Interbeing Bread Satori

Satori is a zen term for a moment of clarity, or a moment of no-doing, no-thinking, or no-self. In light of the tremendousness of these moments, I have made an agreement to myself to live my life for it. However, I cannot say that I live my life in pursuit of it, or seeking it, since these moments always come of themselves. The self allows them to happen, but they also are, in a sense, given to us. For it is only when the mind is completely relaxed, and the peripheral-vision open-consciousness of intuitive being is allowed to flow naturally, that satori "happens". Often this is communicated or realized through humor, which engenders levity.

Humor is the feeling of a breaking of solid forms or thoughts, shattering of self or convention. The masters of most arts don't just make something look easy, they just know how to not make things hard. For the "trick" in almost any discipline is not to try too hard at any certain point. Levity brings about solid practice.

Reading David Abram feels to me like eating a bar of dark chocolate. It is extremely pleasurable, and I could savor a taste of it for hours. His writing suggests a state of satori; is engineered to elicit a thinning of the imaginary boundaries of thought, and self, and body, allowing an osmosis of density from within to escape and breathe encompassing time and space freely. Abram's writing is a form of liberation, reminding the reader of the possibilities of more, not only in terms of consciousness and sense of Self, but in terms of a more integrated and active interaction with other beings in the world.

Today I made a loaf of bread intuitively. Frustrated with countless recipes and technicalities to stress over, I decided not to measure anything, to allow myself utter freedom from the sharp focus of step-by-step thinking, and specific quantities. It was a ritual. I didn't try to control the process, just to take part in it. The bread was a leap of faith, and sure enough, it was the best loaf of bread I've ever made. The freedom I allowed myself brought about more flexibility. I didn't know exactly what I was making at all, and I ended up filling the dough with fig preserves, raisins, cinnamon, and molasses. The end result looked, smelled, and tasted amazing, and complete. All of these sensory experiences pointed to a single entity/event--this ritual of allowing this bread-personality to manifest itself--to grow. It could have never happened from a recipe, being built from without. It grew out of me spontaneously, and impermanently. By grasping a particular bread, we loose every possible perfect and finite idiosyncratic loaf of bread.