Serenity Thoughts 2:

The other night, serenity descended upon me while making popcorn on the stovetop. I learned the process over a decade ago from my best friend, K. It's taken me nearly that long to approach perfection in my techniques.

You can experiment with oils if you like, but I recommend coconut. Heat the oil, covered, with three kernals in the pot over medium high heat. I've done this over gas, electric, even on a camp stove, it always works out. I use a six quart stock pot with a tight fitting lid. I found it in a free box several years ago, and I'm always grateful to whomever it is that left it for me.

Your oil is ready when those three kernals pop. Add enough kernals to cover the bottom of the pot, and let it go to town. Just as in the microwave, it's done when it slows down to two seconds between pops. Meanwhile you can cube your butter. Two to three tablespoons is about right. This food isn't on anyone's diet, and that's OK.

Dump the corn into a large bowl with a lid. Wipe out the pot carefully with a clean towel. Add a small amount of water to cool the pot slightly. Discard the water and put the pot back over medium-low heat. Add cubed butter and tilt the pot occasionally as it melts.

"The key for the butter is to melt it till it foams and just keeps foaming." I heard this a lot from K, but I almost always burned the butter, for years. One summer night around 2015, I was at a garden movie-screening party. I volunteered to make popcorn. Somehow, that night I understood the foam, and made amazing popcorn.

Each time, it's a mystery and a miracle. I foam it and it falls. The foam becomes big bubbles or tiny pinpricks of air, and I worry it's the wrong temperature. But then I tilt the pot again, rhythmically rocking it back and forth. And the foam appears and persists, and voila. I didn't change anything, but the butter is suddenly ready for popcorn.

Meditation is a kind of magic, like butter that becomes foam.

Meditation brings us to the present.

The present is not about thoughts or things or feelings. The present is freedom from all that is believed and is rooted purely in what is.

The present is popcorn.

Add butter to the bowl of corn and salt to taste, using the lid to shake everything up, until it's all inseparable. Like everything is, at the very basest level.

I think, therefore I am.
But I would still be, by being still.
This is our paradox to bear as conscious humans.

We are endless. You are endless.

You are foam that just keeps foaming.

Until next time, my friends. Foam on.