There are many practices and life lessons I brought home from retreat but apparently I forgot to pack mindful eating back into my bags.
One of the delights of the retreat experience was being introduced to the practice of oryoki. Oryoki implies “just enough” in the Zen monastic tradition from which it evolved. Simply put, it is a way of eating, serving, and cleaning up that supports mindful awareness and insight.
Practiced well, it is also beautiful theatre — almost a dance between the servers and diners — as they reenact in stylized form the story of those wandering monks of long ago who offered their teachings in exchange for a few morsels of food.
Oryoki is known to strike some small terror in the minds of many new practitioners. Indeed I found myself in good but anxious company as we newbies struggled to learn the highly ritualized steps of setting up, using, and putting away our bowls, utensils, and napkins. I fully expected this process to push my buttons about doing things in some arbitrarily uptight, overly controlled way. But what I discovered as I gave myself over to the experience was just the opposite.
Wrestling napkins into the correct shape or sneaking peeks at the neighbor’s chopstick position, we could hear the oryoki master remind us that eating mindfully in this formal practice was another portal into our experience. It was just another door of practice swinging open to reveal the nature of mind and to put us in direct contact with reality itself.
Over time it was easy to notice the negative and positive judgments about self and others, the unexpected joy of learning this beautiful form, and the desire to be competent and to belong. As I became more skilled, I noticed how often the proud knot of confidence would shortly unravel into carelessness. I felt the pleasure of seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting my meal so fully. I observed how the strict form calmed body and mind, and gave me the freedom to eat simply and joyfully with others. I saw clearly how much my life depended on others’ generosity. And most tenderly, oryoki became a gateway to experiencing such kindness in myself and my dining companions as we did our best to help each other learn something new.
Given all that I learned, it was surprising that a few days after coming home, I found myself rather compulsively overeating. In the cartoon thought bubble above my head, you would’ve heard a whole lot of bargaining and chastising going on: Just one more spoonful of this almond butter and no more. Might as well eat up the rest of that loaf of sourdough then be done with it. Okay, you’re out of control; you need to stop!
Finally I surrendered to the obvious. I looked at myself in the mirror, took a few deep breaths, and asked that critical question I always ask when I’ve gotten into some jag of emotional eating: What the hell are you feeling that you’re trying to stuff down??
Now I know that’s not asked very lovingly but believe me it catches my attention in a fiercely compassionate way. Before long, awareness could touch the sadness I’d been avoiding and as the body softened, I began to experience and express it. I won’t bore you with details about the sources of this sadness; suffice it to say that experiencing the feeling directly allowed it to be transformed into something much more interesting and usable. Soon I felt lighter and at the same time more satisfyingly connected to the deeper emotional hunger that had been trying to get my attention.
This morning I got out my chopsticks, scrambled two eggs, and cut up half an apple. Looking at my little bowls of breakfast and breathing, I smiled. It truly was just enough.
For more about the practice and view of oryoki, take a peek here.
