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When East Meets West

Peter Clement — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 13:36:41 +0000

At Dharma Drum Retreat Center, Chef Dwayne and the kitchen crew, James & Ephrium, designed a number of new dishes called “When East Meets West” over several weeks.

The three chefs, proficient in pan frying, cooking, and baking, showcased their skills with French dishes like ratatouille, crème brûlée, and Vietnamese sandwiches. However, using a wok was a new experience for them, let alone stir-frying rice noodles or cooking tasty vegetables.

After two weeks of dedicated effort and exploration, they became skillful in stir-frying Taiwanese rice noodles, Chinese toon with tofu, braised cabbage, Taiwanese braised snacks, black beans stir-fry with green and red peppers, and authentic Jiangnan side dish of mashed lima beans with mustard green.

Since starting this “When East Meets West” project, they have collectively decided to use 100% natural ingredients to create dishes that promote the health of all beings. Keep it up!

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Cooking Meditation Retreat

Peter Clement — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 14:54:28 +0000

Vegetarian Cooking Class: Health for the Body and Mind

Throughout this vegetarian cooking workshop, participants learned the basic principles of maintaining a healthy mind and body. They learned techniques for creating delicious dishes utilizing simple vegetables and seasonings available at local grocery stores.

Our resident chefs and monastics shared their knowledge for cooking healthy East-West fusion vegetarian cuisine. Retreatants had the opportunity to participate in creating various dishes over the weekend to fuel body and mind with the energy to walk the Buddha path.

Over the 2-day workshop attendees also practiced periods of sitting and walking meditation to enhance the weekend dedicated to lifting quality of life.

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Stillness in Motion 2024

Peter Clement — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:12:06 +0000

After three years of being held online, Abbot Guo Yuan, Venerable Chang Ji, and David Listen led a beautiful edition of Stillness in Motion this February.

Stillness in Motion was originally designed during the COVID-19 pandemic as an online retreat for participants to bring Chan practice into daily life at home. This year, Stillness in Motion 2024 was offered as an in-person 3 day event. Through daily Dharma talks, meditation, Arts in Chan sessions, and group discussions, participants discovered the benefits of Chan practice and learned how to incorporate it into their lives.

This year’s program included sessions on meditating on sound taught by Abbot Guo Yuan and meditative drawing taught by Dr. Rikki Asher. The snow provided a lovely backdrop to give body and mind a break from hectic lives. We hope to see you next year at Stillness in Motion 2025!

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