… naturally wise, compassionate, tolerant and strong through much of their life … no matter what it hands them …

I’d like to tell his story a little.

When ordinarilypreparing ingredients, do not regard them with ordinary [deluded] eyes, orthink of them with ordinary emotions. "Lifting a single blade of grassbuilds a shrine; entering a single mote of dust turns the great wheel of thedharma." Even when, for example, one makes a soup of the crudest greens,one should not give rise to a mind that loathes it or takes it lightly; andeven when one makes a soup of the finest cream, one should not give rise to amind that feels glad and rejoices in it. If one is at the outset free frompreferences, how could one have any aversions? Even when confronted with pooringredients, there is no negligence whatsoever; even when faced with scantyingredients, one exerts oneself. Do not change your mind in accordance withthings. Whoever changes his mind in accordance with things, or revises his wordsto suit the person [he is speaking to], is not a man of the way.

From: Tenzo Kyokun - Instructions for the Cook by Eihei Dogen - Translated by Griffith Foulk