Meals
If the Sodô, the temple of meditation, is considered to be essential for monastic life, so too is Tenzoryo considered to be just as important. In the former, the mind is nourished; in the latter, the body is fed. For Buddhists, one does not exist without the other.
Meals always are eaten in silence. The placement of the Oryoki (set of bowls) follows a sophisticated code that calls the attention of the practitioner to that which he is doing at the moment. In Buddhism, food, supplied by nature, is treated with profound respect. Graititude is expressed through sutras that are intoned before (When we eat and drink / We pray together with all beings / Eating is Zen’s happiness / And we are full of happiness) and after the meal (Pure food we have now eaten / And we pray together with all beings / to be filled with virtues / and we carry out the different types of forces). At the end of the meal, there must not be a single grain of food remaining in any of the bowls. Zen abhors waste.
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