we spend in moments of alive-ness, the greater ease and satisfaction we will experience in our lives. Mindful eating gives us many opportunities to be fully present and experience the liveliness that constantly arises in the vast field of open awareness.

In mindful eating, we deliberately direct our full awareness to that liveliness, in the form of the bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions that arise and disappear as we eat. Most important, we do this without criticism or judgement. We bring clear attention and curiosity to the colors and shapes of our food (as if appreciating a work of art), to the changing fragrances and flavors, to the textures and even the sounds of our food.

Eating can be a dharma gate, because when we are truly present with anything we open the gate to Great Presence, which is an inexhaustible source of true nourishment. Here are five steps you can take to practice mindful eating during every meal.

1. Begin with Gratitude

Begin your meal with a traditional grace, perhaps one from childhood. Or you can take a few silent moments to call to mind all the people (farmers, packagers, grocers, checkout people) and other life forms (insects, bees, earthworms) whose life energy has contributed to the food you are about to eat.

Visualize them all gathered at your table and thank them. Research shows that a small ceremony before eating helps us eat more mindfully and in appropriate amounts.

2. Be Kind to Your Stomach

Too often we live at a distance from our bodies and ignore the teachings they offer us in every moment. Before you take your first servings of food, bring your attention to your stomach. How much volume would it be comfortable working with? One cup? Two cups? Three cups?

Serve yourself two-thirds of that amount to begin. After you have eaten it, check in with your stomach again. How full is it? The tongue may say it wants more tastes, but does the stomach really want more volume to work with? We can learn to make such daily life decisions not from desire or compulsion but from overarching awareness. Awareness brings choice, and choice brings freedom.

3. Take Mindful First Bites

Take a few minutes to savor the first few bites of food or sips of liquid. It helps to close your eyes and bring full awareness into your mouth. Pay attention to changing flavors, temperatures, and textures. Halfway through the meal, pause and have something to drink in order to refresh your palate. Pauses like this enable you to savor the freshness of more “first few bites.”

4. Slow Down

It takes twenty minutes for satiety hormones to be released and reach the brain, signaling that we have had enough to eat. Slowing down can help us eat more appropriately and expose our conditioned habits.

Try eating with your non-dominant hand. It’s fun and funny. Or try putting down the utensils between bites. Don’t take another bite until the first bite is fully chewed, enjoyed, and swallowed. If you want to eat less and enjoy it more, slow down.

5. Feed the Multitude Within

There are more living organisms in your gut than there are human cells in your body. This “second genome” of 100 trillion beings is involved in many aspects of our health, including immune function, excess weight gain, heart health, and even mental health. (Note: the helpful bacteria thrive on “real food,” not processed food.)

So after you eat, bring your awareness to the universe of tiny beings within your belly. Send them loving-kindness and a wish for their good health and continuing support of your body, heart, and mind.

Finally, widen the field of loving-kindness with the prayer “May all beings be equally well nourished, both with food and drink and also with the most satisfying food—the food of dharma.”

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As the disciple lay there terribly ill, he looked toward his teacher for reassuring words of comfort, only to have him say, “You’ll either get better, or you’ll die.”

The teacher had cut straight to the heart of the matter; essentially saying: This is what’s true and I refuse to delude you into believing otherwise. Of course, the teacher knew his disciple well enough to know he could handle such a direct understanding, but I’ve found that getting the occasional heavy dose of reality can wake us up, guide us toward an authentic way of relating to life, maximize well-being, and minimize suffering. 

If it weren’t for the heavenly messengers — real-life visions of aging, sickness, and death, from which he’d long been sheltered — shattering the Buddha-to-be’s limited view of reality, he would’ve never sought freedom, and we wouldn’t have his teachings today. Sometimes all we need is a heavy dose of truth to help push us in a new direction and to find out what’s truly important. 

Our views create our reality. 

How we choose to see the world determines how we live and act within it, and unfortunately more often than not our views are distorted and not in line with how things are. This gap between reality and our misperceptions of it can generate a lifetime of unnecessary suffering, stress, and sorrow. 

Take, for example, the view that we should be happy all the time; that life ought to always feel good. When we hold this view, we see happy moments as positive, successful, or as a sign telling us we’re doing something right. Life is going according to our plan and we believe this is how it should always be. Likewise, when things are going bad, we feel like something is wrong, or that we’re being punished. It can feel like the universe is out to get us and we suffer tremendously.

But if we truly understood the truth of impermanence, and that life will inevitably have its pains and difficulties, then we’d understand that sometimes we’ll feel good, and sometimes not. We wouldn’t have all the unnecessary suffering that comes with trying to hold onto the pleasant and pushing away the unpleasant. We could simply enjoy the good times when they arrive and learn to let them go when they change, as they surely will. We could also better endure the bad times, knowing that they too will pass. We could experience our lives, regardless of the flavor of the moment, just the way they are without getting thrown off balance or being limited by our conditioned reactions.  

