I bow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Morning. Well, this morning, what I would like to do, after looking around and watching, observing how we use our orioke during meals, I would like to give us a few pointers on how to use orioke because we easily forget, you know. We do it on Saturday morning and we do it during Sashin. If you're in the monastery, you use the orioke every meal and then it becomes sort of second nature. But unless you have that experience, then you tend to forget the instruction. So I want to go over some points.

[01:08]

But first of all, I want to point out that the fundamental reason for doing orioke, sometimes people don't understand, well, why do you do this complicated thing when all you have to do is put food in the bowl and eat it? Oryoki, the way we're eating with Oryoki is Oryoki is like a song. It has a rhythm and it has melody. And the rhythm is the way everything, the way each movement slides or glides into the next movement without any wasted motion. without any extra motion, so that it's one smoothly rolling activity.

[02:10]

And when the rhythm is going that way, then what you're doing becomes very pleasurable. And the melody is, Opening the bowls, receiving the food, receiving the water, washing the bowls, and so forth. That's the melody, which is also very pleasurable, because eating is pleasurable. And of course, when I eat with Oryoki, it's the most enjoyable way to eat. For some people, they can't stand it. But if you know how to do it, if you know the song, and if you perform it correctly, then it's totally enjoyable. And then you feel like you've done something wonderful. And not only does the food energize you, but the activity itself

[03:18]

informs your state of mind. So, it's very important, the details. The details of doing it just right doesn't mean that you're trying to create a lot of details. No matter what we do, there are details. No matter how you eat, there are details. It's just that you're not paying attention. most of the time. You pick up your spoon, you eat, you know, put it down. But you're not really there, necessarily. So, and before we do our oreo cake, we chant. So, and then we wait for the servers to get ready, you know, and if they're not on time, we get a little restless. Why aren't they on time? So eating is more than just eating the food. Eating the food is just part of the whole thing, right?

[04:27]

Eating is just one part of the whole thing. But how we offer the food, how we offer the activity, and it becomes Buddha's activity. It's not just eating food, it's Buddhist activity, it's practice. It's how eating becomes practice. And how practice becomes eating. So the details are important because it's the devil. It's like how one movement segues into the next movement. And if you know the details and pay attention to the details, then each movement becomes an enjoyable activity because everything's smoothly rolling.

[05:35]

If it's not smoothly rolling, then it's kind of tortuous. But if it's smoothly rolling, it's enjoyable. So, that said, I'll proceed. Priest bowls are a little different than our ordinary bowls. The priest bowls have a little stand on the bottom because the bowl is round. It's not a flat bowl. It's called Buddha's head. So actually, sometimes, you know, in India or Nepal, I think, people have skulls and they eat their food out of a skull. Did you ever see that?

[06:38]

This is not that close, but it's Buddha's head, you know? we treat it as Buddha's head. And so it doesn't have a, it has a round bottom and it has a little dish that it stands on. So when we open the bowls, these three fingers hold the bowl down. Somebody told me once that this is a mudra. I don't know what mudra that is, it certainly stabilizes the bowls. Maybe it's the mudra of stability. And then you pull the string and open the bowls. And then you pick up the wiping cloth in the middle. So when we do We mostly use two fingers and a thumb.

[07:44]

So remember that. These two fingers are scissors and the thumb. And it's a combination of these two fingers and the thumb that you're using most of the time. So we pick up the wiping cloth and in the middle and just let it hang. Some people go like this. You can do that. That's a kind of, you know, flippant. And then you hold it with your fingers and just make a third. You bring one hand in front of the other and you fold it easily into thirds. Is it okay if we go along? Oh, yeah. Yes, you may. Probably a good idea to do that.

[08:49]

Okay. Okay, so you can open up your... And then, with your fingers in the middle,

[11:37]

You can just lift that up like that. And then you hold it like this. And just put one hand in front of the other and fold it into thirds. A very easy, simple gesture. And then bring your left hand down to the bottom. And then put it back down. Well, the bottom, no. The open corners are at the bottom left. Bottom left? Yes. I'll show you that again. You pick it up like this, and then you fold it over like this, and the right hand is on top, and the left hand is on the bottom, so the open corner is on the bottom left. And then you just put it down on top of the, that's right, with the right hand on top, of course.

[12:47]

Like that. And then you pick up the Setsu case with your right hand on top, left hand on the bottom, and turn your right hand to the right, like it belongs to you, and then you set it down in front of you, so that Like that. So, on the utensil case, the arrow is pointing to the left. Then, with your fingers and thumbs, you take one corner of the lap napkin with your right hand and one corner with your left hand and you open it up. and you put it down. Open it up and put it down.

[13:56]

You think that's funny, but not everybody understands it. You lift it up and you put it down. Okay, then with your scissors of the right hand, you lift up the cover and put it down and then Lift up the other cover, and you have this nice diamond in front of you, right? Then you tuck like that. I don't want to explain it. And then the one that's toward you, so that you have Try to make the arrows on each side as even as you can, so that you have a rectangle. You have the little back part sticking under your... Under the zabaton.

[14:57]

I recommend using a little heavier, softer cloth than bed sheet cloth. There are a lot of cloths that wrinkle easily and have a lot of spring to them so they don't stay in position very well. So this is a nice cloth. I picked it up as a remnant. I love it because it just does what I want it to do. Anyway, so then you take the left hand arrow and you do the same thing with that. Then you take the right hand arrow and you do the same thing with that. And you have a nice kind of rectangle, squarish rectangle. Then you pick up your bowls all together and put them to the left. Then you take You take the small bowl and put it in the middle and the large bowl in the middle and the small bowl to the right.

