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

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

Last updated on: February 22, 2009 at 8:52 am by Dosho Port

Coursing the Way Through Cornbread, Egg, and Grapes (sesame salt too) 2009-02-22T08:52:00-06:00 Dosho Port

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Buddha was born in Kapilavastu

Enlightened in Magadha

Taught in Varanasi

Entered nirvana in Kushinagara

Now we set out Buddha’s bowls;

May we with all living beings,

Realize the emptiness of the three wheels:

Giver, receiver and gift.

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.”

Click here for the “rules from headquarters” for this way of eating – but don’t get hung up on any “true way,” just follow the instructions offered at your practice place (or the spirit of eating in order to let go of self-clinging).

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

“Fukushuhanpo”

or “Coursing the Way Through Rice and Gruel.”

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.

Katagiri Roshi regularly said (something like), “If you eat your breakfast with the intention of a bank robber, it is bank robber food. If you eat your breakfast in order to let go of self clinging, it is practitioner food.”

So where do you sit when you eat?

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.

Instead, in the middle of eating, we can practice actively letting go of greed, hate, and delusion. Within the quiet of the structure of the many rules, the mind calls out “Give ME the big piece!” While eating the mind calls out, “Ha, look at him, he took two pieces and now has to choke it down.” Or the bowl slips and makes a loud noise … or we dump a bowl of tomato soup all over our clothes (and our finely sewn Buddhist robe) and the mind cries out, “You dope!”

Greed, hate, and delusion arise and we can let them go, practice their emptiness, smiling with our foolishness.

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