When we see life as it is, we see that it’s impossible to find freedom and peace if we’re caught up in a wrong view. We also understand that how we view things affects every part of our lives, so by shifting our views we can directly affect not only how we feel, but more importantly how we choose to live. 

When our views don’t match reality, it can be like banging our heads against the wall — hoping things were otherwise, while wondering why our heads hurt so much. I’m reminded of my favorite secular explanation of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths:

• Shit happens;
• We make it worse;
• We don’t have to;
• There’s a path not to.

Coincidentally, the Buddhist “path not to,” aka the Eightfold Path, also begins with committing to Wise, or Right, Views. Let’s start with the first view: 

Freedom and change ARE possible.

The good news this view offers is that, yes, you can change. Modern neuroscience has proven that you can alter the neural makeup of your brain by how you pay attention and respond to what’s arising. This is called neuroplasticity. Put simply: the way you relate to your life moment-by-moment matters, and where you find yourself today is simply the result of what you’ve been doing up until this point. Just like with anything in life, what you practice at and do repeatedly, often you get better at. What might you have been practicing? Letting go? Patience? Worry? Aversion? Anxiety? Addictive craving? 

Freedom and change ARE possible, and if you don’t believe that, you will likely find yourself stuck with the same patterns, behaviors, and ways of being that led you to be stuck. It’s an unwise, or wrong, view. But once you believe that it’s possible to change, you’ve already planted the seed to make it happen; you’ve allowed that possibility to become a reality.

So if you don’t like the results you’re getting with how you’re currently living, then maybe that’s a cue to start doing things differently. Or as one Buddhist lojong, or “mind training,” slogan puts it, Don’t be so predictable! 

So if freedom and change are possible, why do most of us continue to stay stuck? Why aren’t we all practicing ways of being that lead to peace and well-being? The answer is our conditioned, unconscious, deeply ingrained behavior patterns, many of which developed during childhood. As children we learned how to be in the world through our relationships with our parents and siblings. We also quickly figured out which emotions were preferred or allowed and which ones weren’t, dissociating from what wasn’t tolerated and clinging to and maintaining what was. We also created habits to avoid or keep us safe from feelings and situations that might have been too overwhelming for us. 

These habits, which typically are modes of escaping our lives, become solidified early on and become who we think we are. (Key word: think.) Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck used to call it “the substitute life.” An example of these patterns of the substitute life could be seeking attention due to an older sibling getting more attention than you, or a persistent yearning for approval due to highly critical parents. Or it could be the result of trauma and loss, or a manifestation of other unmet needs. Regardless of what causes them, we all have patterns we act out (or better put, that act us out) unconsciously and that cause us to react in familiar, predictable ways and which become especially prevalent when we encounter discomfort. 

These behaviors usually end up defining who we think we are and become the lens through which we see the world. They may have served a purpose in the past or kept us safe at some point, but even if we’ve outgrown them, we can cling to them out of desperation and familiarity. 

The view that freedom and change are possible reminds us that we needn’t be limited by our conditioning, and can instead, with wisdom, practice, and understanding, respond freely and appropriately to present circumstances. Jack Kornfield often says, “Suffering is not the end of the story,” and he’s right, it doesn’t have to be. There’s a freedom that’s available right now that we can rest in. From that place of freedom, we can reprogram how we meet our lives. Our unwholesome patterns, difficult feelings, and limiting storylines don’t have to define us. They are our substitute life and aren’t who we really are. 

But you need to experience this truth for yourself. The good news is you’re already free right now to see this. You don’t have to complete ten years of therapy or do thousands of hours of meditation to become free. 

You may be thinking it can’t be that easy. How could I possibly change after years and years of conditioning? I don’t feel free at all! Try this simple exercise: 

• Take a moment to pause. 
• Close your eyes and simply notice what’s going on in your mind. See if it’s calm or busy, focused or restless, wandering in the past or future or present with the experience of the moment. Notice how effortless it is for you to be aware of what’s happening in your mind. 
• As thoughts arise, give them a label and let them be. If a worried thought arises simply label it, “a worried thought.” If your mind is completely restless just say to yourself, “A restless mind is like this.” Honestly label every thought as it arises and observe them all as they come and go. 
• Watch the flow of thoughts in this way for a few minutes. Then, open your eyes. 

This short exercise shows that awareness is possible right now. And if we can be aware of our awareness, then we know we always have a choice: to either follow our thoughts, emotions, or moods — or let them go and respond differently. 

