The Compassionate Kitchen: Practices for Eating with Mindfulness and Gratitude

Description

Eating as a spiritual practice- wisdom from the Buddhist tradition that you can use at home. Every aspect of our daily activities can be a part of spiritual practice if done with that in mind. This is a compact guide for making eating--and all the activities related to it--into a discipline that generates wisdom, insight, and compassion. This little book is based on a series of talks that Thubten Chodron gave over two months in 2016 to her monastic community of Svastri Abbey in Washington state and to her many lay students who had asked her to teach on the topic of food and how to use it to nourish mind as well as body. She shows how eating, and everything related to it--preparation of food, offering and receiving it, eating it, and cleaning up after--can contribute to awakening and to increased kindness and care toward others. It's based on traditional Buddhist teachings and on the particular practices used at Svastri Abbey, with advice for taking the principles used there into one's own home in order to make the sharing of food a spiritual practice for anyone.

VENERABLE THUBTEN CHODRON has been a Buddhist nun since 1977. She has been a close student of the Dalai Lama, with whom she has coauthored several books. She is abbot of Sravasti Abbey, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Newport, Washington, and she teaches regularly throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

"The Compassionate Kitchen offers a very rich menu of Buddhist theory and practice concerning food and culture surrounding food. From the appetizer of the background philosophical principles and perspectives on food, to the main entries of the proper conduct and mind-set while eating, to the choicest desserts of dedication prayers and concluding rituals, it captures a complete treatment of the Buddhist concept of food in an easily digestible manner."--Geshe Dadul Namgyal, Senior Resident Teacher, Drepung Loseling Monastery "This precious book reveals mealtime as meditation, and cooking and dining as sacred offerings to the noble ones. Ven. Chodron generously guides us to transform once and for all our relationship with food. A fresh and unique treasure!"-Judith Simmer-Brown, Distinguished Professor, Naropa University and author of Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism