What Is This?

Preparing good food is intimately related to the most basic elements of our experience as human beings: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, thinking, feeling.  No matter what is happening as we make a meal, it's an opportunity to practice inquiring deeply.  It is a chance to know what we are experiencing, right here, right now, in the present moment.  Usually we go into the kitchen entirely caught up in thinking about so many things other than food.  It's as if we're living in our heads.  We feel like we really exist 'up there' somewhere vaguely behind the eyes. And yet, we sense we have the potential to be more fully alive, to be aware, and open to experiencing so much more in life.  Zen-cuisine is a doorway to awakening into a more mindful, content way of being.  What is this?  Looking at the pale blue ceramic plate of  ichiki kuri squash & red pepper sushi on this bright crimson tray, we see colors, shapes, and forms.  We notice how sensations and thoughts occur.  Experience arises.

The plate of sushi that we seem to see 'out there', neuroscience tells us is really 'in here' -- a process of the brain.  What is this?  What is this plate of sushi that can be called 'outside' and 'inside' the brain?  What is unfolding in this present moment?  We pause, and take a deep breath, and try to get a sense of the body, and its parts. Our eyes, our noses, our fingers, our senses of smell, taste, and touch are all alive with their own feeling and knowing.  We become mindful and still.  We interpenetrate and touch this wisdom of awareness itself.  We have the potential to wake up to everything inside and outside.  

When we bring our mind and body together in this present moment, we are aware. Becoming aware, we wake up to how boundless, vast and full of infinite possibilities preparing a meal can be. Can we use the experience of  zen-cuisine to open our eyes to the world around us?  We can be inspired by zen-cuisine, and deeply touch the ordinary, yet extraordinary, beauty and joy that awaits us in preparing good food...

For recipe for Ichiki Kuri Squash Sushi:

visit juicyfood blog. 
 http://juicyfoods.blogspot.com/