A Poem’s Lessons: Finding Awareness in Our Food

For the 2027 BCA Calendar, we are going to focus on the theme of “Buddhism and Poetry” and share some poems from our Shin Buddhist tradition and even some poems written by non-Shin Buddhists that reflect a Shin Buddhist teaching.  

I would like to share a short poem by a devout Shin Buddhist by the name of Muso Kimura. I learned about him from a book in Japanese written by Hideo Yonezawa that I translated, which the Orange County Buddhist Church’s Buddhist Education Center published with the title of “Awaken to your true self.” Hideo Yonezawa was also a devout lay person in Jodo Shinshu.  

Muso Kimura’s short poem goes as follows:

On the shelf of my kitchen sit

onions and radishes and carrots,

lined up, waiting for their turn backstage,

all for a foolish being like me.

It’s such a simple poem, but so profound and meaningful. In his simple home, he probably had on his shelf vegetables like onions, radishes and carrots like anyone would have in their kitchen or refrigerator. However, Muso Kimura poetically writes, that they are “lined up, waiting for their turn backstage, all for a foolish being like me.”  

Normally we don’t think about buying our groceries at the store. We purchase meat, fish, eggs, milk, vegetables and maybe even treat ourselves to a frozen pizza or ice cream. We pay for our groceries with our hard-earned money. We feel entitled to what we have purchased. If we get home and some of the veggies have a spoiled spot on them, we might even go back to the store and get a refund or exchange them. After all, we paid for them.  

Muso Kimura, instead, has the sense that those vegetables are all “waiting for their turn backstage” to be put into his stew or stir fry and to be consumed by himself. He even has the sense that those precious vegetables are all going to be giving their lives for a “foolish being like me.”  

Although he paid for his groceries with his hard-earned money, he doesn’t reflect a sense of entitlement that he deserves those groceries because he paid for them. On the contrary, he doesn’t feel deserving of the lives of those vegetables, who will be sacrificed “all for a foolish being like me.”  

It is this kind of awareness of life that Shin Buddhism is trying to awaken us to, so that we can truly live a life of gratitude. Yes, we should be grateful that we have a home and enough money to buy groceries at the store, but deeper than that, there is this sense of gratitude for the sacrifices of so many lives to sustain our own life. Do I deserve it? Am I worthy of such sacrifice? Can any of us say “yes” to that question? That is what leads Muso Kimura to regard himself as a foolish being.  

Maybe if we were a brilliant doctor who had discovered a cure for cancer, we might feel that we have the right to say, “Well, I think I am worthy of the lives of the plants and animals that I consume in life. After all, I discovered a cure for cancer that will save millions of lives.”  

But a Buddhist rebuttal to that statement might be, “Oh, you think you are deserving? Add up the lives of all the plants and animals that you have consumed in the course of your lifetime. Doesn’t it add up to millions? If it weren’t for those countless beings that nurtured your life all these years, you could never have become a doctor to find a cure for cancer.” 

It doesn’t matter what our occupation has been. We are all foolish beings who are not deserving of the sacrifices of so many.  

Such an awareness is not dark or gloomy. It is truth. It is reality. For Muso Kimura, it leads to a heart of gassho, Nembutsu and gratitude, as he lives his life daily, receiving the “onions, radishes and carrots, lined up waiting for their turn backstage.”