From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment: Refining Your Life

This book may be read and re-read for deeper and deeper insights. Both practical and profound it is written for the beginner and experenced practicioner alike. The beginner will get a taste of true Zen - either they will like it or will best move on to some other practice. The experenced student can refine the sublime work of bringing shikan-taza into their lives.

Refining your Life is like drinking fresh spring water after you've been drinking tap water. It is an exquisite book. Way beyond a commentary on cooking it is a lucid, inspiring wake up call to live your life fully. Uchiyama's writing style is incredible. Beautiful, plain but not simple. I am moved by how engaging and honest he is about his personal questions and practice. this is a book about showing up 100% in your life.

REFINING YOUR LIFE : From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment by Zen Master Dogen and Kosho Uchiyama. Translated by Thomas Wright. 122 pp. New York and Tokyo : Weatherhill, 1983 and Reprinted.'Refining Your Life' comprises two main parts. First we are given a lucid translation of Dogen Zenji's 'Tenzo Kyokun' - 'Instructions for the Zen Cook' (pp. 3-23). Then follows Kosho Uchiyama Roshi's insightful commentary, 'How to Cook Your Life' (pp. 23-97). The book also has an 8-page Translator's Introduction, and is rounded out with a section of Notes and a Glossary.It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Dogen (1200-1253). As one of the most powerful and brilliant minds Asia has produced - and it has produced many - his works should be viewed, not so much as a purely local and Japanese phenomenon, but as a supreme contribution to world literature. For all of us, he is, as Taizan Maezumi Roshi has said, an inexhaustible spring of wisdom.If Dogen's 'Instructions for the Zen Cook' was simply a treatise on the rules and manners of the Zen kitchen, it would have little interest for us. Dogen, however, goes on to draw a parallel between preparing meals for a Zen monastery and 'cooking' or 'refining' our lives. The important thing to realize is that we cannot make things happen. Everything that comes, whether good or bad, is to be accepted as the Self, and life should be lived free of bias and on the basis of Self. Kosho Uchiyama writes:"As difficult as it may seem to be, the highest, ultimate truth in life is grounded in the fact that there are no favorable or adverse circumstances, no fortune or misfortune. All there is, is the life of the Self" (page 78).The present book can be recommended to readers who may be new to Dogen. At just twenty pages, the basic text is quite short. And Kosho Uchiyama's modern-day interpretation is an eminently readable guide to Dogen's thought. As such the book provides an excellent introduction to Dogen's other works, such as may be found, for example, in Francis H. Cook's selections from Dogen's 'Shobogenzo,' or in Kazuaki Tanahashi's 'Moon in a Dewdrop : Writings of Zen Master Dogen.' On the other hand, it may be the only Zen book you'll ever need - it's that good.

This book will remind many readers of Thoreau's Walden in that it uses everyday simplicity to get at the very marrow of experience. Dogen's exposition, and Uchiyama's commentaries on joyful mind, parental mind, and magnanimous mind are wonderful. All three types of mind are obviously present in main text, the commentary, and in the lovingly rendered translation. This is a book to be read on relaxed tiptoes.

The book starts with a translation of Dogen's Instructions to the Cook. It can be challenging making it through this part. However, if you persevere and read Uchiyama's commentary, you will be rewarded with what is quite probably the best explanation of Zen that you will ever read. This book cuts right to the meat of Zen practice and explains it in real-life terms. If you only read one book on Zen in your life, this should be it.