Spiritual Retreat Kitchen Ethos

Have we ever gone into a spiritual retreat with the most ideal of intentions only to find that all we’re really concerned about is food?

Food is foundational to our daily experience no matter whether our pursuits are sacred or mundane. But while we’re in retreat it is crucial to integrate our relationship to food, and the kitchen, with the practice of taming and resting in the nature of mind.

So instead of merely thinking about our next meal, and pondering our allergies, let’s take this opportunity to fold our food into the actual practice of training the mind. In the end, will we even see the difference between host and guest; work and meditation?

Whether it’s a professional, commercial kitchen or the corner of a retreat hut deep in the woods it matters how we relate with all aspects of its food—from the source of ingredients to the kitchen sink. 

This article will examine the more contemplative aspects of professional kitchen behavior as well as some methods for bringing the preparation of food onto the path. 

Ethos of the Professional Kitchen

Professional kitchen ethos are generally unwritten and part of the broader culture that are found to be true in all of the most esteemed kitchens of restaurants, resorts, and retreats. Professional kitchen ethos are not part of any job description or standard operating procedure (SOP); we are not going to be briefed by Chef about them all on day one. Rather, morale within the kitchen and satisfaction among guests shall be proof of whether the ethos are present in the mindstreams of the chef, cooks and crews.

• Show up early, ready to work
• Enjoy good food, precise technique, and be interested in culinary advancement
• Be coachable and willing to do it Chef’s way
• When things are going great: focus, prepare, and present food properly
• When things are going terribly: focus, prepare, and present food properly

Ethos aren’t just for commercial kitchens, or those with all the formal ratings and raves. Each of us in our private capacity—at the level of our own home kitchen sink—attain the highest gastronomical rank. When the ethos are applied, professionality is authentic and true.

Mise en Place

Essential to the efficient operation of a professional kitchen is the concept known as mise en place, a grand “prep and placement” in preparation for the main event. When professional kitchen ethos are present mise en place arises naturally: the environment is properly managed in the view; every tool and ingredient is prepared and in its place in meditation; the meal is accomplished with spontaneously complete finesse in conduct.

Austerity and Zen

Professional kitchens can be quite austere in their fanatical devotion to perfection in the task at hand. This is quite similar to some takes on Zen, perhaps there’s even an element of “crazy wisdom” in the cultish practices that some kitchens present. For instance, our Tenzo (our Manager and Chef) has placed this bill throughout:

Cultivating a Kitchen’s Merit and Positive Potential

Ultimately, the professional kitchen can be a source of merit and positive potential when managed in the context of a moral and religious type of authority with its accompanying chain of command. Having established the basic professionality of a kitchen we may then go beyond mere foodie-ness to serve the real sustenance of truth and goodness, to bless.

Zen monasteries of Japan place the tenzo, or kitchen manager, second in command after the abbot. Dogen himself wrote a commentary on the practice of cooking and kitchen management called Instructions for the Zen Cook, which is published in translation as How to Cook Your Life with commentary by Kosho Uchiyama Roshi.

Blazing Mountain Retreat Center, founded by Dharma Ocean Foundation, envisioned the station of tenzo in their retreat kitchen. Thus their environment contains influences of traditional Zen as well as Tibetan Buddhism via the inimitable Vidyadhara, Chogyam Trunpa’s teachings on the professionalism and merit of the kitchen. 

“Slogans for Kitchen Practice” were composed by the Vidyadhara via the epithet, Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, (which, translated from Tibetan, means “Adamant Disciplinarian of Mukpo Clan”). These slogans being posted on the kitchen wall are a feature of the greater Shambhala community. 

Slogans for Kitchen Practice

• Always clean up after yourself.
• Do not take what is not offered.
• Do not harm others with your speech.
• Not too fast, not too slow.
• Do not waste.
• No one is finished until all are finished.
• This food is prepared as an offering to the Three Jewels.
• The Sangha are your guests.

