Weekend Meditation: Soup Kitchen

First, an update on the controversial Bake Sale Response post from last week. So far, and all the counting isn't done yet, the three-location, Bay Area bake sale that was held from 10am to 2pm yesterday has raised over $22K for Haiti. That's twenty-two thousand dollars from four hours of selling cupcakes and cookies, people. I rest my case.

* * * * * *

Yesterday, I spent the morning as a volunteer, cooking lunch for a day-long meditation retreat at the San Francisco Zen Center. It got me to thinking about service, silence, and letting go. About support, refuge, community, and the best way to be helpful.

All these thoughts (and more!) gathered in the steam like angels or ghosts as I stood at the stove, stirring a gigantic pot full of split pea soup.

Zen kitchens are basically silent, with a few concessions for functional speech like giving directions and asking questions. You are also encouraged to only do what you're asked to do, nothing more. The instructions are often very precise: scrub these carrots with this particular brush in this specific sink; cut them this size, fill the container up to this line; label the container like this, put it on that shelf.

This precision, this attention to detail, is on one hand very practical, especially when serving eighty people three meals a day, but it's also a training in mindfulness, in caring for everything, even the carrots, even the brush you used to scrub the carrots.

There's also a sense of refuge in that precision. I don't have to figure everything out for myself. I can drop, if even for a few hours, the need to be vigilant and in control, and just focus on the simple task at hand. There's a sense of peace in doing this, a letting go of self-concern that I've grown to value and appreciate.

Where it can get sticky or veer off in the wrong direction is using that precision as a marker for right or wrong, correct or incorrect, perfect or a horrible mess. Precision is not something to measure ourselves up against. It's not perfection. It's just a request to pay attention and take care the best way you can.

The spirit of a zen kitchen is to treat every task equally, be it peeling carrots, making coffee, sweeping the floor. The idea is to be present to your experience, without judgement. It also a great way to be helpful. When the head cook asks me to start washing the teetering pile of pots and pans in the corner, I just say OK. When I finish, I tell her I'm free and she gives me the next task, making eight gallons of split pea soup.

So slowly, bit by bit, and together with my fellow crew members, lunch is built. Basmati rice, the soup, a simple green salad. The atmosphere in the kitchen becomes, as the Buddhists say, one mind with many hands. It's amazing what can get done with that kind of shared vision and companionship.

Towards the end of my shift, stirring the large pot of soup, I thought of Haiti and felt a deep and immediate sensation in my belly of how fortunate I was, surrounded by food and warmth. How I was sheltered, able, and how full of choice and possibility my life is. So rich, so precious, and (one of Haiti's deepest lessons) so fleeting.

What to do, then, with those twin thoughts of abundance and devastation, mindfulness and chaos, living and dying? What is it to be awake, upright and helpful? What is most needed right here, in this moment? Ah, yes. I pick up a ladle, plunge it into the soup and start serving up.

Related:
Two Kitchens
Eating Lightly

(Images: Dana Velden)

Comments (12)

The idea of having dealing with a single task and giving it your best is so simple yet difficult to completely integrate. My mind is always buzzing with several things that need to be done. I'm slowly learning to separate out the white noise.
There's a focused sense of reflection in your writing that I've come to love. Much like your time spent at the Zen Center.

Thank you so much for your mindful post. My teacher reminds us that washing dishes can bring us as close to enlightenment as anything else. Your post conveys the same sense of calm I get from retreats and days of meditation, peeling carrots or no. Thank you for reminding me how much practice means.

Best,
I

thank you for your mindful description. An excellent bell for this lapsed practitioner :-)

may you be happy, well and free.

Awesome. And also we had a vegan bake sale in Philadelphia (Doylestown) yesterday (Sunday) and raised over $1,500 for Partners in Health. That's much more than what I was able to give on my own. Maybe I'll practice the zen method when I cook sometime instead of blasting music.

While I have been reading this site for awhile I have never bothered to register till now.But this post got me very curious about something....

Who were you serving soup to?

All right, that does it.

I seriously resent the use of the term "soup kitchen" for this post. A "soup kitchen" generally refers to a sheltered place that serves meals free of charge (or for a nominal fee) for people who otherwise would likely NOT BE EATING that day.

You were serving meals at a "day-long meditation retreat".

COME ON!

Sure, you were volunteering. Bet it felt all warm and fuzzy to do stuff and not get paid for it. But the bottom line is: you were volunteering to make food in a so-called "soup kitchen" for folks who have THE LUXURY OF TIME AND RESOURCES AND SELF-SECURITY to be able to go on some meditative retreat.

You want to participate in "service" and "community"? Serve those in your community who actually NEED your labour power and no-strings-attached help. EVERYONE should serve the community, locally and globally, in ways that identify (and work towards dismantling) the systems of oppressive hierarchical power and inequitable resource distribution that privilege some and impoverish many. The systems of inequality that result in ACTUAL soup kitchens, bread lines, and food banks.

Meditate on THAT, and your role in creating change, before you go patting yourself on the back.

@Kittystockings Wow, vitrol much? She wasn't patting herself on the back, she was talking about mindfulness in the kitchen. Yeesh.

Whoa there, kittystockings, that was a needlessly cranky rant.

I understand -- and agree with -- your distinction on the semantics of "soup kitchen", but Dana did spend a day volunteering, and it's incredibly ungracious of you to be so snippy about it.

Additionally, if you were to look up the San Fran Zen Center, you'll find that it does a lot of charity work, such as running the largest Buddhist hospice in the United States. I assume the people who were on this retreat are those who practice Zen Buddhism at the SFZC, which means they are the very people who generously donate their time to projects like the aforementioned hospice.

Perhaps you need to go mediate on the fact that you just berated someone for donating her time and cooking skills to those whom regularly donate their own time and promote peace and understanding in the world.

Dear kittystockings:

My intention in using the title Soup Kitchen was not in any way to imply that my volunteer time at SFZC was the same as working in what is commonly considered a "soup kitchen." The reference was to my thoughts as I was making and stirring and serving up the soup that was going to feed the people meditating that day. For most of those 80 people, I have no knowledge of their stories which may or may not line up with your assumptions of their privilege. Of the ones I do know personally, some have lived on the streets in the past, while others have never known a day of hunger in their lives.

That said, you are correct that it takes a certain amount of stabilization in one's life in order to have the time, space, resources and mental/emotional steadiness to attend a meditation retreat. And that kind of stabilized life is a tremendous privilege, often taken for granted. My intention in the final two paragraphs of my post was to recognize this great privilege and express gratitude.

Ironically, SFZC does have a program where several times a month the kitchen is used by volunteers to make soup for people living on the streets. People in the zen community also went out several mornings last week to deliver dry clothing, socks and towels to that same population, as SF has been experiencing torrential rains and one of the most difficult things when living on the streets is staying dry.

I apologize for the misunderstanding caused in using the term 'soup kitchen' but I stand by my decision to use some of my volunteer time to cook for the retreat. I believe, and it has been my experience, that meditation is a tremendously helpful tool for people to deepen that steadiness, untangle their limits and fears and awaken to the fundamental understanding of interconnectedness. With that kind of heart and mind, we can indeed rise up from our cushions and step into this deeply, deeply troubled world, ready and able to truly helpful.

I love this - a great reminder to get back into my meditation practice!

Thanks Dana!