December 8, 2012 Bodhi Day Sit and Dinner Party – Lasagna, Salad and Croatian Cheese and Apple Strudels

December 8, 2012 Bodhi Day Sit and Dinner Party – Lasagna, Salad and Croatian Cheese and Apple Strudels

I sat with my small Zen meditation group of three for a half day from 9:00 am to 3:00 p.m. in honor of Bodhi Day or Rohatsu in Japanese, which is usually celebrated on December 8 and is celebrated as the day Buddha figured everything out and reached enlightenment:  how to break the wheel of suffering and life and death, the law of Karma and understanding the four noble truths and reaching a state of Nirvana or complete awakening or understanding for the first time in 589 B.C.E.   

Shortly after reaching enlightenment the Buddha started teaching the path to enlightenment and the four noble truths.

The four Noble Truths are explained in Wikipedia as follows:

The four truths are presented within the Buddha's first discourse, Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dharma (Dharmacakra Pravartana Sūtra). An English translation is as follows:^{[web 4]}

1. "This is the noble truth of dukkha: birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, illness is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha; union with what is displeasing is dukkha; separation from what is pleasing is dukkha; not to get what one wants is dukkha; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are dukkha."
2. "This is the noble truth of the origin of dukkha: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination."
3. "This is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it."
4. "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of dukkha: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration." ^[13][e][f]

   We sat for three 30 minute periods and then had lunch and then an 1 ½ hour informal sit with walks between of the sits and after lunch and then had tea and cookies and talked; a pretty leisurely sitting schedule. 

Lunch was vegetarian and I brought the squash, potato and celeriac casserole we had made Friday night.  J.B. made curried vegetable soup and Chris brought a lovely, round Sage Bakery farmhouse bread made with mixed whole wheat and white flour and butter and apples and a pear.

When I returned home around 3:30 p.m. I found Willy and Bobbie jack hammering the last hardened area of dirt to dig a trench in order to expose the water line from the meter at the street to the house.

Everything was tidied up by 5:00, so we got dressed and grabbed a bottle of Italian Da Vinci Chianti and drove to Ed and Ben’s house in Tome for their Christmas Party.  Ed works for Suzette as her horticulturalist.  He has had several interesting careers, including being a culinary school trained chef and working in the kitchen at El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon (one of Santa Fe RR’s original Harvey Houses) and then for 19 years being a guide for rafting trips on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, before coming to Albuquerque.

We learned that Ed’s ancestry was Croatian when he offered us lovely cheese and apple strudels made with phylo dough.  He told us the story of making phylo with his grandmother by stretching a piece of dough out until it was unbelievably thin to make the wrapping for the strudel.  I especially liked the cheese strudel made with cottage or ricotta cheese and flavored with sugar and lemon juice.

For dinner Ed had made platters of vegetarian and meat lasagna and a large salad with fresh mushrooms and tomatoes and green onions.  Both lasagnas were great, although I especially liked the vegetarian lasagna with its rich creamy mushroom sauce and layers of mushrooms and spinach.

After sitting beside the fire in their new brazier on the second story deck attached to their house, which is nestled among large cottonwood trees near the edge of the Rio Grande bosque, talking and sipping wine.  We ate a lovely dinner of beautifully prepared food with them and their other guests and played an elaborate game of progressive gift claiming organized by Ben and eating Ed’s delicious meal, we went home around 9:30 p.m.   Ed was kind enough to give us a platter of strudels.

Bon Appètit