The Magic Box

[Seiko]

Just an observation... We try to buy a magic box each week. This is a box of soon-to-be-out-of-date food, selected by the supermarket. It's whatever they have. It feels like a good practice, not only to save food from going to landfill, or buying cheaply, but to eat what is given, to have no choice. Yes it's up to me how I prepare the food, but I can't choose what's in that box. We eat to sustain our practice. It makes me feel different about the food somehow. More appreciative. More grateful. Less picky.

Please excuse me for running long.

Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Naiko]

Naiko
st

[Jundo]

This is a lovely suggestion.

I have never heard of such a "magic box" program (although I always head first to the "marked-down" about to go out of date section of our local super-market for veggies and canned good ... but I must confess that maybe the reason is mostly that I am a bit cheap, and like a good deal. )

What you describe is very much in keeping with the spirit of Oryoki eating in Zen Practice: A famous Zen saying states that a monk's mouth should be like a furnace, burning up whatever is placed within without hesitancy. Although we should seek to eat healthy food and not poisons, so as to preserve our lives, and while the Tenzo cook dedicates herself to producing nutritious and tasty meals for the Sangha community, we recipients otherwise welcome each meal with equanimity as to preferences and offered tastes, neither longing nor rejecting, neither dawdling nor distractedly gulping down.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Doshin]

Doshin
St

[Tairin]

There’s a program like that here which we have used. The quality and variety can be pretty inconsistent sometimes but it is less expensive and if it is diverting food from land fill the that’s a good thing.

We have ended up with some rather humorous items….. like two bunches of carrots where (no exaggeration) each carrot was the size of a baby’s arm. Good thing I like carrots.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Onki]

My wife and I do this too!! Each week we receive our Magic Box and each week it is a surprise as to what we will find inside. We get the box from a place called Odd Bunch which is a fitting name. They provide a few different boxes but we get the All Veg box. It’s a great deal and we’re supporting a local company.

Gasshō,

Onki

Sat today