If you want to know who you are, carefully study yourself inside and out. Study whom you spend time with, what you enjoy doing, what kind of influence you bring onto others, and what your priorities in life are. This will lead you to discover your true-self. – Beopjeong Seunim (1932-2010, a Korean monk respected for his lifetime practice of non-possession)

Yesterday, I met with an employee of the Cultural Corps of Korean Buddhism over tea at the Temple Food Center in Seoul. She attended the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Italy, where I hope to do my Master degree next fall. The conversation revolved around intersections of food values between the Italian-born food ideology Slow Food, and the centuries-old Buddhist approach to eating named Temple Food. We discussed the global popularization of the Temple Food ideology thanks to Chef’s Table, and how the celebrity of Jeong Kwan has brought with it blessings as well as hurdles.

What I took away from this conversation and the ones I’ve had with other travelers on this trip revolves around building a world-wide community through a common passion. In this case, it’s food.

Slow Food and Temple Food were born in distant cultures, in different centuries, but carry the same vision of spiritual, social, and physical fulfilment through food.

I believe collective consciousness can be revealed when people share presence through food, no matter where they are from.

More to come!..