I read this today while visiting my mom in Arizona. I don't exactly know why, but it totally resonated with me. Maybe with all the hustle and bustle this time of year, it reminds me of how simple life really is... enlightenment can be found everywhere - in every minute of every day. When it comes right down to it, how much stuff do we really need? How full do we need to cram our lives? How much money do we really need to make? Sometimes simpler is better.

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"While Zen was still in its infancy in Japan, a gifted monk named Dogen (1200-1253) made the hazardous voyage to China to seek the Way. Although he would meet many Masters and receive a cerificate of enlightenment, it was perhaps the old Chinese monastery cook, visiting the newly landed ship to buy Japanese mushroms, who gave Dogen his purest taste of Zen. Dogen asked the cook to stay and talk, but he begged off, saying he must get back to his duties. When the surprised Dogen asked him why he didn't pracice zazen and leave the food to others, the old cook scoffed. Did the ignorant Japanse monk know nothing of the spirit of Buddhism?

Dogen, who woud go on to become not only the most important Soto Zen master in Japan but one of humankind's great religious spirits, never forgot the lesons of the cook-- that work is fundamentally imprortant to Zen and that enlightenment can be found in even the most ordinary places and acts. "Each and every exraordinary activity," he wrote, "is simply having rice."" - from The Little Zen Companion by David Schiller.