Photo by Rusvaplauke

Do you enjoy cooking? Making a meal for others can be a wonderful experience if we approach it in a mindful way and use it to nurture ourselves and others. Or it can turn into a grinding chore if we just throw fast-food meals onto the table. In the following I list some points that are important in order to make cooking a full and satisfying experience.

Cooking as a spiritual act

Cooks were always highly esteemed in Zen monasteries. In ancient China the cook was revered second only to the abbot. This is because cooking can be a spiritual experience. Dogen, the great 13th century Japanese Zen master said in his Instructions for the Zen Cook that the cook must manifest “big mind, joyful mind.”

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According to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, the eminent psychologist who researched the phenomenon of high performance that he called ‘flow’, it is the possibility of a transcendent experience that pulls people to the kitchen.

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“I’m not surprised that cooking won’t go away,” he said. “I can lose myself making a Bolognese sauce, finely chopping the onions, the carrots, three kinds of meat, and the slow, slow simmering. There is a sense of order and control and something so wholesome and tactile about cooking. Besides, how many times does modern life offer the opportunity to create something with one’s hands?”

Following the cycle of nature

When planning your mean it’s good to follow the cycle of nature by using seasonal vegetables and fruit. Not only does this help your food budget, it also keep you in touch with the natural rhythm of the season. Comforting soups in winter and cool salads in summers help us accept and even celebrate the rhythm of the year which mirrors our own life seasons.

Creative solitude

The kitchen is a good place to enjoy creative solitude. As Dr. Csikszentmihalyi says, “Cooking is one of few activities that people feel better doing alone.”

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Talking of solitude, I once saw a great clip of a live broadcast where a chef called Mrs. Child was making a chicken dish. As she was transferring the cooked chicken to the serving dish, it slipped and landed - splash - on the floor. With utmost aplomb she bent down and retrieved the chicken. Then she looked into the camera and said calmly, “Remember, you are alone in the kitchen!” In honour of this clip I adhere to the “30 second rule”. This means that if something is retrieved within 30 seconds - it hasn’t really touched the floor Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Nicholasf

Do you sometimes feel grumpy? I do. It’s a mood that happens to all of us at times.Grumpiness is an important warning sign that our life is out of balance. There are some simple things you can do to bring your life back into line so that you don’t make a habit of being grumpy. After all, grumpiness kills joy and is hard to bear for our loved ones.

In the following I’ve listed 15 ways to get overcome grumpiness. On days that you feel grumpy, read through the list and address just one issue to make you feel better.

1. Acknowledge the mood

Grumpiness is hard on those around us. That is why it’s important to acknowledge being grumpy. Then our partner, family members or friends understand that the grumpiness is not about something they are doing, it is something that you can both examine without feeling anxious or threatened. On grumpy days, I tend to say to my partner: “I’m really grumpy today. I’m sorry I’m being difficult. It’s nothing that you are doing - please be patient with me.” If I say something like that, my grumpiness immediately lessens and my partner David is relieved.

2. Check your sleep pattern

How much sleep are you getting each 24 hours? I tend to get grumpy if I’m short of sleep. Maybe you can work out how much sleep you need for maximum functioning. You may find that you are trying to survive on less. My suggestion is to go to bed half an hour earlier each night for the next five days and then to see if you feel better. Personally, I find it difficult to go to bed earlier because I’m often immersed in writing or other things in the evening. To help myself, I set my alarm clock an hour before my designated bed-time. This allows me to make a slow transition and to maybe read a couple of pages in bed before going to sleep.

3. Do some exercise

When did you last get really puffed in the fresh air? Or when did you last break into a sweat through exercise? If you are feeling grumpy, chances are that you are not getting the exercise you need. Consider going for a brisk walk each day - even if it’s just for 10 minutes. If you find that difficult, you might like to join some exercise classes to make it easier to keep to a schedule. Try writing down an exercise schedule for the coming week and sticking to it. Then check out how you are feeling.

4. Explore stress

Are you stressed? Sometimes grumpiness is the result of too much stress. If you are, make a list of what is most stressful for you, in order of importance. Each day, tackle one issue that creates stress. For example, in my life everything to do with tax makes me feel quite stressed out. However, once I start tackling problems in this area of my life, my stress level immediately lessens.

