A Fear of Gravy

Last spring, as my conditioning was trying to convince me it was time to give up awareness practice, I decided to sign up as a monk assistant at the Monastery during a There Is Nothing Wrong with You retreat. I love doing things that make my conditioning crazy—usually the roles are reversed. I pictured myself pounding nails, pulling weeds, digging holes, clearing out brush and pruning the greenery, cleaning the outhouses and dormitory bathrooms—you get the picture.

Imagine my horror and dismay when I arrived and was assigned to work in the kitchen. "WHAT??!!??," I screamed in my head. "Don't you guys know I'm not a kitchen type of girl? This must be some kind of horrible mistake. Can't you tell just by looking at me that I'm not an inside person—I'm an outside person—I like to work outside!" Friends, I was plunged into hell in that moment—seething in a cauldron of fear and shock. The thought that kept repeating itself like a looped tape was "this is just so wrong."

And because we practice in silence, because we practice saying yes, because we are not here to create and cling to beliefs, because we are here to use everything in our experience to see how we cause ourselves to suffer so that we can drop that and end suffering, I went to work in the kitchen. It was all I could do to keep breathing down into my belly. I found myself focusing on keeping my feet weighted evenly and the backs of my knees soft or I else I would find myself tensed up into a knot with my shoulders hunched up around my ears and my knees locked, grimly chopping or stirring. I was thoroughly convinced that at any moment the Monastery would discover this "huge mistake" and set me free to go work outside.

After a day of pure torment, I revealed my experience during my daily guidance appointment. The guide asked me what exactly it was about working in the kitchen that was so terrible. I thought for a while and really couldn't come up with any specific task. Then, sitting there in silence for a while longer, it all came rushing forward. I burst into tears and said, "because the kitchen is where you go when you're bad."

When I was a little girl, I spent all my days outside, playing and riding my bike, exploring the countryside, free and happy. Not only was this my natural inclination, but it served me well as an escape from an angry alcoholic father. But every so often I would get into trouble and would be hauled into the kitchen as punishment to help my father cook. He would hand me a recipe, and without any coaching, would leave me to figure things out on my own. He would continue drinking and checking up on me every so often. And I would, of course, make a "mistake." I would know I had made a mistake because he would sneak up behind me and slap me and start telling me what an idiot I was.

So here I was, 35 years later, working in the Monastery kitchen, still having that same experience. The guide asked me then what my little self needed to hear when we were in the kitchen working. What she wanted to hear was that she was not alone—that I would help her with everything. I would teach her how to measure things, and show her how to use all the tools and that no matter what happened, no one would ever hit her or yell at her again because I would always be there to protect her. And that we would have lots of fun together and that we would ask for help if we needed it. And that I was ever so glad that I got to spend all this time with her. It was a miracle.

The very next day I was asked to make gravy for 34 people. GRAVY??!!?? NO, NOT GRAVY, ANYTHING BUT GRAVY!!! Gravy in our family was like nitroglycerine. If the gravy didn't turn out, the entire Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday would explode. My mother and father would get into huge screaming fights about ruined gravy. One year things got so bad that my parents threw their presents to each other into the fire. So there was no way I was going to make gravy. That's right—I had managed my whole life to avoid making gravy.

And because we practice in silence, because we practice saying yes, because we are not here to create and cling to beliefs, because we are here to use everything in our experience to see how we cause ourselves to suffer so that we can drop that and end suffering, I made a big old pot of gravy. And I had a marvelous time doing it. I put so much fun and love into that gravy that it couldn't help but turn out perfect. And it did.

And when I get scared of trying new things or feel myself stiffen in resistance to change, I remind myself that I am a person who can make gravy for 34 people. And if I can do that, I can do anything.

And that, dear friends, is why we have rules and guidelines—they set us free.

Deep Gasshō.