Oryoki (The Wild, Insistent Hunger) • Zazenkai Talk
Photo by Edgar Castrejon
Zen monasteries around the world practice oryoki, the meal ceremony that highlights the fact that in order to support our lives, we must take life. Therefore, in Zen eating is a sacred act—and one that puts us in touch, not just with physical hunger, but with our deeper aspiration to awaken. Zuisei draws on this liturgy, illuminating how our hunger can fuel our lives and our liberation. This talk was recorded during Ocean Mind Sangha’s Zazenkai or All-day Sit to commemorate Buddha’s enlightenment.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
It seems to me that our three basic needs for food, security and love are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and the richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.
… There is food in the bowl, and more often than not, because of what honesty I have, there is nourishment in the heart, to feed the wilder, more insistent hungers. … There is communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. And that is my answer, when people ask me: Why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love?
Welcome to the Ocean Mind Sangha’s first online zazenkai (all-day sit). We're gathered here to celebrate and embody the Buddha's enlightenment. We are not just modeling, but becoming Buddha's aspiration and his commitment to wake up to the truth of his life—of all life. In our own humble ways, we're doing as the Buddha did, sitting as he sat, in order to plumb the depths of our minds, of our hearts, and to wake up so that we can be, as EE Cummings said, nobody-but-ourselves.
He writes that as one word—nobody-but- ourselves. In a world that will have us be like everyone else, EE Cummings said the work of seeing who we are and BEING who we are completely is the hardest fight we will fight. I don't love that language. Let's say that it is the most important work that we will do.
I've brought this up a few times, and some interesting questions have come up. One of you said, "Well, you know, the Buddha worked so hard, clearly. And all the teachers, after him have worked so hard, and all the practitioners—you, also, are working hard… and you're saying, 'Just be yourself.' Come on, Just be yourself?"
Yes, I am saying that: yes, all of this work to be nobody-but-ourselves, so we can be who we are unimpededly, so we can just be ourselves. In Zen, we do this primarily through zazen. Zazen is one way to get to know who you are, and in my very limited experience, it is the most powerful, most effective, most direct way of doing this.
Someone said to me just yesterday, "Well, how is this? How can you work to be fully yourself when there is no self?"
Exactly.
That is what we're here to realize. Mired in the world of self, selves, and the other, it's easy to believe what we think and what others think. I've been reading this book Thinking Fast and Slow. One of the things it says is that just because of the way our minds are wired, if we see, read, or hear something often enough, whether true or not, just the familiarity of it will start to make us believe that it's true. That is how fake news spreads. That is why in social media the most outrageous claims are repeated over and over and over again. It's how otherwise intelligent people believe the most outlandish stories. Just keep flooding the brain with the same thing over and over and over again. Let’s stop to think about that for a second. If every day you're telling yourself I'm not worthy, after a while, you're going to start to believe it.
So don't keep doing that. Begin first by noticing you are doing that and ask, "Is this a satisfying thought? Is this a true thought?" As the Buddha said of Right Speech, "Is this true? Is this necessary? And is this kind?" If you apply that test and it fails blatantly, just cross that out of your go-to beliefs.
If you've been saying it for a long time, or something like it—I can't do this— just notice. Notice what it is that you're telling yourself. Then be determined to nourish yourself with what is true, what is life-giving, and what is helpful for you and others.
I love to quote the story of A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War, stood outside the White House every night holding a candle.
A reporter said to him, “Reverend, do you really think that standing here holding your candle is going to change the country's policies?"
Muste said, "Sir, you have this all wrong. I'm not doing this to change the country. I'm doing it so the country won't change me."
I'm doing it to be nobody but myself. That is what zazen is.
If you ever begin to doubt, or to compare yourself to somebody else who's practicing, you could remember this. Daido Roshi, my first teacher, used to talk about how people would get very wrapped up in where everybody else was in their practice. Because we used to sit in hierarchical order at the monastery, we thought we could sort of tell, in a way, where everybody else was in their practice. It wreaked havoc in people's minds. Roshi would say to this, "But this is like comparing apples to elephants, one person's experience is not your experience.”
