Jishō Perry, Rev. Master

When I first moved to Santa Barbara my neighbor gave me my first persimmon. I had not eaten one before. The first one I tried was bitterly astringent. I learned to wait for the fruit to ripen fully. I became a big fan of this fruit.

My neighbor came to learn meditation. When she moved to San Francisco, she was kind enough to rent us her house that was bigger than the little duplex I rented next door. It came with a beautifully mature persimmon tree. The tree was abundant. I was happy to share the bounty. Many people wanted me to share it with them. I was able to send or bring boxes of persimmons to Shasta Abbey every fall.

When I eventually moved back to Shasta Abbey, one of the things I missed most about Santa Barbara, besides the people, was the generous and wonderful persimmon tree. The Abbey had a lot of fruit trees, but no persimmons. One year I got permission to get a persimmon tree to plant at Shasta Abbey. The local nurseries did not stock them, but one was able to order me one. I planted it joyfully. I later learned that it takes eight years before it would bloom. One of the tree-loving monks came up to me this spring with the joyful news of buds blooming on the persimmon tree.

I read an article this spring about a Japanese man who came to Hawaii in the early part of the 20th Century. After he worked in the rubber trees he earned enough to buy 10 acres, sight unseen on the side of a volcano. He planted one half of his ten acres in persimmon trees. They have supported his family for over 100 years. In an article about his farm the writer referred in passing, to the “spiritual meaning” of persimmons. It struck a chord with me. I started to sit with the idea of the spiritual meaning of both the tree and it fruit. The tree requires patience before it produces fruit and the tree takes inedibly astringent fruit and transforms it into exquisitely sweet food. It is like Great Master Keizan. He got fed up with his temper, which he transformed into Compassion through his Buddhist training. The second Bodhisattva vow is: However inexhaustible the passions may be, I vow to transform them all. This is the transformation the persimmon manages to make with its fruit and with patience.

Generosity and patience are a necessary part of the process. In order to get the nourishment from the fruit, we have to wait for it to fully ripen. As with our training, the blossoming of our meditation requires years of practice even after understanding manifests. Some believe that our training just begins when the first kenshō opens the heart. And The Scripture of Great Wisdom suggests that there is no end to the training process: “going on, going on, always going on beyond, always becoming Buddha. Hail, Hail, Hail!”¹ Even the trees become Buddhas when we see how we are not separate from them.

A village grown old
not a single house
without a persimmon tree.²

    Basshō’s haiku reminds us that spiritual maturity comes with time and age. Dōgen says,

Within these Precepts dwell the Buddhas, enfolding all things within their unparalleled wisdom: there is no subject or object for any who dwell herein. All things, earth, trees, wooden posts, bricks, stones become Buddhas once this refuge is taken. From these Precepts comes forth such a wind and fire that all are driven into enlightenment when the flames are fanned by the Buddha’s influence: this is the merit of non-action and non-seeking: the awakening to True Wisdom.³

Trees can be seen as a symbol for generosity, frequently producing more fruit than a single family can consume in one season. Persimmons require patience in becoming mature enough to welcome their first bloom and in allowing the fruit to fully ripen, transforming the astringency into delicious sweetness. Transforming our old karma is a major part of the training process. We have much to learn here.

Trees are of course enormously generous in many ways, not just with fruit. Also, they are willing to give selflessly. Many of the things trees offer us can be appreciated only by killing them, however many things trees give simply by existing.

Notes

1. The Liturgy of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives for the Laity 1990 copyright P.T.N.H. Jiyu- Kennett, Shasta Abbey Press, Mt. Shasta CA 96067, p. 74.

2. Bashō, Matsuo, unknown source.

3. Shushōgi in Rev. Master P.T.N.H. Jiyu-Kennett, Zen is Eternal Life, 4^th ed,, rev. (Mount Shasta, California: Shasta Abbey Press, 1999) pp. 98-99.