okayu, ShoujinRyoori.

in Japan, monks of the soto school that live a monastic life eat a carefully prepared cuisine known as ShoujinRyoori (literally: devotion cuisine). okayu, rice soup, a staple of ShoujinRyoori, is comprised of water, rice, a small amount of salt, and sometimes a very small amount of soft cooked vegetable. okayu is more than just a vegetarian dish to be eaten as one would normally eat. this food is for the mind and body, intended for the emptying of ourselves, and the strengthening of practice in living a life of zazen, constantly settling, reverting to our true essence. this dish was revered  and taught by Dogen Zenji. a fundamental treasure for those practicing the way. he saw that the focused, careful and reverent preparation and consumption of food is vital to not only zen practice and to realising our true existence, but to living a human life. for that is what we are originally.  enlightened and capable of living a highly refined existence. in awareness of who and what we are.

Dogen encouraged his students to practice constantly emptying themselves and settle their minds. to let go of the conditioning towards selfishness. to practice zazen in each moment, in refined reverent activity. Dogen saw that what we are is in communion with all that is and all that exists inside and out. that all phenomena is our life, we are all things and all things support our lives. so when we cook, eat, chop wood, go to the toilet, we are experiencing this life, we are constantly interacting with and receiving support from this world. we actively create and experience our world through the senses. our detachment and our innate relationship with all things two sides of the one existence. we only have to take care of what is, right now, constantly settling our minds, and learn how to stay on that path no matter what distracts us along the way. from this understanding, Dogen saw that there is an appropriate manner for conducting ourselves in order to realise our innate empty nature. how and what we cook, and eat, was to Dogen the basis of zazen.

i had eaten okayu now and then before i moved to Japan, for around one year. i normally added some miso paste and organic dashi stock for taste and for nutritional value. since the turn of the new year, for the purpose of integrating this enabling food into my day to day life i have been eating okayu each morning.
Aco and i have been eating okayu for breakfast daily for the past two or so weeks. we occasionally change the accompanying ingredient. some days we might add umeboshi (salted plums), another day negi (spring onion), goji berries, or natto, or a spoonful of miso. i have never felt more internal balance in my recollected memory. i am no longer overwhelmed by heat in my body. there is a feeling of awareness and energy noticeably lower in my body then normal. i am now able soak in a hot bath without becoming restless from a feeling of being stifled by the heat.
normally, before this year, i was aware of an excess of energy and sometimes heat around my shoulders, neck, and head. this is no doubt a result of many years of identifying my head as my centre, by not releasing tension when I held to much,  and by eating foods that produce high amounts of heat in my body and cause too much excess. now that i have had a small amount of years trying to keep my awareness in lower regions and recently adapting my diet to be more balanced and suitable to my condition, i am finally feeling a small amount of relief, and a shift in energy.

this year i have been recording my body temperature and weight. my daily temperature is lower, now being around a normal 36°C. my weight, 73.6 kilograms. just over two weeks ago i was 78.2 kilos. there is no doubt that the backup of undigested food has been washed away by daily black tea and okayu.

today we are fasting. only drinking small fruit and soy milk smoothies for breakfast lunch and dinner, and filling the emptiness with hot kokuzoucha, and dandelion tea. we prepared for this day, by reducing the size of our meals yesterday. i feel good, besides being very hungry. i feel light, focused, and calm. the feeling of spaciousness in my stomach and intestine is reflected by my mind. we will have a thick okayu for dinner as we start to end our semi-fast. tomorrow we will have a thin okayu for breakfast as well before returning to eating solid foods.

by fasting we can become more attuned to our body's and instinct by not overeating, by allowing our bodies to become hungry. fasting, and eating okayu, is like zazen, we empty our bodies, and as a result we can be more aware of what is. this is the way we would live, if our lives were not overwhelmed by the unnatural convenience of modern lives. we would be forced to survive with less food, and by our instinct and effort we would have to rely. this is what Dogen Zenji wished for us, to be free, to realise our natural mind and place in this world. by repeated practice and observation. constantly settling and calming our mind.

