Edward Espe Brown, Zen teacher and author of the famed Tassajara cookbooks, offers four recipes for colorful, nourishing, seasonal meals: All Orange Winter Squash Soup With Dried Apricots, Mushroom Crepes With Mushroom Sauce, Watercress with Apple and Raisins, and Pear Crisp with Cardamom. One of the best ways people connect with each other is by eating together. "May I offer [...]
About Edward Espe Brown
Breathing Lessons
Richard Rosen, Larry Rosenberg, Edward Espe Brown, and Gaylon Ferguson compare breath practices in yoga and three schools of Buddhism—Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism. Exhale and Hold Richard Rosen on the Breath in Yoga American yoga students have been fascinated with asana, the physical "postures" taught in American yoga classes for the last fifty years. Yet [...]
At Ease in Body and Mind
Zen teacher Edward Espe Brown with yoga teacher Patricia Sullivan on combining Buddhist practice and yoga. Patricia and I met in Judith Lasiter's yoga class nineteen years ago. Nowadays I buzz my hair back to fuzz when it gets long enough to need combing, but in those years I kept my head shaved and wore a black cotton or blue denim Zen hippari, a cross-over-the-front, [...]
Being Shaken
When Edward Brown began meditating, his body shook and rocked on the cushion. But he refused to give up. Instead, he found a way to release the childhood trauma at the root of it. Early in my Zen practice I could not sit still in meditation, as I was besieged with involuntary movements. I didn’t stop sitting—no, I kept meditating right on schedule—but my pelvis rocked and [...]
Rules to Live By
Doing the right thing doesn’t always mean following the rules, says Edward Brown. He only wishes he had known that years ago when he was deciding the fate of a young Zen student at Tassajara. Once Katagiri Roshi told us, “Practicing Zen is not like training your dog: Sit. Heel. Fetch. We are not training ourselves to be obedient and to just follow the rules. We are training [...]
Have You Tried Meditation?
He may be at home in the kitchen but famed Zen chef Edward Espe Brown can’t handle the mall. And don’t even mention computers. One day Suzuki Roshi said, "Life is basically impossible." Then he got up and left the zendo. The next day a student asked, "Suzuki Roshi, yesterday you said that life is basically impossible. What are we going to do?" "You do it," he replied, [...]
Arugula Salad With Avocado and Cashew Nuts
Mindful Living in the Kitchen: Edward Espe Brown offers up a favorite, classic recipe from The Complete Tassjara Cookbook. Arugula Salad With Avocado and Cashew Nuts Arugula delights me with its meaty tenderness and its pungent flavor of mustard or radish. Here it is offset with the creamy avocado and crunchy cashews. Serves 4 people. 1 bunch arugula 1/2 cup cashew [...]
Let Your Passion Cook: Mindful Living in the Kitchen
Mindful cooking is not detached or subdued, says Edward Espe Brown. It’s cooking with your whole being engaged—mind, body, and emotions. And remember, it’s better when you’re feeling your way in the dark and asking what is the most important point. At a weeklong meditation session one year, I think it was 1968, my teacher Suzuki Roshi lectured about how to practice Zen. [...]
Adventures in Breathing
Traveling the breath, Zen priest and yoga teacher Edward Espe Brown has found himself in some unexpected places. When I began practicing awareness of the breath, I had no idea of the adventures that were in store, the strange and wondrous journeys that would unfold. Though I had envisioned scenic pictures of holy sites, I kept ending up in strange, out-of-the-way places: parts [...]
Biscuits — and More — Beyond Compare
When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow the recipe and try variations, but nothing worked. These biscuits just didn't measure up. Growing up I had "made" two kinds of biscuits: one was from Bisquik and the other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquik biscuits you added milk to the [...]
