Creating Harmonious Flow, Part 1

Zen-cuisine invites us to create harmony in life through cooking and nourishing ourselves in healthy ways.  Our calm and positive stability while preparing meals offers opportunities for growth to everyone touched by our food, and by our presence. We relax in the kitchen, becoming one with what is. We accept and appreciate life as it is unfolding in our awareness. In harmony with the flow of the present moment, we no longer need to be the center of everything that happens in the kitchen.  Looking deeply into our experience, we realize we are an organic part of the whole practice of nurturing health. We delight in placing our own and other peoples’ well-being at the heart of our awareness. 

To practice zen-cuisine’s mindful awareness, we enter our kitchen intending to create a harmonious flow of energy. Creating this life-enhancing environment is an opportunity to make meal preparation an act of joyful service. We focus on touching the present moment with compassion and vibrancy as we transform ingredients into a recipe, recipes into a meal, with confidence and care. We become more generous, less inclined to think about whether our hospitality interferes with our own personal desires and welfare. The practice of zen-cuisine points us to activities and circumstances that offer ways to benefit others.  It opens us to myriad possibilities for living life fully and well.

Practicing zen-cuisine, we stock the pantry with healthy food; we arrange clean dishes for practicality with an eye to beauty; we create an open and loving atmosphere that invites other people to share in this generous and accepting space.  We begin intentionally to cook foods that nourish our body, mind and spirit, and share the fruits of our wise effort with those we love. We explore new tastes, new textures, using foods we are unfamiliar with. We experiment with new methods of cooking, trying techniques we’ve never attempted before.  Perhaps we even sample a food we previously avoided for some reason, or didn’t care for. Although we may not come to like everything we experience, we are willing to experiment and open ourselves to change so that we might learn and grow.

We also find ourselves moving away from food choices that conflict with a healthy way of eating. We are more able and willing to give up a preference for a less healthy food in favor of choosing a more wholesome option. Zen-cuisine is not so much a practice of changing what we do as it is about seeing clearly and experiencing fully what’s going on with us and around us, and that naturally facilitates positive and kindly change. We explore different ways of nourishing ourselves, trusting in our inherent wisdom to discover true wellness and its causes. Slowly and gently the center of our cooking and eating experience shifts from a pre-occupation with us -- our likes and dislikes, our limited perspective -- to a more-expansive, spacious concern for life itself.  Happy cooking!

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