Patience

Kitchen Work

Short Feature
“Is it ready yet, is it ready now?”
[Source – Pixabay]

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Like a quick meal that you make yourself, yes, yourself, standing in the kitchen, looking for items, finding none, finding some, maybe it is not something you regularly do or maybe you do it regularly but always in a rush, you add a pinch of salt after applying butter or vice-versa, the heat is too much or too low, you fix it, but after slightly burning your fingertips, and when this meal makes you wait, oh, for howsoever quick it is, it still needs time, you think of brewing a hot cup of tea or coffee, hustle and bustle, tin-tin-tinaa-tuk-tun-tunaa, and the quick meal along with a hot beverage when tasted and sipped, you feel full and good, it is a buttery sweet moment.

You suddenly also start to feel confident about life in general.


Oh, but when you return to the kitchen after finishing the meal, the anxious shelf, the sticky stubborn utensils and crumbles all over the place stare at you in cold anticipation – now or later, late evening or tomorrow morning, my turn or roommate’s turn, or, or, or the maid’s?

You suddenly feel late, like it is only the washing dishes and cleaning shelf bit that stands between you and the attainment of your dream.


I guess, the dish is ready, dear Rabbit. Bon appétit!
No, I won’t join, I am fasting today. Goodbye!
[Source – Pixabay]

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If you very often do the cleaning part too, not just as a chore, your cooking abilities will bloom, like a wild vine that climbs and trails wondrously without worry, much more than it does when you stick to a rough routine like a straight, pruned plant in a plastic pot.

While a plant even in a plastic pot is rich, full of warmth and it rules, we tend to limit ourselves to a routine too easily, especially if it is comfortably dull.

Kitchen work is all about exuberance, love, patience and meditation that serves best when mixed with prudence.

Cooking and cleaning is a complex task; your kitchen is no less than a PhD student’s lab, yet truly welcoming, forgiving and accepting.

Anyone’s progress happens only gradually and is incomplete without the cleaning part.

Steadily, if you keep going, you’ll learn when to add a pinch of salt, before or after applying the butter, without burning your fingertips.

And you’ll get used to the tricky teasing waiting part, you’ll know it adds great value, and you’ll see, when it’s time, how grandly patience prepares a rich dish.


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Morning Sunlight Carrier

Poem

Shiki zokuze ku ku zokuze shiki.”

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form itself.”

– Heart Sutra, Shingon Buddhism

Karate-do Kyohan – the Master Text by Gichin Funakoshi

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Dawn… an old answer.
(Image by Joe from Pixabay)

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Morning Sunlight Carrier

When the road is lonely, sans the dirt, the thorns, the lightning and

Sans even the enemy’s fiery glare, the roaring army and

The check-mate, in such a land how do you walk without falling

Twice, thrice as if you are papier mache made, a smattering

Of vague profoundness, uniqueness, an idea of truth,

But unsure yet conforming like an uncouth.

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Then, at last, thank god, it becomes foggy, and you stop

Keen-eyed you look, broadening the vision, reaching atop

A cliff overlooking a valley, smoky where it rests.

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This journey afresh, towards a calling, arrests

Your mind and soul; finally, meeting the master, humbly you bow,

And that is lesson one, just so you know.

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Practise patiently, practise patience, and o warrior

Gently turn your karate hands into morning sunlight carrier,

For those who live in the dark wake up late

With a grudge against the sun and zero tolerance to wait

For an old answer.


Gichin Funakoshi, founder of the Shotokan style of Karate, presented a martial arts philosophy that focused on perfecting the character of an individual. He believed that the karate practitioner should –

“purge oneself of selfish and evil thoughts… for only with a clear mind and conscience can the practitioner understand the knowledge which he receives. Funakoshi did not consider it unusual for a devotee to use Karate in a real physical confrontation no more than perhaps once in a lifetime. He stated that Karate practitioners must never be easily drawn into a fight.”

Karate-do Kyohan – The Master Text by Gichin Funakoshi

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Karate then is a fine practice to live by, a practice that gives us clarity to turn the lost papier mache mind into a strong sunlight carrier.


Read more about our magical sun in the following short posts –

Sun – A Flambeau Hi-Fi

Amla Pickle


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Mother Nature

Have you ever heard the music of a vivacious stream, the rustling of the leaves? Have you seen the glorious colour of the sky when the sun sets, the diamonds twinkling in the sky? The peace we get when we feel a sapling in our hand cannot be compared with any other feeling. It is blissful to be in nature, only because we all are children of Mother Nature. There must be no one who hasn’t seen the movie Avatar. The beautiful world of Pandora is not much different from Earth. We all are connected. There is only one soul, the soul of Earth which runs within us. We take it from her and we’ll return it to her one day.

But what are we doing with our planet? We are blindly ruining it, believing in the veil of technology and science to be the only truth. The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to Earth. As soon as we realize it we can make a difference. Everyone is aware about how to bring a change, a small step to plant a tree is what is to be followed by all. But more than this we require showing respect to the Earth.

Earth is quiet but not dead. It is not a polythene bag which will hold our crap. We should learn to understand nature, before there is no such opportunity left.

Nature paints for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty, if only we have ‘the eyes’ to see it. We all are a part of nature. Let us try to recognize this relationship, let us show respect and care. Let us not forget that the secret of nature is patience but this doesn’t make it helpless.