The Sacred Kitchen with Karen Wang Diggs
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This course will include LIVE presentations, interactive training sessions, immersive exercises, and questions and answers with Karen. Each session will build on the one before it, so you’ll have a comprehensive holistic grasp of the practices, techniques, and principles you’ll need to reconnect with the nurturing hearth of the home via an edible spiritual journey that reclaims the sanctity of cooking and eating.
Module 1: The Vipassana Kitchen — Creating Sacred Space in the Kitchen (May 11)
How can we restore the kitchen to its original purpose as a holy meeting place for connecting and nourishing the body, heart, and soul?
You’ll begin by becoming acquainted with the components present in your own kitchen and investigating how they relate to you, nature, and the cosmos.
The kitchen is the old hearth, where the five holy elements of water, wood, fire, earth, and metal coexist. This week, you’ll bring these components back into balance and reclaim your kitchen as a holy area.
You’ll create a small shrine in your holy kitchen to encourage generosity and the transformation of food into gifts… and rekindle your senses with her Five Elements Spice combination and the ancient meditation method known as vipassana, which the Buddha used to achieve nirvana.
Vipassana is being consciously present in order to view things as they truly are. This applies to all aspects of cooking in the sacred kitchen. Every action becomes a chance to build enlightened consciousness as a result.
You’ll also investigate taste as a metaphor for enlightenment, as well as strategies for deliberately harnessing your senses to create spiritual culinary experiences.
Finally, Karen will provide recipes to awaken your sense of taste as well as new ideas on the relationship between your body’s need for nourishment, mindfulness, and spirituality…
… and conclude class with the first of many guided culinary ritual offerings.
You’ll also see this week:
Explore how comprehending the core essence of one flavor liberates the mind by being guided in the 5 Senses Meditation to convert regular sensory experiences into awakened moments of tasting, smelling, touching, hearing, and seeing.
Discover a unique technique for swiftly improving, deepening, and enlivening the sense of taste.
Discover a novel way to engage with nature’s components in the hearth-kitchen.
Sharpening and caring for knives as a spiritual practice Karen prepares gomasio in honor of the Mahasiddhas and Zen Masters who attained enlightenment in the kitchen — and cuts carrots in a lovely and attentive manner for a matchstick carrots and burdock dish.
Module 2: Nourishing the Body as an Enlightenment Vehicle (May 18)
“Your body is valuable,” the Buddha said. It is your means of awakening. Take care of it.”
This week, you will investigate your body as a holy vessel for mind-body-spirit nutrition. You’ll learn about the physiological link between mindful eating and immunity, as well as the alchemy of digestion — and its outer, inner, and hidden layers of feeding…
… and discover how living cultured foods feed and enhance your gut-brain-microbiota axis, as well as its role in mind-body-spirit healing.
Karen will discuss how your microbiome — and the billions of bacteria it contains — contributes to your sense of self, as well as why cooking and eating at home respects your body and nature.
You’ll also discover how to break your attachments and addictions to sugar, carbs, alcohol, and comfort foods, as well as how to build healthy, spiritually connected dietary choices as a means of achieving higher enlightenment.
Karen will then provide recipes for stimulating your sense of smell and balancing your microbiota… and round up the week with a unique gastronomic ritual.
You’ll also see this week:
Be directed by your 5 senses. Meditation with a strong emphasis on scent
Learn how to improve your sense of smell — as well as a practical test to assess your body’s nutritional health using the olfactory sense.
Learn how the billions of bacteria in your gut influence your sense of self.
Honor the element of metal while learning how to utilize blades as a contemplative activity.
Watch Karen make sauerkraut live and get fermentation advice.
Taste the culinary ritual Clouds of Nourishing Fragrance.
Module 3: Alchemy in a Pot — Seven Stages of Spiritual Alchemy & 5 Fermentation Methods (May 25)
Alchemy comes into play as you go on a spiritual awakening path, when your thick self-identity gradually turns into the gold of enlightenment. The same is true of the alchemical processes that take place in your holy kitchen.
This week, you’ll learn about the seven steps of spiritual alchemy and the five fermentation processes, as well as how to use ancient food preparation practices, such as using your hands, to promote connection and attention.
Traditional ways of food preparation may be utilized to activate, develop, and comprehend the transforming processes of our personal alchemical journey, much as ancient alchemists employed procedures in their laboratories as exterior meditations to promote interior changes.
You’ll also learn how fermented foods may help you on your spiritual path and how the microbiome of the hands effects the flavor, nutritional content, and vitality of food.
Finally, Karen will demonstrate how to fold empanadas and provide recipes for awakening your sense of touch… Finishing out the week with a unique culinary ritual.
You’ll also see this week:
Be taken through the 5 Senses Meditation, with a specific emphasis on taste.
Learn how to improve your sense of taste and how it links to your sense of smell.
Learn about the 7 phases of spiritual alchemy and the 5 ways of fermentation, as well as how fermented foods may help you on your path to enlightenment.
Discover how your gut microbiota effects your emotions and feelings, as well as how the microbiome of your hands can alter the outcome of food you make.
View Karen’s demonstration on how to fold empanadas.
Experience a culinary ritual honoring the earth element and soil dwelling beings.
Module 4: Cooking With Compassion — Developing the Four Immeasurables (June 1)
Cultivating the Four Immeasurables – love, compassion, joy, and serenity — is a wonderful task that allows you to view yourself and others for what they actually are… indivisible.