5. Have fun

When did you last do something that was just pure fun? Make sure that you plan something each week that you really enjoy. If you’re not having fun in your life, start something new. Go to dance classes or cooking classes, enroll in a theatre sports class, start potting, or gardening, or surfing. I started kite surfing a couple of months ago. That’s fun -even when your whipped off your feet, go splat in the sea and are then dragged along upsidedown under water!

6. Avoid negativity

I notice that when I’m grumpy I seem to collect negative thoughts in my head. Everything seems to get a negative slant. There is a simple way to change this negativity pattern which I learned of a few weeks ago. I read about an American pastor who issues purple bracelets to his flock. They are asked to change it to the other side, each time they start to complain. The goal is to go a whole 21 days without a complaint. You can read more about that here.

When I had a grumpiness attack last week, I thought I would try this method. But I could only half remember it. So I decided to change the rubber band to the other wrist each time I had a negative thought. I tell you, it kept flying from side to side…! I was quite shocked to notice how many negative thoughts my mind generates when I’m grumpy. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by S. Affandi

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Compassion for our fellow human being is a cornerstone of many the world’s spiritual traditions. It is one of the great transformative human emotions because in showing compassion we transcend he constraints of our self and embrace a broader, more open-minded view of life that emphasizes human connectedness rather than individuality. This sense of kinship brings insight and healing both to ourselves and to the people toward whom we demonstrate compassion.

The key to compassion is empathy.

Without the ability to feel our way into how life feels like for others, we won’t be able to respond with compassion. Here is how Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian writer described his experience of empathy:

Listening to people talking I could enter into their lives, feel their tattered clothes on my back, walk with my feet in their shoes; their desires, their needs, all passed into my soul, or my soul passed into theirs.

 

It is a balm for the soul when someone reaches out to us and tries to tune in to what is going on for us.

I remember a moment last year when I was very worried about financial matters. I tried to bottle up my anxiety and keep my ordinary life going. One day I was sitting at the hairdressers feeling tight and stressed. A young stylist came up behind me an placed her hands gently on my shoulders. Then she asked, “How are things going for you?” I immediately began to cry. Afterwards I felt a great relief. It was as if this simple gesture and question had allowed me to get in touch with what was going on for me.

The difficulty is that we can’t really know exactly what someone’s experience is like. Experience is something unique to each individual and each moment. But if we let go of pre-formed ideas and allow ourselves to be open to what the other person may be feeling, we can get a sense of how they are.

If our ultimate goal is to show compassion to everyone, we might assume that it would be easy to start with the person closest to us - our partner.

It’s often easier to show compassion towards a complete stranger than toward the person we love most.

When we see our partner suffering, we often respond with anxiety or frustration instead of compassion. This is because any suffering we see in our partner can trigger a fear of loss and a sense of helplessness in us. After all, our lives are intimately intertwined and we can be sure that whatever suffering our partner is experiencing will impinge on our own life as well. All these uncomfortable emotions, such as fear and resentment, can get in the way of feeling compassionate toward our partner. And yet it’s vital to practise compassion in relationship because it is the path to forgiveness and can be a lifeline for your partner in times of grief and pain.

Even in the most fortunate lives there will be periods of grief and mourning, when compassion will be requires. If your loved one is suffering, you may find that you are pulled in two different directions: on one hand, you may feel an instinctive aversion to their anguish or pain and wish to turn away from it. On the other hand, you may find yourself wanting almost to embrace their suffering, to take on the burden and “make it better” for your partner.

Think back to an occasion when your partner broke down in mental anguish - for example, on hearing of a bereavement - ore endured severe physical pain. What was your response? If you find such suffering hard to face, remember that breathing - centering yourself through breathing slowly and deeply will give you the strength to show your compassion when it is most needed.

There is a Tibetan Buddhist practice that allows us to connect with our own suffering and that of others. It is called Tonglen. It is a way of awakening the compassion that is in each one of us, no matter how cold or unfeeling we might seem. Teacher Pema Chodron gives the following instructions:

We begin the practice by taking on the suffering of a person we know to be hurting and who we wish to help. For instance, if you know of a child who is being hurt, you breathe in the wish to take away all the pain and fear of that child. Then, as you breathe out, you send the child happiness, joy or whatever would relieve their pain…

 

Tonglen reverses the usual logic of avoiding suffering and seeking pleasure and, in the process, we become liberated from a very ancient prison of selfishness.

Compassion is not just a luxury that we can afford when our life is going well. To cultivate compassion and empathy is essential for the survival or our species.

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© Mary Jaksch