"If a bodhisattva has the notion of a self, a being, a soul, or a person, they are not a bodhisattva." - The Diamond Sutra, chapter 17


"You are the salt of the earth." - Matthew 5:13


Recently we celebrated Australia Day with our Australian friend Sam. We festooned our dining nook with Australian flags and set out wine and a spread of snacks that included a small jar of Australia's beloved food spread Vegemite, perhaps best known to Americans from one of the sketchier rhymes in pop music: "I said do you speak-a my language...he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich..."


Previously at home we'd tried a small sample of this thick, dark paste. It tasted like a cross between soy sauce and motor oil. The idea of it being the topic ingredient of a sandwich, the way Americans use peanut butter, was nonsensical. On an earlier evening with Sam she'd outlined her procedure for making a Vegemite sandwich, which involved good sourdough bread slathered in butter and dotted with the most minute amount of Vegemite one could muster, like a homeopathic remedy. Which begs the question of why to use it at all.


At the Australia Day snack table, the Vegemite was intended as a prop, an Australia cliché, like a stuffed kangaroo. But Sam placed a cube of well-aged cheddar on a cracker, popped open the jar, and applied a thin, dark smear to the cheese. Her enjoyment was obvious. We decided to follow suit. "As lightly as you can," she cautioned, as we dipped into the jar.


Well. It was great. It turned the cheese, which was already outstanding, up in volume. Kind of in the way salt does, but with more complexity, a deeper bass note. It was as if the cheese had been fermented. In fact, Vegemite is a product of fermentation, made from the yeasty sludge left over from brewing beer.


Since that evening I've been experimenting in the kitchen with Vegemite. It is to Australia what anchovy paste is to Italy, or fish sauce to southeast Asia. Stealth umami. Its presence improves everything else in the dish. But as soon as you can identify it - "oh, Vegemite" - you've used too much.


Therein lies a mindfulness lesson. We are each a minute, nearly imperceptible part of the universe. Yet the flavor of our actions is felt throughout, and best when we're left unidentified.