Master Dogen's 300 Koan Shobogenzo: Case 170
Any serious practitioner knows that spiritual nourishment is just as vital a human necessity as water, food, and shelter. In this discourse, John Daido Loori, Roshi, stresses the importance of feeding ourselves with what he calls "Dharma food" -- an antidote to the suffering caused by our fear, anxiety, and greed. These depleting elements lead us to separate from others and to become stuck in our differences, rather than experience our inherent unity -- the deep sense of intimacy that is the right of each one of us.

Exploring Master Seppo's koan on hunger and thirst, Abbot Loori once again reminds us of the relevance of practice as the most direct way to deal with our spiritual starvation, thus taking care both of ourselves as individuals and of the earth as a whole.

Volume 20 of the Mountain Light Video Library. DVD