Maybe someone takes 10 years to pass Mu and someone else takes six months. That doesn't mean that the person who took less time is a better practitioner, it just means there are certain circumstances that brought this about. The most important thing always is what you do with whatever is present for you—what do you do with what you see? This is about being nobody-but-ourselves. When you start to veer off and become someone else because it seems easier, more comfortable, less scary, just think, Is this how I want to live my life when nobody else can live my life for me?
That quote I read at the beginning of this talk is by M.F.K. Fisher. She was a very well known food writer from the 1930s through the 70s. She worked for many years. W.H. Auden actually said something like, There is no other writer writing better prose right now. That’s quite a thing for him to say. She did write very beautifully.
It seems that she was often asked, "Well, why are you writing about this? Why not write about that? Why not write about more pressing things?"
Her response: *When I write of hunger, I'm really writing about love and the hunger for it." Isn't that true?
“… I'm writing about warmth”—intimacy, closeness—” and the love of it and the hunger for it… and then the warmth and the richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied… and it is all one.”
To want, to long for, to hunger for closeness, for meaningful relationships, is not too much to ask. To want to see and be seen is not too much to ask. If we've been moving in places where that closeness is not happening, consider it's not that there's anything wrong with you. They're probably just not the right spaces for you. I think it is accurate to say that all of us want closeness and love and intimacy, but not all of us are in touch with that hunger. For some of us, we may want it desperately, and we may be terrified of it. Just having that longing, that hunger, is not enough. Knowing how to sate that hunger and then really having the courage and determination to find that satisfaction in yourself and in your relationships with everything, that's the work. That is the closeness, the warmth, and the richness.
I love how she continues to say ...of the fine reality of hunger satisfied. That's what's at the heart of oryoki—of making and taking a meal with attention, with love, and with reverence. It extends to all of our lives. Oryoki means the container that holds the right amount. Traditionally it referred to the monks’ bowls, the begging bowls, but it also refers to this container. Every single one of us is a container that holds the right amount of hunger and satisfaction, of love and attention. We have the capacity to hone in on the details of our lives, and to zoom out and take in the big picture, and we hunger for living those details and that big picture well and kindly. That's why I never stop marveling at consciousness. We can hold all of this, sometimes with difficulty, but still—
Fisher was right: we want nourishment of all different kinds, and we want love, and we want security. By security, I understand this as we want to know that we're safe. Just as we say in the short version of the “Four Immeasurables":
May all beings be safe.
You could also think of this as:
May all beings know who they are
...because that's where the safety is. Shantideva said you can spend all your time and energy covering the world with leather—I tried to create safety outside—or you can put leather sandals on your feet. You can train your mind, you can open your heart, so that you will know more and more and better and better how to satisfy those needs for nourishment, for love, and for security.
The Buddha, like the other mendicants of his time, would take part in alms rounds. The mendicants would sit in groves, plots of ground that sometimes were given to them or sometimes they would find the plots themselves—there weren't monasteries at the time. The practice was once a day before noon, they would leave these groves and go into a village with their begging bowls and beg for their food. They would do this in exchange for the Dharma—they would offer a chant, a prayer, or give a teaching. They would go from door to door doing this. There are communities, especially in Southeast Asian countries, where this is still practiced. I've never done this practice myself, but learning the practice of asking for something was life-changing for me. During the years I spent as a monastic living at the monastery, in almost every way, I depended on lay practitioners. Very often things were given very generously and openly, but every once in a while, I needed to ask. In the beginning, I hated it. I hated feeling dependent on somebody. Always, my feeling was, Well, I don't want to bother them. Once or twice, I was in a situation where I essentially understood that I didn't have a choice, that if I was going to be okay, I needed to reach out and ask for help. So I did, and it was incredible. Not only was the other person more than willing to step forward, it also gave me the opportunity to learn to receive without making a big deal of it. I understood I can ask and if the other person can't do it, I can trust them to tell me, I can't or I don't want to. I mean, they're an adult, why am I protecting them?
They can take care of themselves and you take care of yourself.
Most of the time people wanted to give. There's a reason it is the first of the paramitas, the perfections. It's because we understand that something happens when we extend ourselves. It feels good. It saddens me, the people who do not have that experience, either because they were not taught or because when they asked before, the response was punitive. This is such a big part of what is happening in oryoki, especially when we do the whole formal ceremony, because there is a group of servers, and they're quite literally serving you the food. It makes it very clear, very poignant, that interdependence. Living in a monastery makes that very clear every day. Without you and you and you and you and you, I could not do this. That is also very clear in my life now.
