​Zen Cooking

Life is What Happens in the Kitchen
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​The four aims of the process movement are to help us become whole persons, to help us create whole (just and compassionate) communities, to help us foster a whole (flourishing) planet with many forms of life, and to encourage us to adopt and enjoy holistic ways of thinking conducive to the first three hopes.  How to practice these hopes?  One way is through Zen cooking.

The Zen Cook
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"As those familiar with Dogen’s Instructions to the Tensho know, the cook is considered to be the most important person in the monastery because he is responsible for the welfare of all the other monks. Like Dogen, Roshi Tetsugen Glassman believes that one of the most useful metaphors for life is what happens in the kitchen. Indeed, Zen masters call a life that is lived fully and completely, with nothing held back, “the supreme meal.” So the “menu” of Glassman’s new book, which describes his vision and his work, is divided into the five main “courses” or aspects of life: spirituality, knowledge, livelihood, social action, and community. In it he draws upon Dogen’s precepts to tell the story of the Zen Center of New York and the Greyston mandala of businesses and not-for-profits, which seeks to integrate the economic, social, educational, and spiritual dimensions of each endeavor. Rick Fields, author of How the Swans Came to the Lake, is a contributing editor to Tricycle. Instructions to the Cook will be published by Bell Tower this spring.

"When [13th-century Zen master] Dogen asked the Zen cook in the Chinese temple why he didn’t have his assistants do the hard work of drying mushrooms in the hot sun, the cook said, “I am not other people.” In the same way, we have to realize that this life is the only life we have. It’s ours, right now. If we don’t do the cooking ourselves, we are throwing our life away. “Keep your eyes open,” Dogen instructs. “Wash the rice thoroughly, put it in the pot, light the fire, and cook it. There is an old saying that says, ‘See the pot as your own head, see the water as your lifeblood.’”

"When we cook—and live—with this kind of attention, the most ordinary acts and the humblest ingredients are revealed as they truly are. “Handle even a single leaf of a green in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha,” says Dogen. “This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.”

- Roshi Bernie Glassman and Rick Fields, Zen Instructions on Cooking, Tricycle

​If You Can't Meditate, Cook
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"If you find yourself similarly stuck (i.e. you want the benefits of meditation without actually having to meditate), rest assured there is a solution: therapeutic cooking. Basically, it's using the act of cooking for yourself as a mindful, meditative experience. And it's a viable meditation alternative, says Harry Ritter, MD, the founder and CEO of Alma, a co-working space for therapists.

"Meditation as a concept is this idea of taking time out of your day, shutting everything down, and withdrawing into yourself for a period of time," he says. There's nothing wrong with that per se (again, meditation has so many proven benefits), but the traditional practice of sitting on a pillow, not doing anything, and just focusing on breathing is a tall order for some people. With therapeutic cooking, Dr. Ritter says you can use the act of cooking as another opportunity to create that space for yourself—no culinary degree required. 

While any kind of cooking, baking, or creating in the kitchen will suffice, therapeutic cooking is not the same as your usual rush job putting together a smoothie in the morning. Dr. Ritter says that you should only be focusing on preparing food (following your recipe, etc.) without any outside distractions. You set aside time to do it like you set aside time to work out, he adds. This is not about working on the skill of cooking; it's about using the existing skills you have in order to create space for yourself." 

- Allie Flinn, Therapeutic Cooking Is Meditation for People Who Love to Eat (or Hate to Sit Still)

​If You Can Meditate, Cook.
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"If you've never been to a Zen-based cooking workshop before, the main difference from any other type of cooking class is that you cook without the use of any recipes, or things like timers and electronic aids. Instead, you watch the teacher demonstrate the technique and you are expected to carefully watch and sometimes help, forcing you to rely completely on your senses to learn. Also, you taste every layer of flavor or seasoning, discussing the qualities of it as it builds up to the final dish.

Learning this way—without taking any notes—may sound hard at first ,but it is easier to do after a meditation session earlier that morning, which is also common in a Zen cooking workshop.
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The other thing to know is that you do not throw away anything. If there is a tiny pinch of raw tart dough clinging to the cutting board, you scrape it off and add back to ball of dough. If there are a few shreds of kale that fell over the edge of the cutting board, you scrape that off add it back to the salad. This degree of thoughtfulness comes from Eihei Dogen's published instructions on cooking food on Tassajara Dinners and Desserts: "When steaming rice, regard the pot as your own head; when washing rice, know that the water is your own life." He was a 13th-century monk who is regarded as one of Zen's greatest teachers."
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- Javier Cabral, VICE: Why Cooking is the Best Way to Practice Zen Buddhism

​How to Cook Your Life

Directed by Doris Dorrie

A playful and enlightening documentary featuring Zen master and 
Edward Espe Brown with nourishing tips on food and paying attention.

Film Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Reposted from Spirituality and Practice

​In this playful and enlightening documentary by Doris Dorrie, Zen Master Edward Espe Brown says: "When you're cooking you're not just cooking, not just working on food, you are also working on yourself, on other people." Here we see him at his cooking classes at the Buddhist center Scheibbs in Austria and two California Buddhist centers, the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the Zen Center in San Francisco.

Brown helped run the enormously successful Greens restaurant and is the author of three well-loved books in Buddhist and natural foods circles: The Tassajara Bread Book, The Tassajara Recipe Book, and Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings. He was ordained in 1971 as a Zen priest by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind). His advice to Brown when he was starting to cook was:
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"When you wash the rice, wash the rice, when you cut the carrots, cut the carrots, when you stir the soup, stir the soup."

It is not lost on Brown that Zen meditation and cooking are intimately related with their emphasis on being present and paying close attention to what is happening. But giving 100 percent of ourselves while we are cooking is a spiritual practice that goes against the grain of this culture's emphasis on multitasking. Brown challenges us to see the unitasking of cutting carrots, making bread, and stirring ingredients of a recipe.

Cooking is about using the body and savoring the senses. Brown makes a good point that we seldom get to use our hands and keep them active in this convenience culture where 80 percent of people don't eat at home and don't cook. He has many wise and entertaining things to say about sharp knives and yeast and impenetrable packages. He conveys his enthusiasm for cooking and passes it on to a varied group of students of all ages. Dorrie divides the film into fascinating thematic sections which enable us to enjoy Brown's teachings while riding along on her imaginative jaunts: free your hands, fiasco, cutting through the confusion, anger, affluence, no preferences-no aversions, incomparable, imperfection and blemishes.
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There are many magic moments in How to Cook Your Life. One pertains to a homeless woman who creates her own meals by scavenging fruit from trees and leftovers from grocery stores. Another comes when Brown breaks into tears while gazing at some battered teapots which convey the good news to him that he can go on despite his imperfections. He admits that in the kitchen some of his personal flaws have come to the surface: namely anger, impatience, and arrogance. This wonderful collaboration of Brown and Dorrie results in a pleasant and edifying Zen experience.