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March 2010

Tenacity

by marc | Sun, 03/28/2010 - 9:55pm

Growing up I always believed that my family was wealthy. Though I didn’t want much as a child, it always seemed like I got most of the things I wanted. When I was a junior in high school I was accepted to early admissions at Rutgers University. I was excited to inform my parents, who were very happy for me. Then my mother looked at me and asked how I was planning to pay for it. She informed me that our family did not have any money to contribute to my college education. This came as quite a shock.

All The Grudges And Sorrows Have Now Passed

by marc | Mon, 03/22/2010 - 10:33pm

A Strange Feather, by Hafiz

All
The craziness.
All the empty plots,
All the ghosts and fears,

All the grudges and sorrows have
Now
Passed.

I must have inhaled
A strange
Feather

That finally

Fell

Out.

Mindfulness

by marc | Thu, 03/18/2010 - 7:45am

Mindfulness is the quality of awareness of paying attention in a particular way:

- With purpose
- In the present moment
- Non-judgmentally

Mindfulness includes the capacity to notice and observe bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings, to decrease reactivity to challenging experiences. Mindfulness is a way of increasing awareness, and being less on autopilot. The focus is more on our experience then on the labels and judgments we apply to our experience.

Another way to define mindfulness is “a penetrating understanding of reality.” Practicing mindfulness means not just noticing what is happening on the surface, but also penetrating – seeing beneath-the surface of our conventional ideas and beliefs. When we do this we begin to realize that that how we think of ourselves is not a fixed, solid, unchanging entity, but a series of ever changing processes.

Cooking Kale: My "Signature" Dish

by marc | Tue, 03/16/2010 - 6:53am

I once had about 25 people to my home for a fundraiser to support the organization A World Without Armies. I decided to cook a large pot of steamed kale, seasoned with nutritional yeast, garlic, olive oil, and salt. I was in my kitchen stirring the pot, when Ed Brown, author of the Tassajara Bread Book (and many other books) walked into the kitchen. “What are you cooking, Marc?” Ed asked. “Kale” I responded. “Is this your signature dish?”, Ed inquired. Without hesitating, I answered “Yes.”

Since that evening kale has become my signature dish. Here is the recipe:

My preference is Dinosaur Kale (Lacinato Kale), but any variety will do:

- Wash, and remove leaves from stems.

- Steam the leaves until tender (takes 3 – 5 minutes, once water is steaming.)

Searching For Answers

by marc | Tue, 03/09/2010 - 1:10pm

One night, after reading a story to my then 10-year-old daughter, she looked up at me and said, “Daddy, when we die, will all the answers to life be revealed to us; like when you play a game and the answer is at the back of the book?” The truth is, I don’t remember how I responded.

What I hope I said is that I think we don’t need to wait until we die in order for the answers to be revealed. Perhaps the answers are revealed in many moments, perhaps in every moment of our lives. We just need to be open enough, or still enough, or ready enough to receive them. We can even practice and cultivate this kind of readiness, by paying attention to and letting go of whatever gets in our way. And, what after all, do I or anyone, really know about life and death?

Not Knowing Is Most Intimate

by marc | Mon, 03/01/2010 - 9:23pm

Two Zen teachers meet; one is carrying his bags. “Where are you going?”, inquires the first teacher.

“I’m going on a pilgrimage”, the other teacher responds.

“What’s the purpose of pilgrimage?” asks the first teacher.

“I don’t know.” he responds.

“Not knowing is most intimate.” Replies the first teacher

This phrase, “not knowing is most intimate” could be said to be the heart of Zen philosophy. It is also much like the second part of the “Less Manifesto” – Less Assumptions (from the book Less: Accomplishing More By Doing Less. The others are less fear, distractions, resistance, and busyness.)

In Zen, like in our lives, much of the dialogue is in metaphors. “Where are you going” can be a simple query, or it can mean, “What are you doing with your life?”