WW: Kitty oryoki

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Hermitcraft: Solitary Sesshin, Pt. 3: Food

(A sesshin schedule template is available in Part I. For general tips on sesshin planning, see Part II.)

For an activity that's all about putting sensual stimulus in context, sesshin is remarkably dependent on food. Right food equals good sesshin; the opposite can significantly compromise it.

I've had best luck when sesshin meals conform to three principles:

1. Simplicity.

When preparing dishes from scratch, this is holy writ; you just don't have time for feats of gastronomic splendour. But even with pre-cooked food, extravagance derails the mind of sesshin. Simple, straightforward meals work best.

On the other hand, spending a day looking deeply tends to lead you to taste deeply, too. You'll find that simple food becomes remarkably delicious during sesshin.

2. Diversity

But you do want a spectrum of flavours and textures. This supports the sesshin theme of discovery and gives freshly-honed senses something to chew on. (So to speak.) My favourite sesshin dishes (see "Lunch", below) fill this requirement nicely, as you can throw almost anything into them.

3. Mindful restraint

This means not eating more, or more often, than you need. In a culture that bombasts constantly about more! and choice! and luxury!, it can be easy to forget that true enjoyment comes from the opposite: mindful consumption of just-enough. So when you reach that point, stop. If it later turns out you didn't fuel up quite enough to stave off obstructive suffering, issue yourself a snack.

Better yet, if you consistently fall in a hole at a given point in the day, schedule tea meditation there next time. (This is were recordkeeping shows its stuff.) Sit comfortably in a chosen location and enjoy a good cup of tea while meditating for twenty minutes or so. This allows you to maintain the forms; gain a meditation period; and care for yourself and your practice – for a Zen grand slam.


Application of these principles looks like this:

First thing in the morning I make a pot of good green – traditional, simpler than black, compatible with meals – for use all day, reheating as necessary. Since it's astringent (makes you thirsty), I serve water at meals as well.

Breakfast is a bowl of grain; fresh fruit; tea; and water.

I like a hot main course, typically brown rice with a blork of soy sauce and a little black pepper. That's it; no butter, vegetables, or other amendments. Porridge or other hot cereal are also good.

Lunch (see photo above) can be any leftover on hand; if none, then Bassho bowl or noodles. The first is a bowlful of brown rice with a protein source (beans, nuts, cheese, seaweed, cooked egg, leftover meat) and a vegetable. The second is the same again, but with ramen instead of rice. Because the soup is less consistent, I toss in more vegetables. I also use half or less of the very salty flavour packet.

For a side dish I prepare a flavour plate, an ancient Zen tradition designed to provide a sensory work-out. Traditionally it contains five flavours: sweet, tart, salty, bitter, and savoury. (Apparently the Ancestors didn't do spicy.) I don't obsess over these categories; just lay out a variety of colours, flavours, and textures. (This is one place where a good shelf of pickles pays off.)

And of course, tea and water.

Dinner is the same as lunch, except with ramen if I had rice before or vice-versa, and fruit on the side instead of the flavour plate.

Formal tea is my last meal of the day, taken with a snack during study period.

I don't observe oryoki at-table; when eating on the ground, I use my outdoor oryoki. If you find oryoki useful at-table, or you prefer to eat on the cushion, monastery-style, work up a solitary ceremony that fills your needs. Make sure to document it in detail. Not only does that allow you to share it with others, you'll forget many of the forms between sesshins and need a refresher course yourself.

Final hint: don't overthink things. Your food doesn't have to be Japanese or vegan or "Zen" or whatever. Just enjoy it. Experience it in depth, both preparing and eating. Be aware of every step and condition that brings food to your bowl, and the debt that implies.

Done properly, the ritual of eating will join meditation and work to become the third pillar of sesshin.

Congratulations; you're working the feed to feed the work.

Hermitcraft: Bindle Oryoki Set

Though the word translates as "just enough", oryoki has grown to mind-numbing complexity in Zen monasteries, where every second of every meal is carefully choreographed. Beginners often view this mealtime ritual as an onerous pack of made-up fuss, but in fact it's the most efficient way to get lots of people through a full-course meal and back to work. (Once everyone's mastered it, anyway.)

Centrepiece of the ceremony is the monk's dining set, which consists of three or more graduated bowls (details vary from house to house) nested and knotted in a large napkin, along with a range of utensils. Diners start and end each meal in the same position: seated before a neat, perfectly-packed oryoki set. Watching a well-trained sangha perform this bewildering kata, from opening through serving, eating, cleaning, and closing, is a memorable experience. (Participating in it is even better. As neurotic as it sounds, oryoki is curiously satisfying. I've never met a monk who doesn't consider it one of the most powerful – maybe the most powerful – liturgies in the monastic day.)

Having said that, I didn't intend to observe oryoki when I began my 100 Days on the Mountain; too much falderal for a man alone. But I quickly realised that it's even more necessary in the woods than in the artificial forest of institutional Zen. When you're sitting lotus on the ground, with only your lap for a table, you're forever reversing tea on yourself, scuffing dirt into your rice, knocking over the water bottle… those first meals without oryoki were a chaotic, wasteful fiasco. Fortunately I had the basic elements of a bowl set with me, and after some intensive assembly and invention, managed to reduce accidents to virtually none. (Absolutely none, if you subtract mishaps due to neglect of the forms.)

Out in the Red Dust World, storebought oryoki sets are often lovely works of art… and the money needed to buy some of them could keep their lacquerware Buddha bowls full for many years. By contrast, the kit you see here serves admirably for "bindle oryoki": an eremitical version of "just enough" that's, like, just enough. It includes only two bowls: a Buddha bowl for rice and beans, and a smaller one for tea; only two cloths (wrapper/wiper and lap cloth/spoon case); and – most heretical of all – a single utensil (still folded in the lap cloth in the photo at left). Fact is, forest practice doesn't require anything but a spoon. It'll put rice in your bowl, take rice out of your bowl, and scrape the bowl clean afterward. Mission accomplished.

All of this, properly (make that, obsessively) cleaned, wrapped, and knotted, fits nicely in my little tea kettle, and then both of those in my larger rice kettle.

The elements, with approximate prices new, in US dollars, are:

2 melamine bowls, $7.50
2 bandana handkerchiefs, $5.00
1 wooden mixing spoon, suitably modified and finished in trinity tar, $5.00

Total cost: less than $20.00. If that's still too much, you can buy the bowls at a dollar store or garage sale; make the cloths from old sheets or shirts; and whittle the spoon out of scrap wood. In fact, with due diligence, you could probably reduce the total investment to $0.00.

The spoon is the only component that requires careful consideration. I actually used an old stainless steel spoon on the mountain. Metal is tough and holds an edge, and so it scrapes the bowl well at meal's end. Also, a heat-proof utensil is handy; you never know what you might need to do with it. On the other hand, Japanese tradition favours the natural beauty of wood, and appreciates the fact that a wooden spoon makes less noise in the mouth. (One of the many neuroses of monastery etiquette.) This is germane to the forest as well, where a monk must keep the lowest possible profile for tactical reasons. Wooden implements also are non-reflective, and don't ring or sink if dropped.

The kettles came from an ancient camping cookset my parents bought in the early 60s with S&H Green Stamps. You can't get quality like that today – at least not at the price – but sharp eyes at the Good Value Army, or careful crafting of tin cans (for further consideration see this post), could get you into a serviceable pair for very little.

One way or the other, this set-up fed me with radiant adequacy for 100 days. I'm sure it'll do as much for you.

May each of us carry our bowls through this world with mindful resolve.