Thursday, February 7, 2008

Kitchen Buddhas

I am on a tear tonight, baking pan after pan of brownies. I'm using Katherine Hepburn's recipe, which is quick and easy, and always a crowd-pleaser. To some I've added cherries for a friend who loves Cherry Garcia ice cream. Some have walnuts. Some will be plain. These are Thank You So Much brownies, so the intention is as important as the chocolate.

There isn't much room for baking in this little studio, but a pie pan doubles as a brownie pan and a vegetable roasting pan and it works just fine. In my last home I had a big old kitchen with a door that opened to the backyard and to a larger field beyond. I did quite a bit of baking there. I found an entry from that kitchen recently in one of my cookbooks.

Honey-Graham Muffins June 19 2005 Made in a bread pan (9x5x3) ~ 50 minutes There were children in the field tonight as I baked. Running around with flashlights I could see flicker out beyond the backyard. They said their good nights after much pleading by their mothers to come inside. As I tasted the last of my breads, they went in. Blessed apparitions. Kitchen Buddha thank you.

I didn't know the neighbors yet: I was only a few months away from my marriage, city apartment, and friends. But I was holding on to some pieces of my previous life and that day was the third anniversary of my vegetarian practice. Each year in celebration I've bought a cookbook of some vegetarian cuisine. Those I love best are part travel, part culture, part food. In 2005 I found 3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery.

The particular monastery, the Dai Bosatsu Zendo in Livingston Manor, New York, has a second home on 67th Street and, in the lovely way that paths bend back on themselves, I was invited to spend New Year's Eve there this year, sitting zazen for the very first time.

I can't say that I recognized Zen from the cookbook - it had been a long time since I'd opened it. What actually prepared me for the string of five meditation sessions on New Year's Eve was from a different lineage, Shunryu Suzuki's book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I happened to have it on my bookshelf and grabbed it on my way to the train, thinking it would do in a pinch.

Some people will know Suzuki as the first major Zen teacher in America. He started the Zen Center in San Francisco in the early 1960's, and Greens Restaurant a little later on.

My copy of the book has a handwritten inscription from 1976 "J.P. - Moment after moment everyone comes out from nothingness. This is the true joy of life." Happy Birthday - Love, Linda. I don't know Linda, maybe you do.

Suzuki talks about sitting like a frog. A frog sits in a state of tranquil awareness so it can be ready to grab a passing insect. A frog doesn't think "Here I am sitting zazen - I am aware; I am tranquil". The frog just sits. And that is zazen.

So I sat like a frog. No, honestly I sat thinking about sitting like a frog, but also enjoying my great fortune to be sitting in the beautiful zendo on 67th Street. And when my mind wandered from the exquisite, hand-carved floor tiles immediately in front of me, and the caring stillness of the air around me, I quietly sent love and prayers to my family and friends celebrating the New Year across this country and others.

Sitting zazen may seem like an austere way to start the year, but the practice of meditation is so appreciative and robust, so life-affirming, that I was a little sad when the last session ended. After a midnight bell ceremony there was an exuberant meal - enormous platters of vegetarian sushi rolls, Japanese stews, sake, traditional New Year's noodles, all under a gigantic brass Buddha statue. It was wonderful.

It's getting late and pans of brownies are crowding my countertop. I'd put them outside to cool except for a couple of fat raccoons wintering in my yard on the harbor. And I'm really looking forward to delivering the brownies tomorrow and saying Thank you ever so much for your kindness. You've helped in ways you cannot know.