I first knew Edward Espe Brown as the author of The Tassajara Bread Book, from which I learned to bake bread many years ago in a small village in western Massachusetts during the 1980s. Now that I live in his home territory of northern California, I delight in the fact that he is still writing about food, and about bread baking. The picture that accompanies this entry in Reckonings accompanies his article, "Gifts From Beyond," published in the Summer 2018 issue of Parabola Magazine.
The article begins, "Many years ago, in the early '80s, when Thich Nhat Hanh was giving a talk prior to departing from the San Francisco Zen Center where I was living, he said he had a goodbye present for us. We could, he said, open and use it anytime, and if we did not find it useful, we could simply set it aside. Then he proceeded to explain that, 'As you inhale, let your heart fill with compassion, and as you exhale, pour the compassion over your head...' It was a gift I used daily, repeatedly, for two or three years. Rough edges softened. Tension melted. I had been given, I was giving to myself, a renewed body, which felt more and more like home, warm and hospitable. Gifts like this take practice, the practice of giving your attention, your warm-heartedness, to your activity."
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"What is it we really want? What more could we ask for, than the capacity, the heart's capacity, to sense what is truly precious, to acknowledge and receive the gifts born of our care and attention, to nourish and be nourished? Hearts awaken, and we feast."
I remember those days as I remember yesterday. Yet this is a lesson in remembering and forgetting. I have not baked a single loaf of bread since those days. So now comes the graceful invitation of Edward Espe Brown to say, To remember is enough. The gift is within.
"To be at home in this world, to be at home in this body and mind, receiving the gifts from Beyond, and passing them on." That is the essence.