Our zen-cuisine practice is to attend completely to our experience in the kitchen. We simply are present with what is. We pay close attention to see what we are seeing, hear what we are hearing, touch what we are touching, feel what we are feeling, moment by moment.
We stand at the kitchen sink, running clean water over the pear we are about to make into a dessert. The body is right here, waiting to peel the pear, but the mind...the mind is rambling around in the orchard where the pears were grown. It's having an imaginary conversation with the clerk at the fruit stand check-out counter. Now it’s responding to compliments future dinner guests offer about the caramelized pear tart they’ve enjoyed before they've even tasted our food, or we've even prepared it. Running back to the past, or racing into the future, the mind is so seldom present for the task at hand. If we cut this pear without awareness, the body is here, but the mind wanders off on us. We are only partly present in the kitchen. If, instead, we pay attention our experiences in the moment, we bring the body and mind back together. Practicing zen-cuisine, we prepare meals with our whole being, our body-mind enfolded in awareness.
When we first begin to practice zen-cuisine, we pay attention to being present and aware in the here and now. Our breath can be a useful focus for generating this mindfulness. Since the breath comes and goes, like thoughts rising and falling in the mind, we can put our attention on the breath. We simply breathe, and are aware of our breathing. We don't need to make this practice complicated. We simply breathe the breath, in and out, easily and naturally. We neither get caught up in the process of breathing, nor do we get sidetracked with efforts to 'concentrate', or to 'do it right'. Simply breathe, and notice how the breath seems to deepen, and calm. The mind, we realize, mirrors the breath. Our breath comes and goes, and we experience connection and awareness, without separation. We interpenetrate the seamless aliveness of this vast, vibrant life.
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