passive presence

"Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out." -Ryokan

daily activity

"Forms of action are very important in Zen practice, but not when used as a technique. If you use them as a technique, sooner or later you will become fed up with repeating the same forms day after day. In each form, walking, chanting, eating, gassho - you must find peace and harmony."
- Dainin Katagari, from"Returning to Silence"

day after day, we are compelled to take action, in order to live. our actions, and our state of mind, is the expression of our lives. each step we take, is our life, just as it is. to step with a full presence of mind, gently, calmly guiding our bodies through our actions, with a keen sense of what it is we are doing. we should let go of thinking "I am doing this wrong" or "I am doing". we should simple do what we must.

we may try to break ourselves out of our careless or inattentive states by sitting in zazen, or practicing yoga, or just stopping what we are doing and breathing deeply, whatever it may be, whatever we do to "come back to ourselves" we should not think "I am coming back, I should be attentive". we should just notice our inattentiveness and just keep going, or sit in zazen, but without thinking we are doing anything different.

our actions are already the actions of Buddha, we are always within the realm of Buddha Dharma. we are never disconnected from it. so if we are attentive or not, when we focus ourselves more attentively we should just be attentive. our attentiveness will operate and we will feel calm. we do not need to think we have started to meditate, or accomplished anything. just feel the attentiveness and continue as naturally as you can. again and again. we should not think, "i have achieved mindfulness." if we think this way, most likely our actions will become like techniques to "achieve" something. in our striving to achieve, day after day, we may become fed up with our daily practice.

we should find a way, to let our thoughts go as they go, and just be more attentive.
surely, if we strive less, and just practice and accept whatever state we are in, our mindfulness will become more smooth and seamless.

少年はその贈り物に目を輝かして喜んだ。The Boy was bright-eyed with delight at the present.

This morning I walked to the post office to pick up a parcel from Aco. The parcel contained number of very useful items such as, Black Tea, Body Lotion, Organic Dehydrated Dashi Stock, Special Red Miso Paste, Yuzu Kosho (spicy, sour, salty paste made from a citrus fruit "yuzu"), Special Shoyu (soy sauce), and a cute card :) Aco has a business, which provides various food, health care, and body products, made in Japan. I can say from experience that the products are very high quality and quite cheap. 

Day after Day I consider how fortunate I am to have Aco in my life. She inspires me to live well. I have changed, hopefully for the better, over the years. My mind and body feel healthier, stronger, than ever before. There are a few aspects of my life, things I have received or learned from others, or found accidently, for which I am grateful. These things have enriched my life, bringing me gradually back-to-life. This coming back-to-life feels something like an awareness, which leads to an acceptance, of what supports my life. I hope I can continue to find appreciation within for all the aspects of life, not only for the things which help me feel good and live well, but also the challenges that I face day to day should be embraced bravely, eventually.

ありがとうございますあこ。

Thank you so much Aco.

learning and practicing ChiKung

sometime last year I started to learn ChiKung. at first I had learnt some techniques from Akiko. she teaches ChiKung ("Kikou" as it is pronounced in Japan) a few times a week. the style is called Enbouzen. which is roughly translated as, round stick Zen . in her school, they use different sized bo's which symbolize levels of the practice. it helps to keep the hands together and level during certain exercises as well as having the benefits of having good ki (energy) properties of wood.
Enbouzen Exercises:
1. a central practice of enbouzen would be the "standing Zen" practice, where the student simply stands upright, knees slightly bent, tail-bone tucked in, shoulders and waist relaxed, while holding the bo out in front of the mid torso. Akiko tells me that they sometimes stand this way for one hour. (I am yet to practice at such lengths) the practice can also be modified by holding the bo directly above one's head, having the arms extended straight.
                                                      2. to help with tightness in my hips, middle back, and shoulders, it was recommended by Akiko's Sensei that I should practice holding the bo in both hands, making circles with the bo starting near my chest, extending the bo upward and outward away from my torso, circling down as the extension of my arms reaches mid way, circling down and back towards the torso and back up to finish the circle. this should be done again and again. another movement that is added to the exercise is bending and straightening my legs following the upward and downward movement of the circle I am making with the bo. the movement should be graceful, hips should be relaxed as much as possible, and the knees should not bend beyond the tip of the toes.
                                                      3. to help release tightness in my shoulders and neck, Akiko taught me another exercise. making ovals with the bo above my head. the oval is long and no wider than the width of my head. extending the arms up as far as possible straight above my head, and back down, over and over, continuously. Akiko has told me they sometimes make at least 300 repetitive ovals daily. I can manage to do around thirty before my arms become weak.
these are the main exercises I have learnt from Akiko so far. I have also supplemented these exercises with a flexibility training which I learnt from a teacher called Binkun Hu. I bought his dvd which is called "Creating Flexibility Through QiGong." the exercises have been very helpful. since starting to practice kikou, I am now starting to feel more movement in my body as i practice. certain muscles are slightly softer than they were before. I hope to learn more from Akiko and her Sensei, and deepen the relaxation and flexibility which can result from the practice.