Without you, and you and you and you, I could not do this.
That is always true, but it's good to be reminded. It's good for that to be made clear, so that we don't forget. There's a sutra called Mahabuddhavamsa, The Great Chronicle of the Buddhas. It tells the story of the Awakened Buddha going back to visit his father, King Suddhodhana. According to the sutra, during the visit the Buddha goes on alms rounds as he normally did, and the king gets offended.
The king says, "Do you think we don't have enough food to feed you and all of your monks?"
His son replies, “O Royal father, the lineage of Shakya rulers is your lineage; my ancestors are the buddhas, from Dipankara, Kondanna, Mangala down to Kasyapa. All of these buddhas have always gone from house to house to receive alms. This very practice of receiving alms has always been our means of livelihood. This is my role as a monastic. Your role as a king is to provide. My role is to ask."
It is significant that he brings up the lineage. He says, Your lineage is the Shakya clan, my lineage are the Buddhas'. We observe that to this day. In the transmission documents that I received is the lineage of all of the men and women who made it possible through their lives for me to live this life. We chant a short biography of the Buddha at the beginning of oryoki, bringing into the room the places where the Buddha was born, where he was enlightened, where he taught mostly, and where he entered nirvana. Then we chant the names of the Buddha, bringing into the room the lineage. Why? Why do this before we chant the Meal Gatha, where we more concretely name who and what this food is for? Why do this, before even putting a single bite of food in our mouths?
I think that first line, of the Meal Gatha gives us the answer: "72 laborers brought us this food, we should know how it comes to us." There's probably a list somewhere of the 72 laborers in a monastery that very concretely and very directly describes what it took to run a monastery, and, therefore, to put food on the table. It's not just the logistics and the travel and the work involved in getting this food to our plate, it’s also that line of beings, which has brought the fruit of the Dharma, through the years, all the way down to us. We are here because Siddhartha Gautama was born and because he awakened, and because he taught, and he died, and his teachings continued to be handed down by all of the buddhas and bodhisattvas who came after him.
During one of my conversations with a group of teachers, one of us brought up the challenge of teaching as lay teachers. My good friend, Lama Yeshe, a lay teacher in the Karma Kagyu lineage, said, "Well, you know, whenever I'm uncertain in any way, I just remind myself, I work for the Buddha.” So that's what I do. Now I just remind myself the Buddha is my boss. I just need to align myself with the Dharma, which various teachers have been telling me throughout, and I'll be fine. And lo and behold, I am.
This gatha is reminding us of the good karma that brought us to this time and place: the good karma of being born in human form and the good karma of having a mind aware enough to want the teachings and a mind able to understand the teachings at least somewhat. The chant itself states first we consider all the laborers that brought us the food. Then we reflect on "whether our virtue and practice deserve it." There was a couple who were visiting the monastery, and while we were chanting the Meal Gatha in the dining hall, they heard that line, and they got offended and walked out. How dare you question my virtue? How dare you question whether I deserve to eat this food? It is a poignant line.
There was a Dharma attendant, or maybe it was one of the monastics, who joked that at some point, one of the Dharma attendants should call the line for private teaching and say, "The line is open to those whose virtue and practice deserve it." Everybody would just stay there on their seat except for one bold person running straight to the line.
How do you know if your virtue and practice deserve it? What does it mean to be deserving of this food? It's not what we think.
The gatha continues "Third, as we desire the natural order of mind, to be free from clinging, we must be free from greed."
We desire the bright, luminous, cognisant order of mind, order of the universe. To get there, to be that, we need to be free from clinging and from greed which essentially separates. It's not that it's less virtuous in itself. It is not that it's impure or wrong, even though it has been characterized that way. It is simply that it obstructs. It gets in the way. If that natural order of mind is that bright knowledge, stability, then why doesn't it feel like it so much of the time? It doesn’t feel like it because we still get caught, we get confused, we get discouraged and distracted. This is saying instead of eating in greed, we eat to support our lives. That's the fourth, "To support our life we take this food", and the fifth is, "To attain our way." We're not just eating because that's the next thing to do. Yes, our bodies need it, but from the perspective of the Dharma, we're eating so that we can support this body, this mind, so we can attain the way. Notice that the chant does not say we eat to feel better about ourselves, to cover over difficult feelings, or that we eat when we're bored, restless, angry, or lonely, though these are all things that we do at some point or another.
