Good Morning Everyone,
Seated meditation and walking meditation are but two of our meditative forms. There is also "oryoki" or the practices involved in eating meditation. Formal practice requires two things for the Zen Buddhist, a robe and a set of bowls. These point to our basic necessities of food and shelter. The robe shelters us against the elements and food offers us sustenance for our journey.
Just as there is a prayer when opening our robe, so too there are prayers associated with eating. In Zen, all activity is activity of a buddha. We should therefore treat all activity with a high degree of reverence and awareness.
Oryoki is usually practiced at the noon meal in Temples. The noon meal is often the last meal of the day and is the most substantive. An oryoki bowl set contains three bowls, a table cloth, a cloth bib, a cloth napkin, and a utensil pouch with contains chop sticks, a spoon, and a cleaning tool.
We open the bowls together in the meditation hall in precise movements. The bowls are set out, prayers are chanted, for each serving of three courses. No eating occurs until all three servings are served, all the prayers are chanted, a portion is offered to the hungry ghosts, and permission is given to eat. Once the meal is completed, we each wait patiently for all to finish. We then clean the bowls with hot water, wipe them out, stack them back in order, and wrap them in the intricate lotus bud flower pattern each of us is taught.
All of this is done while sitting in lotus or half lotus at our cushions.
Eating meditation is a wonderful practice. It teaches us patience, gratitude, and thoughtfulness. Much of our practice involves dealing with feelings and thoughts as they arise during the prayers and long periods of serving the three courses. We eat slowly, very slowly, being mindful of our food, how it came to us, the many lives and many hands involved in its preparation,
In the United States we are particularly calloused, I think, to these things. Our food is often prepared by others hidden from our view. We eat quickly. We often do not give a thought to the lives offered as food for us. We just consume.
Eating meditation is all about addressing this distance from nature. It brings us face to face at each meal with our true interconnectedness.
These benefits are true even of informal eating practice. We can recite simplified versions of the meal chants, consider the food we are eating, its sources, and those who prepared it for us. We can wash our dishes with clear mind and open heart, being present in the practice.
True Zen Buddhists are in constant practice.
Be well.
.
Rev. Dr. So Daiho Hilbert-roshi
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