As Buddhists we like to think we are ‘aware’ of our interconnectedness and interdependence with one another and the environment. We may even think we are good at reducing waste, reusing what we already have and recycling the rest.
As a child I remember my maternal grandmother rinsing rice before cooking it. She was careful that not a grain was lost. I always put this to her experience as a survivor of The Genocide where it was a matter of life or death to find enough food to insure the survival of her family.
But are we that ‘aware’ without having bullets or bayonets aimed at our backs? According to statistics, a major source of landfill in the United States is food waste. So I decided on an experiment, how much waste did I actually generate for a meal that includes rice?
Lots!
I kept track of grocery store bags, the tofu carton, plastic bags the veggies were sorted into, cash register receipts, paper towels used, carrot tops and onion peels thrown away, the safety seals inside and outside containers… you get the picture. Then there were the bits of food left over in cooking pots, pans, utensils, serving bowls, dinner plates, forks, spoons and paper napkins.
The most difficult part was the rice. No matter how hard I tried grains of rice kept getting wasted. And this waste happened even with my effort to minimize it. Take an ordinary day, after work, or rushing to the next thing, with our minds elsewhere – maybe this is the reason food is a major source of landfill.
Mottainai is a word many of us don’t know, it expresses the philosophy of not wasting. Mottainai originated from the Buddhist concept that regrets the waste or misuse of respected items. Today, it is a Japanese concept loosely understood as a sense of regret when something is wasted, needlessly – “what a waste.”
Even if one grain of rice is not consumed as food but lost to the disposal, we say mottainai, what a waste. Mottainai, from a Shin Buddhist perspective, reflects our interconnectedness and interdependence not only with one another, but with all life. It reflects the value we place on each item.
Will I solve global problems by not wasting a grain of rice? Probably not. But isn’t this an aspect of being “awakened” to the reality of life? A reality where we each make our choices and decisions that leave a legacy creating the causes and conditions that comes after?
To be embraced by the 18th Vow is to be accepted as we are, warts and all, wastefulness and all. And yet, isn’t it this very acceptance that opens our eyes to compassion and wisdom? For me it may be a grain of rice, for you, something altogether different. But we each have an awareness we can build on, an awareness of mottainai.
Namo Amida Butsu.
In Gassho,
Rev. Anita
rev.anita.cbt@outlook.com
Note: Rice: over 500 million tons of rice was harvested in the 2020 season, a significant source of calories for most of the planet’s population. That number needs to grow by 70% by 2040 to feed the world at the same rate. This 70% increase needs to happen with less land, less water, less chemicals and less labor. www.jstor.org/stable/41146405).
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