The ability to change habits of mind is a great tool and learning to let go of unhelpful states while cultivating helpful ones is a large part of this view. And it’s possible to take this view of freedom to an even deeper level. Rather than merely changing our unskillful habits we can use this view to begin uprooting their very causes so they no longer arise. To understand this level of freedom we need to gain a wise view of our sense of self. 

The “Three Marks of Existence”

In Buddhism, not understanding who we are is called ignorance, denoting an innocent misunderstanding of reality and mistaken sense of identity: that we have a solid, separate self. Helpful in comprehending all this is the Buddhist notion of the “three marks of existence.” These three marks are the basic characteristics shared by every single thing in the entire universe. They are:

• Anicca, or impermanence
• Dukkha, often translated as suffering but perhaps best understood here as a pervasive sense of unsatisfactoriness
• Anatta, or non-self, also known as interdependence 

Together, these offer us a skillful way to see through the delusions of ignorance; a strategy to release grasping which ultimately reduces our suffering. Let’s explore them.

The first mark of existence is the truth of impermanence —  an obvious truth of life, and central to Buddhist thought. In the Dhammapada the Buddha says, “Better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall of things than to live a hundred years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things.” 

As the saying goes, the only unchanging law in the universe is that everything changes. Understanding the fluid, flowing nature of reality can not only help us loosen our grip but can also give us deeper insights into the nature of self. 

When asked the question, Who are you?, most of us would identify with our bodies, emotions, and the content of our minds. But is this true? When we really investigate it, we see that everything that we take to be “who we are” is constantly changing. Yet we talk about ourselves as if it weren’t. We tend to grab on to these fleeting experiences of life, taking them personally and labeling them as “me” or “mine” — without really looking to see if that’s the case. Yet, all day long there are sensations, thoughts, moods, emotions, sights, sounds, tastes, and smells arising and falling away. If these were “who you truly were,” wouldn’t you disappear when they did? (How many thoughts, emotions, desires, sensations, and moods have you experienced in your life? How many have lasted?) 

You may be wondering how this understanding leads to freedom. As we begin to understand our impermanence, and our ignorance, we can bring more ease to the suffering of life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been caught in frustration over something or someone, and just the simple reminder that this is an impersonal, impermanent reaction helps me relax into the situation and respond more appropriately and skillfully. More often than not, I’m able to be with any aversion or rage until things cool down, which they always do.

This ability to stay with what is, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, and realize that the experience is not as solid, personal, and unchanging as may seem, is what leads us to freedom. It allows us to soften into the moment and rest in an inner spaciousness that can hold the experience until it changes. 

It can be difficult. Sometimes it can feel as if you are sitting in the center of a raging fire. But as T.S. Eliot once said, we are “to be redeemed from fire by fire.” Or to quote Jack Kornfield again: “Go ahead, light your candles and burn your incense and ring your bells and call out to God, but watch out, because God will come and He will put you on His anvil and fire up His forge and beat you and beat you until He turns brass into pure gold.”

By simply pausing and seeing your reactivity as “not-me” or “not-mine” as the Buddha instructed his followers, you begin to experience what it’s like to step out of me-world into a vast spaciousness of freedom. Me-world thrives on wanting things to work out a certain way. Our reactivity is literally the mind, rooted in this illusion of a solid self, trying to have things go its own way. But the Buddha offered a different path, one free from the grips of ignorance and reactivity, and the good news is, you too, can experience this freedom.

The second mark of existence, dukkha, is typically understood as “suffering.” But again, it might better to think of it as dissatisfaction. Because all things are impermanent, nothing is reliable; there are no guarantees and nothing in this world can ever truly satisfy or fulfill us. If we try to grasp on to that which is ungraspable, suffering follows. 

We could spend our whole lives trying to maintain certain situations or feelings, or hoping our friends and partners stay exactly the same, but it will be to no avail. All these will change. But through understanding the impermanent, unreliable nature of things we’re cultivating a wiser relationship to how life actually is. When happiness comes, we’re able to fully embrace and enjoy it, and we’re able to let it go and embrace and appreciate the next moment, regardless of its flavor. 

The third and final mark of existence, no-self, can be a most complex teaching, and quite transformative as you realize it more and more deeply. 

I think what’s most important to understand with this mark of existence is that suffering and reactivity are rooted in our sense of self, and if we’re able to see the content of our body and mind without any self behind them — “not-me” or “not-mine” — we will grasp less and less at them, in turn reducing the cause of our suffering. 

As said above, I relate to this mark of existence as less of a metaphysical truth about reality and more of a practice in letting go. It’s not that we don’t exist, but rather, we don’t exist the way we think we do, and when we hold on to the changing content of our experience — that which is impersonal and impermanent — we suffer more.

