The Sound Of Slicing Ginger

Rather than being about the contents of the moment, Zen-cuisine focuses our attention on the process of our experience.  We become concerned with the ‘how’ instead of the ‘what’.  As Zen Master Anzan Hoshin says, "experience never has an object."  Phenomena present themselves formlessly.  We perceive ever-changing shapes, patterns, colors and sounds.  Experience simply arises.  We mirror this with our minds, and move beyond concept, beyond name and gender.  We cast off our habitual behaviors and culturally-learned patterns, and enter directly into the Now.  Each moment’s arising simply is what it is. In today’s practice, we will use our ears and our ability to listen to sounds as we hear them to ground ourselves in the present moment.  

A  Hand of Ginger Root

 There is a bamboo cutting board and a piece of ginger root.  There is a body, and the body has a hand, and the hand is holding the ginger root, breathing in and breathing out.  Relax into the breath for a moment.  

Ceramic Knife Slicing Fresh Ginger

 Consciously move the attention from the breath to listening to the chopping sound.   Listen deeply with the whole body-mind .  Sensation arising, perception arising…a sound occurs and is experienced by the ear.  The knife slicing through the ginger root with a scrunch and clack is the sound of reality arising in the present moment.  As we hear the sound of ginger chopping, we observe sensations arising from the self.  How does this slicing sound feel in the body?  We feel  the place where the skin of the fingers touches the skin of the ginger root and relax in this sensation for a moment.  Is there an interface between sound inside and outside the body?   Now we move the primary focus of our attentive listening from the chopping sound of ginger root and ceramic knife to listening to all sounds that reach our ear-consciousness equally.  

Listening to the sounds of Zen-cuisine

 Open and expand awareness to include everything…the kitchen clock chugging slightly as a battery moves the hands around its big-numbered face; the hum of the freezing compartment of the fridge on a self-defrost cycle; the kettle beginning its ascent from low, baritone rumble to full-headed shrill steaming whistle.  Listen to this global chorus of sound with the whole body-mind.  It is life expressing the vast essence of sound itself. Listen to the sounds, and listen to the spaces between the sounds.  Can we realize the underlying quiet in the midst of sound, and feel this inner environment of listening and feeling in the body? 

Pungent Spicy Diced Ginger Root

Can Zen-cuisine be a practice encompassing the whole body-mind? Hear and feel the sound and the silence of the kitchen. Deepen mindfulness into clarity, and then open to that clarity with the wisdom of the present moment. Listen with careful attentiveness, and joy.

Did you know

Ginger Root is a tropical rhizome 

growen in Southeast Asia?

Did you know 

the philosopher Confucius wrote about ginger

as early as 500 BCE?