99 Oryoki

For me the most difficult activity by far had been oryoki, a complex system of bows, prayers, chants, hand gestures, signals, and etiquette by which meals are served and eaten—with either chopsticks or spoon—from three bowls of different sizes. Oryoki means "just enough." The bowls, which fit one inside another, and utensils, plus a miniature spatula called a setsu used to clean the bowls when they are empty, and a napkin and a drying cloth are all carefully positioned and arranged and then wrapped inside a large folding cloth two corners of which are tied and secured by a special knot. These utensils, bowls, and cloths must be unwrapped, disassembled and, step by step, carefully laid out before food is served; then, after the meal has been eaten, the utensils and bowls are cleaned with setsu and hot water and wiped dry, the three bowls are set one inside the other, the utensils and setsu are returned to their narrow cloth envelope, the drying cloth and napkin are folded, and then all of these component parts are stacked and reassembled one on top of the other, wrapped in the folding cloth, and finally secured with the knot. It reminded me of Rubik's Cube. To fast all day would for me have been easier.

Just enough.

At my first sesshin oryoki did not cause me much anxiety, though I had not a clue to what it was all supposed to be about, since everyone understood that I was a rookie and expected me to be lost. Either Alison or Jane, each a veteran, was assigned a seat beside me at the table so they could instruct and assist me. I had never before even used chopsticks and when I struggled with my very first bite for more than a minute or two and still failed to lift even one small morsel to my mouth the master interrupted the silence and addressed not just me but everyone at the table.

"If you don't know how to use chopsticks," said the master, "use your spoon."

Mercy.

Even five years later in sesshin I still used only my spoon. To make my task easier at all five meals the two days of my first sesshin I signaled the server that I desired only small or moderate portions and I never requested second helpings. That simplified things. Though I normally eat a lot and eat fast I could not even approach the speed at which the master devoured his heaping bowls of both first and second helpings of every dish.

Just enough.

When I had emptied my bowls I sat quietly and waited for others, counting myself fortunate if I had not spilled, made a mess, or committed a mistake serious enough to warrant from the master a reprimand.

"No!"

I had no appetite. I was far too wired, too nervous, and too alert to feel hunger. The buddha, dharma, and sangha are called the Triple Treasure and when I emailed my good friend Billy and related for him a brief description of my experience at the two-day sesshin I referred to breakfast, lunch, and supper by oryoki as the Triple Torture. For me the Triple Torture remained an ordeal for three years. I dreaded it. From my first oryoki on, my anxiety increased at each successive sesshin just as it had in my ceremonial assignments as jisha, shoten, and doan until finally at some point in my third year at the temple I'd had enough repetitions and had made so many mistakes and still survived that my anxiety peaked and then slowly and gradually declined. Practice. But at this first sesshin in February of 2002 I more than survived. I wrote not only Billy about it but also my old friend John with whom I was now no longer able even to exchange civil opinion about the war. About Buddhism, however, John and I could still converse. John had never tried any kind of intensive all-day meditation retreat and he offered his enthusiastic approval.

"Cool!" he wrote. "I remember once trying to get you to sit."

I remembered.

"You sat down like I showed you and then burst out laughing."

Yes.

It had seemed simply silly.

To sit.

I described the climate at the temple as strict and somber and I said I wasn't used to it yet.

"Morbid," I called it.

Everyone was to observe silence, I explained, except to exchange essential information, and no one looked anyone else in the eye. The gaze was not eye to eye but downward so as not to evoke expectation, or so it had once been explained to me, and the custom bothered me. It had been just the opposite for Gaskin and John and The Farm and I had spent twenty-five years looking people in the eye. It was hard to adjust to this new convention.

"It also bothers me that at the temple no one smiles much," I added.

I had been reading book after book by Thich Nhat Hanh, who advised readers to make what he called a half smile each time we wake up and return to the breath. I was usually quite happy and content at the temple, I told John, so the impassive, cold stone face everyone seemed to wear there did not feel right. For some reason to me the general atmosphere of the temple felt funereal.

Joyless.

"But I don't want to give the wrong impression," I told John. "Everyone there is friendly and kind."

"There is this very reserved, quiet, serious vibe around Zen," John said. "It's the same here at the San Francisco Zen Center and at Green Gulch. My personal belief is that it is a cultural artifact that has nothing to do with Zen. On the other hand," he added, "I don't like the arrogant hippy tendency to mess with these old traditions."

John said that he had become a kind of spiritual shoplifter—he'd take the good stuff, leave the rest, and make his getaway.

"Tantric consumerism," John called it.

I'd had a good experience at the sesshin, I told John and Billy, in spite of oryoki, in spite of the embarrassing earthquake rumbles in my colon that must have been audible to everyone in the zendo, and—by afternoon of the second day—in spite of the pain in my legs. I explained that I had been permitted to adjust my posture, to stretch my legs, and even to walk, but by the afternoon of the second day, I said, even these measures did not really help me much.

"If I sat," I told my friends, "it hurt."