Zen story: The chef, and the Zen master

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The Zen master, Erlich Hazlich, once said that any Zen master worth his zen is someone living from love, not from his intellect, put first. He would then add that: "We need to uncover God in our life, by the way that we live it. He is always there, but living life rightly reveals his presence to us in our lives." "When we live from the depths of our hearts, and speak from our hearts, our words are then couched in kind words, when we speak to others." The Zen master was a hearty eater, and he used to take his time while eating, with his students all gathered at the table too, eating the products of the monastery kitchen. He would always give praise to the cook, and then give a little anecdote about him too. He would tell them that he found this cook, whilst sailing on a ship, where he was the cook there, and he had asked him when he tired of ship life, that he could have a job in his monastery, which this cook did, sooner, than later, as he was getting tired of always living off of dry land, onboard the ship. The previous monastery chef had died, and the students were all pitching in to help with the cooking, until this new chef came along. The new chef had a sense of humour too, and he liked to make hot curries. He would make word plays on the word curry, even as he said, "do not mind me currying on." For breakfast, at the monastery, he would make porridge, mixed with curry, and as he served this up, he would tell the eaters, "this mixture, will give you courage, to curry on, on." The chef would cheerfully advise the students to brush their teeth after every meal, or they might get caries, from his curries. The Zen master told his students that there is a connection between humour, and love. "Love lives within good humour, even as good humour brings out rays of love, shining with resplendency from the humour," he would tell his students. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The picture is of one of the chef's curries.