baking cookies

there is  something I do quite a lot, at work, and that is baking desserts. the demand for cookies increases with each successful batch. from twelve, to twenty, to twenty five per day. I also bake a lot of cakes. when I have time, I take pictures to remember them. the repetition of each day, baking, using similar recipes, I start to understand how I can add ingredients, or modify the process, to get a slightly different result. so far, my favorites have been, oatmeal cookies, lemon cheesecake, sticky date pudding, and chocolate chip cookies. these always turn out well, and are popular with the workers.
although I enjoy baking, I find it is hard to make desserts without tasting them. as I am usually trying new recipes, I should taste them once they have been cooked. I should know how they taste, and whether or not I can be proud to serve them or not. this isn't such a bad thing. some of the baked sweets are quite tasty. the down side to this is the amount of sugar i consume daily, and how it affects my appetite and well-being.

sugar is extremely stimulating, causing my mind and senses to feel erratic and hyper. my appetite for vegetables and fresh food diminishes. also there is the developing habit of eating sweets out of convenience. they are prepared and ready to eat. and when I am tired from a days work, I am sooner to eat a cookie than I am to prepare a bowl of miso soup.

this time around, this work period, I have controlled how much of the sweets I am tasting. since I have baked them a number of times, I am familiar with the taste and the affect. so I can leave most of them for the others to eat.
ideally, I would rather be cooking healthy food for people. there are doubts and debates about what is helpful and healthy about food, and eating. some people claim that sweets are "good for us" because they help stimulate our mood and generally make us feel happy. personally I find the affect of sweets can be positive while influencing a positive mood, but at the same time can cause harm to us. we can easily form habits of eating too many sweets, and therefore risk developing diabetes, erratic moods, and obesity.
what I am most concerned with is the affect on moods, and the habit of mood that can result from a dependency on sweets. I have experienced the affect of habitual eating on my mood, as well as noticed it in others. for example, it is common for the craving for sweets to cause anxiety when we are without sweet foods. and for those who are prone to have emotional imbalances these cravings would no doubt make the ups and downs of emotional waves to be greater.
for now I do my best to eat well, and provide good healthy food, as well as the sweets which we all enjoy. I do not wish to push my beliefs on others. I realize I can only do the best I can to be healthy for myself. if another person wishes to eat certain foods which I would not eat I should not stand in their way. they will either be healthy or not be healthy. I can only be who I am, and hope that my intentions and my actions influence people to take care of themselves.
I do wish, that if I am still working as a chef in the future, that I can serve better foods. perhaps in my own cafe/restaurant, where I need not tell people to eat well. I would simply be providing a place for people to come and eat the foods which I feel would help them be well and feel good. being healthy can feel good too.

remote locations

this picture was taken from the top of Mount Kingsley, Arcadia Valley, Queensland, Australia. the white rectangle in the lower left corner is Lucas Camp 94, where I currently work as a chef. I cook for the mining crew, and the odd random others who stop by. 

it took Tom and I thirty minutes to climb to the top where we enjoyed the beautiful view, and cool clean air of the wide open country.