Coursing the Way Through Cornbread, Egg, and Grapes (sesame salt too)

We had our Saturday Practice Morning yesterday and ate, as usual, with oryoki (pictured above), as we also eat during sesshin. A loose tranlation of “oryoki” is “bowls that hold just enough.”

The verses quoted above are the first words that we recite before setting out the bowls, serving, eating, washing, drinking some of the wash water, and packing up the bowls.

To paraphrase, “Here we are receiving a meal within the continuity of Buddha’s way, flowing harmoniously just like birth flows to enlightenment flows to teaching and flows to death. As we open ourselves with everything we meet, may we, the donors, and the food, be free from self-clinging.”

Someone might say, “What does this have to do with our post-modern lives?”

I’d say, “Where we sit when we eat is a vital aspect of Zen.”

Someone might argue, “But Dogen said that Zen practice was just zazen.”

And I would say, “Yeah, but how can we make this zazen alive in our whole life?”

Dogen, after all, provided detailed instructions for many aspects of monastic life, including eating. For example, see

But back to our post-modern lives. Informed by the practice of previous generations, whatever we use to eat – plates and forks or oryoki – we can eat with the heart of a practitioner by remembering that we are eating in order to let go of our self-clinging, not to enhance it. One practical method for remembering is to recite a verse like the one above before you slurp down your latte and croissant. 

One way to train in sitting in the seat of a practitioner is through the traditional form of oryoki. It isn’t magical. If we just say the verse and then kick back with a “do-me -dharma” attitude (that’s a favorite phrase of Daido Loori Roshi), we aren’t sitting in the seat of a practitioner.