I mean, if we can do this—we take this food to support [nourish] our lives, and to attain our way—really, that's it. We wouldn't need anything else. I love that it says it like that—we eat to attain our way. Did you notice that? It doesn’t say the way, or theBuddhist way, as it does in many other chants. We eat to attain our way— our very own path. Of course, our very own path is not separate from the Noble Eightfold Path, but we must nevertheless forge it in our own way. This is important. This is how each of us meets the Dharma. By recognizing the particular things that call to us and nourishing those, you are able to ask yourself, *What do I need and how do I give it to myself?"
It's so important. I've said so many times, you learn more and more how to be your own teacher, how to give yourself what you need, and not because you can't use that support, of course you can, but because ultimately, that's where the power is. That is where the liturgy plays a big part and where creativity plays a big part. Some of you have shared how it is that you practice, the things that you've devised for yourself. You engage with reminders, techniques and support, in order to, first of all, remember to practice and then to continue to practice. That's it. That's exactly it. So much of my job is to be a cheerleader for you, to keep reminding you, Yes, you can. Yes, you can do this. Yes, yes, yes, you're doing it. You're telling me you're not doing but you're doing it, I'm seeing it, you're doing it. I say this all the time, “You're the one who's doing it, not me”
We also determine how to practice—how much is just the right amount.
The last part of the chant is an offering: we offer it to "the Three Treasures— Buddha, Dharma and Sangha." We offer to our "parents, teachers, and all beings", it says, "in the six worlds" (the hell realm the hungry ghost realm, the animal realm, the human realm, the asuras [the jealous gods] and the devas, [the Heavenly Gods]). Essentially, we're offering it to everyone, everywhere.
Then, "Thus, we eat this food with everyone." This, too, is important. Every time we feed ourselves, we're doing that with everyone and everything. This means if you starve yourself in any way, not just with food, everyone starves. If you deny, if you indulge, or if you eat gratefully, with careful attention, you do so with everyone. Nothing that is happening is happening just to you. Nothing that you do is just for you. That is a big responsibility, and that is also the biggest gift because if you're having a difficult time, you can nourish it with somebody else's goodness.
When I was at the monastery, I would very deliberately invoke the power of the mountain, the weather, and the rain, when I was flagging. Of course I would also invoke the power of my teacher sitting, and the power of the person sitting next to me, because of course they work interdependently. An offering comes in because when we are mired in something, in fear or anger or ignorance, we can offer that. As the Buddhist monk Shantideva says in his teaching, the Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, anything that is coming up and anything that you can imagine, you offer. If you're struggling, offer that. If you're full of aspiration and energy and aliveness, offer that. We offer that energy, that karma, that merit, so that we and all beings make progress along the path. None of it is ever extra. None of it is ever wasted. So even though there are periods when we think, I was in the deepest pit of despair, somebody else in the world was too. See if any part of your mind can remember,Okay, offer. Even just that gesture, that's still energy moving us along the path.
Finally the gatha states, "We eat to stop all evil, to practice good, to save all sentient beings, and to accomplish the Buddha Way." We eat to engage the Three Pure Precepts and our aspiration—the vow that fuels, that nourishes, all of it. You think you're just having a little ramen, a little bread with egg, a little salad. You're actually changing the world. If you really take in what these teachings are saying, and you embody it, you are changing the world with how and what you eat. Again, we're doing this every day, every one of us, but oryoki makes that obvious.
There is food in the bowl. And more often than not, because of what honesty I have, there is nourishment in the heart to feed the wilder, more insistent hungers.
Based on our honest estimation of what it is that we need to nourish our bellies, we nourish our hearts and our minds so that we may continue to live, to practice, to realize and actualize. So, let me ask you this as we close, Do you know what your wild insistent hunger is? Or hungers? More to the point, are you nourishing it?
Explore further
01 : The Great Chronicle of Buddhas compiled by Ven. Mingun Sayadaw
02: Refuge by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard
03 : Oryoki Meal Gatha
04 : Knowing How to be Satisfied by Vanessa Zuisei Goddard