A kitchen that is managed by a tenzo, or any chef operating by slogans such as these is practicing extra-professional deeds in their conduct, thoughts and speech. One marked difference between commercial kitchens and those of spiritual retreat is kindness. Since the pace in the slogans is “not too fast,” for example, cooks can easily find the space to cheer up and remember the essential points of a kitchen’s precious merit.

The slogans presuppose all of the professional kitchen standards of health, sanitation, and safety that are required of commercial kitchens. Meritorious practices are extra-professional in that they reform the kitchen culture from cutthroat ranking systems to all-encompassing loving-kindness. The slogans are based on morality, thus they boost morale. The practices come from the collective teaching of Buddha, and thus increase camaraderie.  

Scriptural Sources

The penultimate slogan of preparing food as an offering to the Three Jewels means that an extra higher standard of sanitation and purity must be applied: such extra preparations and precautions are outlined for the ordained and lay communities in The Mahāyāna Sūtra “Pure Sustenance of Food”. 

Whoever seeks merit for the future should apportion the meritorious food offerings properly, hygienically, and respectfully. They should wash their hands thoroughly, cover all the warm dishes such as vegetables and the like, handle them carefully, and not taste them beforehand. Doing so will be meritorious and please all the gods and gain the favor of all one’s companions. This will bring about the protection and blessings of all the gods. This is a statement of fact.

In our kitchen at Blazing Mountain Retreat Center we practice this slogan by making first-portion offerings at our small Buddhist altar the moment any dish is prepared.

The ultimate slogan, “The Sangha are your guests,” ensures that the first-portions that were offered at the sacred site of the altar are extended to the buffet line and plates of the guests who themselves most definitely rank as a source of refuge in this life and beyond. 

The Sutra of the Recollection of the Noble Three Jewels states:

As for the sangha of the great yāna, they enter completely. They enter insightfully. They enter straightforwardly. They enter harmoniously. They are worthy of veneration with joined palms. They are worthy of receiving prostration. They are a field of glorious merit. They are completely capable of receiving all gifts. They are an object of generosity. They are always a great object of generosity.

Noble Silence (& Functional Talking)

The spiritual retreat kitchen is also extraprofessional in regards to its strict patterns of speech. These are called “noble silence” and “functional talking” in many of the Buddhist retreat centers of North America. Workers and guests may even wear a badge to indicate their level of renunciation in this domain of speech. Especially when retreat patrons volunteer by doing dishes or cleaning the dining hall they interface more with the kitchen staff. We all must be communicating within the same models and bounds. 

Were retreat participants to enter silence, noble silence, grand silence, &c., the kitchen would too. The bare minimum of talking for the essential function of the kitchen is allowed in brief whispered communiques, thus it is often referred to as “functional talking”.

Such meritorious and extraprofessional modes of speech weren’t just made up by any New Age retreat. These practices can be traced to Scripture: Bodhisattva Manjuśrī spake in The Noble Great Vehicle Sūtra “The Questions of Brahma­viśeṣacintin”: 

To discuss the Dharma is to speak of things that do not conflict with the Buddha, the Dharma, or the Sangha. To keep the noble silence is to be devoted to the Buddha as the nature of reality, the Dharma as freedom from desire, and the Sangha as what is unconditioned.

“To discuss the Dharma” is synonymous with “functional talking” in that the bare essential kitchen talk is itself the Dharma when spoken with devotion to the view. Stoves, pots, and ingredients do not conflict with the Buddha, Dharma, or Sangha so it is okay to speak of them when it’s critical to the mission.

Similarly, “keeping noble silence” is absolutely a quality of one’s own state of mind. Although there is merit in simply closing one’s mouth and abstaining from harm through speech, “noble silence” goes beyond that in the cultivator’s devotional mindset to express things as they truly are. 

When kitchen management is committed to sourcing the freshest and most local and organic ingredients, then preparing them exquisitely in a variety of cuisines by staff most properly trained, every guest and practitioner of the retreat will be properly nourished and delighted — in perfect routine — marrying flavors with the seasons in the collective stock.