In the last five or six weeks pureed carrots have become my comfort food.  They are one of a handful of  “safe” foods that I have at this point.   They are the only vegetable included in the SCD Intro Diet and are something I eat daily and go back to when my gut starts flaring up.    Recently I’ve realized that preparing my carrots is also a good practice for me, it is very meditative.

I now start my carrot practice at the nook table overlooking the back yard and the river.  I place my cutting board on the table, a big bowl to hold the peels, my peeler, knife and about five pounds of carrots.   Step one is peeling al the carrots mindfully to remove all the peel and be able to use as much carrot as possible.  Step two is cutting the smallest amount of ends off the carrots.  Step three is chopping the carrots into 1″ pieces and placing them in a pressure cooker.  Once all five pounds of carrots are in the cooker, I go to the stove, add water and pressure cook for one hour.   After the pressure has dropped I open the cooker and proceed to puree the carrots in two batches in the food processor and transfer the puree to containers for the frig.  Five pounds of carrots lasts me about 2-3 days so I quickly get to repeat the practice.

My carrot practice brings to mind passages from Tenzo Kyokun, Instructions for the Zen Cook, by Dogen.   Dogen instructs the cook to

“Pay full attention to your work in preparing the meal; attend to every aspect yourself so that it will naturally turn out well.”

I never liked carrots much before SCD and always considered them kind of lowly vegetables compared to other, more exciting ones.  Dogen speaks of this –

“When you prepare food, never view the ingredients from some commonly held perspective, nor think about them only with your emotions.  Maintain an attitude that tries to build great temples from ordinary greens, that expounds the buddhadharma through the most trivial activity.  When making a soup with ordinary greens, do not be carried away by feelings of dislike towards them nor regard them lightly; neither jump for joy simply because you have been given ingredients of superior quality to make a special dish.  By the same token that you do not indulge in a meal because of its particularly good taste, there is no reason to feel an aversion towards an ordinary one.  Do not be negligent and careless just because the materials seem plain, and hesitate to work more diligently with materials of superior quality.  Your attitude towards things should not be contingent upon their quality.  A person who is influenced by the quality of a thing, or who changes his speech or manner according to the appearance or position of the people he meets, is not a man working the Way.”

I now try mindfully peel and chop my carrots and treat them with respect since they have literally saved me at this point.  Dogen tells the tenzo to..

“Handle even a single leaf of a green in such a way that it manifests the body of Buddha.  This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf.  This is a power which you cannot grasp with your rational mind.  It operates freely, according to the situation. in a most natural way.  At the same time, this power functions in our lives to clarify and settle activities and is beneficial to all living beings.”

Dogen goes on about how the practice of a tenzo is indeed a true practice with several stories of his encounters with tenzos while in China.   He then states that…

“Likewise, understand that a simple green has the power to become the practice of the Buddha, quite adequately nurturing the desire to live out the Way.  Never feel aversion toward plain ingredients.  As a teacher of men and heavenly beings, make the best use of whatever greens you have.”