When following a recipe, you usually measure out components in specific proportions. This week, you’ll realize how everyone is unique and requires nutrition tailored to their own physiology.
You will learn to cook with the Four Immeasurables in order to extend your awareness into unlimited levels of generosity and love that cannot be measured, expanding your measure of love and joy in order to appreciate and enjoy your sources of nourishment…
…while showing yourself loving love and compassion as you adopt the diet that is best for your body, mind, and soul.
You’ll also learn about the Five Tastes of Traditional Chinese Medicine and how paying attention to them when making each meal links you with nature and improves your body’s ability to absorb nutrients.
Finally, Karen will present recipes for stimulating your vision and elevating your mood… Finishing out the week with a unique culinary ritual.
You’ll also see this week:
Be taken through the 5 Senses Meditation, with a specific emphasis on sight.
Discover how looking with a compassionate heart enhances your culinary creativity.
Discover spices and herbs that will enrich your culinary experience. The Five Tastes of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Develop compassion and serenity towards the ethics of eating meat.
Respect and appreciate your food sources by not wasting foods such as liver and bones, carrots, and onion tops.
View Karen’s demonstration on how to make a mocktail.
Experience a culinary ritual to respect the element of wood as part of the process of connecting with the ground and sky, as well as metamorphosis.
Module 5: Zazen in Motion — Bringing Form and Emptiness Together (June 8)
The Heart Sutra of Buddhism teaches that “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”
This sutra contains a simplified revelation of the Doctrine of Two Truths, which is that of relative and ultimate reality.
This week, you’ll commemorate this ancient scripture in your sacred kitchen by first giving reverence to the materials you utilize in meal preparation… and then offering it to the benefit of all beings.
You’ll learn about the Zen practice of Temple Cooking, or shojin ryori, which involves choosing and cooking with foods that are local, in season, and sustainable in order to express respect and thanks to all sentient creatures and the cyclical dynamics of nature.
You’ll discover the advantages of cooking and eating from a place of deep inner quiet, and you’ll learn to balance meals and your body using the concepts of the Five Tastes… and learn more about the nature of tea and its possible role in enlightenment.
Finally, Karen will discuss recipes and techniques for improving your hearing and flavor… Finishing out the week with a unique culinary ritual.
You’ll also see this week:
Be directed by your 5 senses. Meditation with a particular emphasis on listening
Learn to focus on listening and appreciate stillness as the audible nothingness that allows our inner souls to be heard. Create balance in your meals by utilizing the 5 Tastes principles — and colors that match with organs in the body.
Investigate the discipline of “just enough,” or oryoki – a contemplative eating style observed in Zen monasteries.
Learn why tea culture, or camellia sinensis, is an important component of monastic life — and how it aids meditation and spiritual growth.
View Karen’s demonstration on how to properly brew green tea.
With cups of elixirs, participate in a culinary ceremony to commemorate the element of water.
Puja in Your Sacred Kitchen — Ceremonial Spices & Herbs for the Physical & Spiritual Body Module 6 (June 15)
Pujas, or offering rituals, are performed as a form of prayer, thanks, and reverence in various spiritual traditions.
Many components of a puja are intimately related to what you do every day in your own kitchen. This week, you’ll dive deep into puja, covering the ingredients of a puja and how they reflect the five senses…
… and develop a firm grasp on how to apply this important practice in a straightforward yet reverent manner when cooking a meal.
You’ll discover the significance of various spices, herbs, and ancient grains in pujas, as well as how to bake a torma ceremonial cake as an offering.
Karen will then offer ceremonial recipes and rituals for awakening your “sixth” sense… and round up the week with a unique gastronomic ritual.
You’ll also see this week:
Be guided through the 5 Senses Meditation, paying special attention to the “sixth” sense of proprioception and intuition.
Discover a variety of spices and herbs suitable for offerings, as well as how they benefit your physical and spiritual health.
Learn how to cook ancient grains for maximum digestion, nutrition, and transformation.
Karen demonstrates how to make an incense recipe.
With a simple handmade incense recipe, participate in a culinary ceremony to celebrate the element of fire.
Module 7: Cooking the Sacred Meal — A Preparation Prayer (June 22)
In this last lesson, you’ll go over everything you’ve learned so far and get advice on how to keep your holy kitchen and spiritual cooking practices going…
… and then prepare a dinner with Karen that incorporates both the utilitarian and spiritual parts of holy cooking that you’ve studied.
In addition, you’ll make a sacrifice to your holy kitchen shrine, dedicating your sacred place and all meals served there to the feeding of all creatures.
Karen recommends gathering items for this dinner ahead of time, but you may also simply follow along by watching her presentation.
During the last class, you will:
Improve your 5 Senses Meditation to awaken typical sensory sensations such as taste, smelling, touching, hearing, and seeing
Make a sacrifice for your sacred kitchen shrine.
Get an overview of the recipes, ingredients, and their application to this class.
Prepare a meal with your classmates and Karen as she discusses the most essential components of the previous six weeks so you can keep your holy kitchen and spiritual culinary practices going.
Learn how to process and integrate course knowledge on a daily basis.
Enjoy a last offering and prayers before devoting your cooked meal to the nutrition and welfare of all sentient creatures.
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