Integrating the Practice

Integrating the practice of zen-cuisine into our daily lives takes its own time. The process opens as it will, and simply can't be rushed, no matter how much we wish it could.Like all spiritual endeavors, the journey to balance and wholeness does not unfold in a linear fashion. It spirals out of and around itself.  Sometimes the process seems endless, full of discomfort and resistance, wrought with anxiety and fearfulness. But at the same time, we recognize an underlying matrix of connectedness, an Awareness pulling us deeper into understanding our practice of zen-cuisine. There is a tender yet humbling Presence which invites us to contemplate ourselves and our relationship to the art of cooking. We  remember our constructive intentions and heartfelt determination to manifest mature spirituality--to be truly ourselves. We open  to what Dr. John Kabat-Zinn calls, "full catastrophe living".

Given the nature of life and time and space, we can't say when we'll reach this place. All we can say is that we know, inevitably, we will get there. This patient and gentle practice of zen-cuisine gradually opens us to the infinitely fluid and ever-changing possibilities of nurturing ourselves and others with wholesome, good food, mindfully prepared with love. Practicing zen-cuisine, we come into the balance and ease of our own true nature.