Just Eating: The Zen Art of Oryoki: July 18
July 18, 9 to noon and 2 to 5pm at the Toledo Zen Center
Co-presented with Slow Foods Maumee and the Toledo Zen Center, this day long workshop will explore the teachings of Zen as they relate to food and eating. The Oryoki form was created by Master Dogen in the 12th century, and is a vibrant and healing way of practicing the art of mindful eating.
Fee: $50
To register for this event, please send an e
mail to: Info@ToledoZen.org with the event title and your contact information.
From wikipedia:
Ōryōki (応量器?, “Just enough”) is a meditative form of eating that originated in Japan that emphasizes mindfulness awareness practice by abiding to a strict order of precise movements. Oryoki translates to “Just enough” which refers to the efficiency and accuracy of the form. Each movement is a simple reference point for the mind that encourages one to become present and not wonder in discursive thought. An Oryoki set consists of nested bowls called a jihatsu, usually made of lacquered wood, and utensils all wrapped in a cloth and tied with a topknot resembling a lotus flower. This is the formal style of serving and eating meals practiced in Zen temples.
Buddhist tradition emphasizes the monk’s robe and bowl as symbolic of the two things most necessary to sustain life: with one, life is supported externally (clothing, shelter); with the other, internally (food). In many countries, as in early Buddhist practice, monks beg food and alms using a single Buddha bowl. Monks cultivate equanimity by gratefully accepting whatever is offered them, while those who give alms believe they accumulate merit by supporting the sangha.
Wooden ōryōki sets of today are like those developed in the monastic community of Hui Neng. The largest bowl, sometimes called the Buddha Bowl or zuhatsu, symbolizes Buddha’s head and his wisdom. The other bowls are progressively smaller. The bowls are accompanied by three utensils: a spoon, a cleaning stick (setsu), and chopsticks. Additionally, there may be a cloth container for the utensils, a napkin, a stiff placemat (hattan), and a wiping cloth. The entire set of bowls and accoutrements is stored in a kerchief-size cloth, which may be used during meals as a tablecloth. The exact number of bowls and accoutrements varies depending on the sect.
Ōryōki have evolved in Buddhist monasteries in China and Japan over many years and are part of the Buddhist tradition that has now been transmitted to the West. Both monks and laypeople use ōryōki to eat formal meals in Zen monasteries and places of practice. A lineage was also transmitted from Kobun Chino Roshi to the Tibetan Buddhist sangha of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is now practiced at all Shambhala retreat centers.[2]
Zen teachers say that taking meals with ōryōki cultivates gratitude, mindfulness, and better understanding of self. (In this regard, it is not unlike zazen.) The intricacies of the form may require the practitioner to pay great attention to detail. New Zen students may become aware of thoughts that include self-rebuke for making mistakes.
How to Use Your Bowls by Master Dogen:
A sutrasays: “When we are intimate with the food we eat,there is intimacy with all things; when we are intimate with all things, we are intimate with the food we eat.”We should let all things and eating be intimate with each other because when each thing is Realitythen eating is also Reality. When all things are Suchness,then eating is also Suchness. When all things are One Awareness,then eating also is One Awareness. When all things are Awakened Intelligence,then eating is also Awakened Intelligence. Any name that can be applied to it and the Reality spoken of are this intimacy so we can call all of this intimately single.
Another sutra says, “Name and reality are both equal. All are equal in stainlessness.” Zen master Mazusaid,“In looking at the Total Field of All Possibilities,there is nothing but this Total Field. The same can be said of Suchness, the ultimate natureand the sheer facticityof things. This kind of ‘equal’ is not a matter of how one thing is related to another but of what is utterly so through Unequaled and Utter Awakening.”
This is awakening to the utter seamlessness of primordial Reality and each and every thing.This kind of “equality” which holds that all things are the display of Truth is only grasped completely in the transmission between Buddhas and Buddhas through radical investigation of the true form of all things. Thus, meals are the naked display of all things, which is grasped completely only through the transmission between Buddhas and Buddhas. When eating is intimate with all things then the nature, embodiment, effect, activity, primary causes and secondary conditionsof Suchness are here in this naked presencing of truth. All things are eating and the other way ‘round. All things are the transmission between Buddha and Buddha. Through the Teachings and practice, “food” is that which flows as joy.
translated by
Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi and Anzan Hoshin roshi
(published in “Cooking Zen,”
Great Matter Publications 1996)
