First, the seventy-two labors brought us this food,
We should know how it comes to us.

— meal gatha

A few times a year I go up a mountain and participate in meditation intensives at a Zen monastery. This is a very good thing for me to do. Last weekend I sat my final sesshin of 2008, and despite some congestion and a few fiercely difficult emotional patches, it was a nourishing experience. Sometimes the last thing I want to do is to face myself, let alone for 10 hours a day.

Two of the three meals each day are formal meals, called oryoki. It’s a combination of a liturgical ceremony and a meal, and difficult to describe until you’ve done it. Outside of the chanting done at certain junctures in the meal, it’s done in complete silence, and with complete and total mindfulness.

I get something different from each oryoki meal I have, but there are threads that run through it. One is the direct experience of something I take for granted most of the time. I love to cook and eat, but so often when I eat, I’m not paying attention. Thinking about how to improve the meal for next time, thinking about the next meal, so absorbed in conversation that I don’t even taste the food. I ate, sure, but where was I during the process?

The second thread is considering the food itself. There’s a gatha – a poem – chanted before the first bite of food that’s taken that brings up the question of eating. It starts with “first, the seventy-two brought us this food, we should know how it comes to us.” This encourages us to think about where the food came from, how many people, how much work, how many natural resources, are involved in its being in our bowls. Sitting quietly, carefully scooping rice with my wooden spoon and letting the immensity of what’s happening in this everyday moment is incredibly powerful.

The third thread is maybe the hardest, but one that gains power as I study Zen. And that’s that the question “why do I eat?” I’m present for the meal. I’m aware of the boundless nature of the food. But why am I eating? This is just another way of asking the ever-popular “why do I continue to exist?” The gatha concludes with a few good reasons to eat:

We eat to stop all evil,
to practice good,
to save all sentient beings,
and to accomplish our Buddha way together.

Vegans tend to think about food more than most people I’ve met, partly from practically necessity, and partly because we care about our food. We care about where our food comes from, who makes it, and what it means to eat this or not eat that. Sometimes, though, I think that we think about it for a while, make some good decisions, and then go on auto pilot. It’s easy to get pulled into resentment and anger. Reconnecting with our compassionate nature and feeling the connectedness with the impulses that make us vegan in the first place is important.

You don’t have to have the oryoki experience to get the oryoki experience. Try to eat a meal mindfully, quietly. Experience every bite; feel yourself chew and swallow. Feel the boundless abundance of the universe fill you, nourish you, and prepare you for all the amazingness that will unfold as you live your life.