In Buddha's Kitchen: Cooking and Being Cooked at a Meditation Center

by Kimberley Snow

Book Overview

The head cook at a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center shares her experiences working in the kitchen and takes a humorous look at the spiritual lessons learned through daily routines, rituals, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1590300475
• ISBN13: 9781590300473
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Shambhala Publications
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Great entertainment AND excellent teaching.

I picked up this book with wonder. I am a writer who lived in a California Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center, and was the Cook. South of Dorje Ling, and thus somewhat different - yet I was profoundly moved by her eloquent portrait of what could have been my own experience. Despite the unusual reason for my personal resonance with the story, I believe that even people who are not former Meditation Center cooks will find this book wonderful reading. The story is quite entertaining, and the dharma is presented in an elegant, unassuming, and egoless style, that is incredibly readable.

Dharmically funny

What a fun and insightful book. While the theme of cooking runs through the book, the lessons are much deeper than recipes. Highly recommended!

What? No recipes?

I really enjoyed this book about the author's experiences cooking in a Buddhist Monastery in Northern California. Several chapters are real gems: Jizo Ceremony, Impermanence, A Cup of Tea and On Having A Teacher. She makes good use of her early experiences as a chef to contrast with the new attitude of mindfulness and silence. Even though I give it five stars I still walked away from the table hungry for a little more.I would have liked to read a deeper treatment of transforming the five poisons into the five wisdoms, something intriguing that was only mentioned in passing. How can you write a whole book about cooking in a Buddhist kitchen and not include a single recipe? The Author does mention at one point that she is working on a cookbook. I'd love to read that as a companion volume to this great book on practical application of Buddhist ideas to daily life.

Everyday Buddha

In Buddha's Kitchen was an honest and profound look into the mind's phenomenon. I was left with a deep sense of humanity as I learned that my own questions are part of a larger communal experience. Kimberley Snow's book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Buddhism, but her experience is also a reflection of everyone who searches their daily life for the good within. I recommend this book for anyone looking for that everyday Buddha. Kimberly if you're reading this, thank you.

Laugh Out Loud Funny & Profound

This is an amazing book. Who could have anticipated such a combination of fall-down-funny good humor and profound evocation of the nature of the Buddhist path in everyday life?Chef Snow, trying to get away from her commercial kitchen, winds up at a Tibetan Buddhist meditation center in charge of the kitchen there! Meditation in action doesn't even begin to describe her adventures. Her long journey to awareness is the perfect introductory book I would recommend to anyone yearning to make their own days more meaningful and happy and useful through the exposure to ancient spiritual insights. Certain to be recognized as a classic, but more important it's a delightful "read" that will literally change lives. To put it briefly, keeping with Snow's ongoing metaphor of the kitchen, "downright delicious & joyously nourishing."