Food preparation tip....

I thought maybe it would be very appropriate to share an important food preparation tip for the forth coming festivities at this time of the year. I read about this tip from the Art of Dharma blog. They aren't the only one who had talked about this, I had heard about the same thing from several other sources in the past as well (one other source is from Reverend Jing Kung, and another source would be from a chef at a vegetarian restaurant).

What they are all saying is that when we prepare food for consumption, we pass on our energy into the food we are preparing. As the Art of Dharma blog puts it :-

"If a woman could see the sparks of light going forth from her fingertips when she is cooking, and the energy that goes into the food she handles, she would realize how much of herself she imbues into the meals that she prepares for her family and friends."

Basically, what this is saying is as we prepare the food, we bless/enchant the food with our energy. So, if you feel sad, upset, angry, or any gamut of negative emotions at all, that goes into the food that you prepare. And those who ingested the food also took in all that energy. That energy is like a form of slow acting "poison" to all of us. I don't think there is any need to explain what does poison do to our physical body. But I can offer an example that poisonous emotion such as hate can cause cancer (You can either choose to believe it, or not. There is no scientific proof to this claim, only theoretical proof. Negative emotions causes stress, stress causes the release of hormones into our body. Long term exposure to these hormones can wreck havoc with our immune system. That is a scientifically proven fact. It is also known that stress causes our bodies both inside and outside to age prematurely. Oxidation is a form of aging, and the health community has been harking over the taking of anti-oxidants to help slow or prevent the oxidation of any carcinogens or free radicals that are already in the body. And we know that carcinogens can trigger cancer given the right conditions, therefore prolonged exposure to negative emotions can possibly lead to cancer, or some other type of stress related illness.)

Conversely, if during preparation of the food, you were feeling happy, blessed, loved, or any form of positive and healthy emotion, you are essentially blessing the food with positive energy for the recipients of your dishes. Those who ingest the food will also feel better, not to mention it will also be tastier.

In short, dear readers, when you do prepare food for others or yourself, do it with a light heart. Do it with much love, respect, happiness, peace, and compassion, so that those who come to eat your food would feel it too and be touched by it.

Manage your wastages

I believe that everyone of us is put on this earth with a little bag of "prosperity". This little bag of resources is what we will be using on our soul journey this time round. You can neither have more, nor less, it is all a carefully calculated amount for your use on this trip, to some extent.

Buddhist teachings have a similar philosophy. They believe that everyone is born with a little bag of resources called "fu(2) bao(4)" in Mandarin. The amount of this little bag of resources is predestined by what you have accumulated, and your Karma from your past life/s.

In layman's terms, we can look at it as a storage bank of resources of sorts. The amount of money we have now, or will have in the future, and all our material wealth comes from this storage vault. Because this resource is very limited, hence it is very precious to all of us. When we are frugal with it, we are only taking out what we need to use. When we are generous, we give some of what we have to others, as a result we gain more (as a result of good merits accrued), and are also saving what we gave away for our own future to use at a later date. When we squander it, we are taking more out of it than we need; not only does this mean we are shrinking our own pool or resources, but we also pay out more from the bag in the end.

For example, when we order food to eat at any eating establishments, at a buffet, or even at home; we should always finish all on our plates. If we left over any food, all the effort that goes into making what was left over, including those who made it, or grew it, will be paid for from our little bank vault. That makes our little bag of resources shrink even faster.

In light of the above information, lets not waste any more resources, and leave no more morsel of food on our plates.