I was thinking about what a friend had said (and hoping I was high…Neil Young) recently. He said he was worried he was just wasting the days. He questioned his self as he was thinking he was doing nothing productive.
Is he really into Zen and doesn’t know it? Thinking this as I’ve started reading, No Recipe by Edward Espe Brown. Cooking as a spiritual practice. It’s very enlightening. Being present and consciousness accepting what is: is.
Also, started rereading recipes from the Tassajara Recipe book, Favorites of the Guest Season. There are some great poems in that book:
When you cook, You are not working on food,
You are working on yourself,
You are working on others.”
Shunrya Suzuki-roshi
_________
WORKING ON HOW I WORK by Edward Espe Brown
I do this chore
Not just to get it
out of the way,
but as they way
to make real
Kind connected mind.
May I awaken to what
To these ingredients offer,
And may I awaken as best I can
Energy, warmth, imagination,
This offering of heart and hand.
Flash to the movie about the Germans going to Japan, Enlightenment Guaranteed https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177749/reviews This is my interpretation: 2 men are in Japan. They get lost in the city. The go into a bar and start drinking beer. Their bill is over the top as the drink of Japan is sake and run out of money. What they thought was a business card they took with them from the hotel in case they got lost was a brothel. They get tired and sleep in a bar. Somehow they end up at a Buddhist monastery far from the city. The Buddhists make them sweep in the morning and they don’t like it. (Reminds me of my Dad in teenage years when he made my sisters and I sweep the patio)They do this every day until they get up the nerve and courage to make their way back to the city. When they finally make it back to western civilization. They keep thinking about their journey and wondering if the monks are sweeping. They miss it.
That’s what I’ve been doing since I haven’t been working and realized this upon starting to read No Recipe. It’s the BE HERE NOW for cooking.
Wow, man!
And to my friend, I don’t think you are wasting time. You are present in the moment. Be Here Now. You have lived that and maybe you forgot you were. you are one of the few people I know that would understand that comment.
