BY TOMMY HOUSWORTH
When it comes to food, I’m not always the most mindful of eaters. I can gobble up a slice of pizza faster than I can tell what toppings are on it and if there’s a veggie taco around, well, to paraphrase a line from Animal House, “keep your hands and feet away from my mouth and you’ll be fine.” But fresh strawberries? They stop me in my tracks. Those vibrant little hybrids always make me pause, savor, and wake up to my senses.
Color, texture, and taste are only some of the reasons why I appreciate strawberries. My enjoyment basking in these beauties is enhanced by having encountered an ancient Zen parable, one you too may have read. I’ll share a version of it here, as published in a collection of Buddhist parables titled Zen Flesh, Zen Bones:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!’
For such a short teaching, there’s a lot to unpack. Most interpret it to mean that one should strive to be alive in every moment. As D.T. Suzuki wrote, “You can’t be alive if you are living in fear and if you’re living in fear you can’t see and experience life; the magnificence of your life that is right in front of you in each moment.” And fear is often with us, triggered by things far less tangible than tigers.
That’s why I’m glad that, since hearing this parable many years ago, I recall it every time I see a strawberry. I’m not sure why it had such a profound effect, but for me, the strawberry has come to symbolize a delicacy to be relished. So, I take my time, appreciating each bite, admiring its vivid and varied colors, its tender surrender to my tongue. In that moment, I am briefly, beatifically alive.
But it doesn’t have to be strawberries. Twice, I’ve had the opportunity to go on retreat to Thich Nhat Hanh’s Magnolia Grove Monastery in Batesville, Mississippi. There, practitioners are given a generous amount of time, upward of 90 minutes, for each meal. The vegan food is prepared in the kitchen by the monks and nuns residing there. Fresh vegetables, silky tofu, stomach warming soup and hearty bread are regular menu items, with meals taken in silence to allow us to truly pay attention to the full, rich experience of eating, tasting, and appreciating our food.
But returning home, as so often happens, I fall into my old routine. Meals return to mostly mindless consumption as I rush through lunch so I can get back to work or doomscroll through my morning coffee. Sometimes I’ll talk through an enticing dinner just to keep silence at bay, failing to remember that silence is a key ingredient in the recipe for paying attention.
Still, the memory of those fully present moments reminds me that I can experience anything – a cup of coffee, soft grass beneath bare feet, birdsong on the morning air, the smile of a stranger, the embrace of a loved one – as an epiphany. The world is always extending an invitation to come back to now, to appreciate its sweet fruit, even as we dangle between the tigers we outran and the tigers that await us.
In 2025, tigers appear to be everywhere. We are a weary lot, not long out of a global pandemic and now plunged deeper into a state of distrust, division, and confusion. Everything, it seems, is designed to keep us in a state of high anxiety: our political landscape, financial uncertainty, technology that creates false realities, and our own personal life challenges that ebb and flow like the tides. Some days it feels like there are predators on all fronts.
The Zen teaching reminds us that being mindful of dangers doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate life’s small, yet exquisite gifts. In fact, it is exactly that perilous dance between life and death that renders the strawberry all the sweeter. This precious human birth comes with a boatload of suffering and finding beauty and joy along the path is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
So give yourself a moment of delight. This summer find a roadside stand, a farmer’s market, or even a supermarket, and select a small container of strawberries. Or if strawberries aren’t for you, maybe eat a peach. Or a watermelon. Whatever your pleasure, indulge, slowly and mindfully, and see how the tigers freeze, if only for a moment, as worry turns into wonder when savor and sweetness meet your mouth. Now that is the pause that refreshes.