Rather than “no-self,” I often translate this mark of existence as “interdependence.” In other words, our sense of self is a bunch of different causes and conditions constantly interacting and changing. Our idea of who we are is made up of interdependent elements that aren’t really us at all. 

There’s nothing (including us) in the universe that exists independently on its own. A single blade of grass may, for example, seem to. But, upon real investigation we see that it needs soil, nutrients, water, a planet with an atmosphere, a sun to bring it light and warmth, and on and on and on. 

You and I are no different than that blade of grass. Everything that makes up who we think we are: body, feelings, thoughts, emotions, etc., are all conditioned and are dependent on other conditions (each having their own causes and conditions) to exist. 

Through our meditation practice our minds get more and more still, and this assists us in having deep experiences of our interconnected nature.

As we become more aware of the true nature of our experience and see for ourselves how grasping causes suffering, we begin to see that who we think we are is a very convincing illusion, and how this hewing to our misunderstandings of reality makes our life so much more painful and difficult. 

All This is About Your Freedom

Freedom isn’t some distant prize after years of Buddhist practice. It exists here and now, right in the middle of the messiness of everyday life. We could even say that freedom is who we — you! — already are at the deepest level. We can change our lives because of this freedom — as long as we’re willing to pay attention and willing to rest and live from this place of freedom. 

Can we — Can you? Can I? — be courageous enough to open to life exactly as it is, and use that as a place of practice? Countless meditators before us prove that we can. I wish you well on your journey.

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1. Rest for a few minutes in open presence.

2. Turn your attention to an object on which you’ve chosen to focus. I advise using a physical object that is clear and transparent, like a glass.

Thoughts, feelings, and judgments about the object will almost inevitably arise: “This is pretty.” “This is ugly.” “This is—I don’t know—it’s just a glass.” You may even wonder, as I did many years ago when I was first taught this practice, “Why am I doing this?” The point of the practice lies in the next step.

3. After focusing for a few moments on an object, turn your attention inward. Focus on awareness that perceives not only the object, but also the thoughts, feelings, judgments surrounding it.

As you do so, a very gentle experience of what many of my teachers called “awareness of being aware” emerges. You’ll begin to recognize that whatever you see, however you see it, is accompanied by emotional and cognitive residue—the stuff that remains from being a neglected child, a failure in the eyes of parents or teachers, the victim of a schoolyard bully.

When we turn our awareness inward, we begin to decompress the images we hold about ourselves and the world around us. In so doing, we begin to see how past experiences turn into present patterns. We glimpse the possibility of a connection between what we see and our capacity to see.

Adapted from Open Heart, Open Mind: A Guide to Inner Transformation by Tsoknyi Rinpoche with Eric Swanson. Published by Harmony, a division of Random House, Inc.

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I began my meditation practice in the Insight tradition. Then I went on to do Zen training at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in California and to practice monastically in Japan and Vietnam. Now, as a dharma heir in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, I place my trust in Soto Zen. That said, I continue to enjoy the deep silence of Insight practices and have completed Insight retreats in the U.S. and Thailand.

My primary teachers are Zenkei Blanche Hartman, Shosan Victoria Austin, and Gil Fronsdal. I’m also influenced by Sekkei Harada Roshi of the Zen monastery Hosshinji in Obama, Japan, and Ni Sư Thích Nữ Thuần Tuệ of the Zen monastery Trúc Lâm in Vietnam.

I’m a founding member of the Buddhists of Color, which was one of the few POC meditation groups in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s. I am always exploring ways to present teachings and practices to be more inclusive of systemic and social justice framing. I am dedicated to connecting people to our individual and collective agency.

What dharma books do you recommend?

Everyday Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck; The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh; Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki; The Six Perfections by Dale S. Wright.

Your favorite virtue?

Kindness is both my guide and often—in off-the-cuff interactions with strangers—my challenge.

Your chief characteristic?

Integrity.

Your principal poison?

Impatience.

Your idea of happiness?

Waves lapping at my feet and eating directly from nature.

Your idea of misery?

Feeling hopeless and having a lack of agency.

If not yourself, who would you be?

The ocean or a dolphin.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Swing-shift cookie and muffin baker. It was the swing-shift part that I didn’t like!

Name three of your heroes.

Mahatma Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Charlotte Joko Beck.

The natural talent you’d most like to have?

Singing.

Your favorite authors?

Gail Tsukiyama, bell hooks, and Ocean Vuong.

Your favorite musician or group?

Laura Mvula and 10,000 Maniacs.

Your favorite current TV show?

Gentleman Jack.

What’s for dinner?

Vegan bún bò huế or Beyond Burger.

Guilty pleasure?

Ice cream! (Vegan, of course.)

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