ZEN CONSCIOUSNESS
Yuko Tani explained the wisdom behind “zen food preparation and eating” and taught us interesting new ways to relate to, prepare and eat healthy, delicious vegan foods. We learned about and experienced the different spiritual qualities and ancestral properties of healthy foods grown in the earth, and how we can imbue energies and emotions into our food to bring peace and healing into our bodies and minds.
We experienced some of the special techniques that are used in zen food preparation. We meditated on the vegetables we had chosen and listened to what they had to tell us. We were taught how to properly stand, breathe, and mindfully prepare our food. We each then tossed our prepared vegetables, nuts, seasoned crumbled tofu and a delicious dressing into a large community salad that we mixed with heaping measures of good wishes, prayers and blessings. We all agreed that it was the most special, most delicious salad we had ever tasted!
SUSHI “MOONDALAS”
We had fun making and eating sushi mandalas. Created using rare black Emperor’s rice from Japan and full-of-flavor organic sushi rice that formed a dinner plate-sized moon, a variety of previously-prepared raw vegetables (including pink lotus root “flowers” also from Japan), and smoked salmon, each “moondala” was unique and beautiful... some of the best sushi we have had.