Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Refinement ... food

This desire to go beyond what is, slowly morphs itself into the desire to live the best life possible, a search for best practices. A process of continuous refinement. This process of refinement reflects itself in various ways. Including diet.

In Japan there is a special kind of diet called shoujin ryouri. If you are a vegetarian in Japan, then you'll be glad to know that you can enjoy shoujin ryouri at most Buddhist temples and some onsen (hot water spring bath inns)

The word shoujin is made of two characters. Shou - "refine, essence, spirit".
Jin - "advance, progress".

The word ryouri - loosely translated in English as "cooking" is composed of two characters "ryou" means material. And "ri" means "logic, arrangement, principles of right and wrong.

There is a tacit recognition of the fact that all matter, everything that exists, is 'food' for some force or the other. All material is food. Cooking is the process of arrangement of material according to logical principles of right and wrong.

However, material may be arranged to reflect refinement, so as to bring out the essence and to progressively aid the advancement of that refinement. The principles for doing so have been identified and are embodied in "shoujin ryouri".

-miquelrius journal, end of 2008