Katagiri’s Persimmon

Katagiri Roshi liked persimmons but may have enjoyed the persimmon most as a metaphor for spiritual development. 

I remembered this last week while grocery shopping. At my local supermarket I spotted a few lonely persimmons tucked between the grapes and the strawberries. 

I know persimmons well from eating many during my stay in Japan. They were on a very short list of fruits and vegetables served at the monastery. So I bought a couple and served a ripe one last night at the Dogen study group. Sweet, luscious texture, and slightly chalky aftertaste.

Roshi liked to say that spiritual maturity was like the persimmon, hanging unassumingly on a tree, and when finally becoming very ripe and soft, so ripe the stem itself dissolves and the persimmon falls to the ground, SPLAT!

Roshi would then lean back his head and laugh, often alone. “So we’re practicing to go splat?” I wondered to myself. 

I now nod and smile to myself … yes.