[16:22]

Well, like that. So you take the small bowl out first and the large bowl second. And then you space them evenly. You just forget that one, because that's for a priest. But we never got instructions. What? Oh, you never got an instruction on how to use it? Yeah. Okay. I never got them, so... For a priest bowl, it has a little more stuff in it. So there's this tablecloth. And the tablecloth goes like this. And you take one hand on the top, one hand on the bottom, and open it up. And then you put it down before you... But I don't want to explain that now because it'll confuse everybody and take too much time.

[17:29]

I'll explain that to you guys later. Okay? Sorry that you didn't get that explained to you. And some people don't have them. But priest bowls have more stuff. But a lot of it's not really necessary. Like we have five bowls instead of three. But in a Japanese monastery, they use the other bowls. One is for gamashio, one is for pickles. They always serve pickles every day in a Japanese monastery. And pickles actually are good because when you have grain, grain is acidic, tends to become acidic in your stomach, and the pickles tend to counteract the acidity in your stomach, according to what I was told. Who knows? Okay, so then, you pick up with your left hand,

[18:30]

you pick up the napkin case with your thumb on top, the left hand. Left hand, you pick up like that. I'm sorry, the utensil case. You don't have to pick it up, you just kind of lift it, lift it out from underneath it. Then you hold, The setsu that you wipe your bowls with, the handle is in the little case already. Some people don't know where that goes. It goes in the case. The handle slides into the... So, you put your thumb underneath it, your left thumb with your fingers on top, and open that up. And then you press this part and kind of ooze these things out, right?

[19:39]

And then you straighten out this bottom of it with your left hand. You're completely off. You've already got your setsu out. Joel, where is it? No, it doesn't go inside. It goes under the flap. Sensu is the wiping thing. So take it out. Yeah, all the way out. And close the flap. Close the flap. And put it under the flap. The other way. The other way. That's it. That's it. And then, you go like this and ooze everything out. But you have your right hand here. Right, and you're oozing it out. And then you take, with your right hand, you just put that into your little finger. Like that.

[20:42]

That's it. But it's like, you lift it up so that it's an S. You go. That's it. Then you take out the Setsu and put it down. I'd take out the Setsu first. You can take it out last if you want. Different people have different, there are certain subtle ways that people do it differently. But here you have three things, right? And you have to take these three things out. I take this one out first. If you want to take the other one out first, I don't care. But the main thing is that you take it out, you have your, you have, let me do this again.

[21:47]

So you're lifting up this way, right? And you have the Setsu sticking out already. So you can, You can take the setsu out first or you can take the chopsticks out first. It doesn't matter. As long as you do it the right way. So you have your hand on top and it just goes like that. Does it matter which hand you use? You have your fingers on top and just go like that. Right or left? Right hand, of course, because this is on your left hand. Then you take the chopsticks out. Your hand is with the fingers on top and the thumb on the bottom. And then you simply put it right in place on the left side. So that puts the chopsticks pointing to the right. And then with your hand on top, you take the spoon out and you put it down on the left side with the spoon part pointing to the right.

[22:53]

Okay? I'm not going to make sure that everybody knows this. I'm just going to go through it. Little by little you'll learn how to do it, but I cannot stay, you know, keep on this detail completely, keep going over. So I'm just kind of going to go through it and you catch what you can. So then you're holding the bag with your left hand like this, two fingers and a thumb. your left hand at the top. That's right. And then you put your right hand, these two fingers, in the middle and then bring down the top so that it's in thirds. But if I just take it with my right hand and I move the instruments, is it not already in thirds? You just do this. Back when I pushed the instruments forward?

[24:00]

If it's already there, then fine. Then you don't have to do it again. So, I'm just showing you what you do. Okay. This is the fulcrum. you put your right hand on top and turn it to the right. So the point is pointing to the right. And you put it on top of the lap napkin. I mean the wiping cloth. Yeah, put it underneath the wiping cloth. Yeah, underneath the wiping cloth. Okay.

[25:05]

At this point, is the spoon closer to the bowl? Is what? Or further from the bowl? The what? The spoon. Is it closer to you or closer to the bowl? It's closer to you. Okay. The chopsticks are closer to the bowl. Okay. So then, we get served. And after you finish your meal, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna jump here a little bit to where you are finishing your meal, because, well, okay, let's say we have our food, and then we put the, spoon in the first bowl and the chopsticks on the second bowl and then we finish our chant, right? I think everybody knows that one.

[26:06]

And then so after we eat we get and then when we're finished eating our spoon is in in the bowl, and our chopsticks are on top of the bowl. So that's when we're finished eating. And the servers have picked up the, have finished serving. So then we bow, and we take the chopsticks, and we wipe them off this way. Here you go. And then you put them down, if you pick them up with your thumb on top, then it puts them in the right place. And then you just put them down on the right, which is the opposite of the way you put them down before, and the points are sticking to the left. Then you pick up the setsu with your thumb on top, and you can transfer it to your left hand, and pick up your spoon and put your setsu into the bowl.

[27:18]

Then you lick what's left of it, and you put it face down, sticking with the bowl to the left. And then we wipe our bowls out with the setsu. Then the server comes with the water and serves the water. And then we pick up the large bowl and wash the bowl on our knee or on our thigh. And then you take, you leave the setsu in and you put two thumbs on top of it and pour the water into the, all the water. And then you put the Setsu down and you wash, you pick up the spoon this way. Yeah, that's right.

[28:21]

That's a good point. It's easier for me to do it than explain it, okay? So you have to bear with me when I explain it. It's hard to do that. You put the statue down on your cloth? No, no. You put it in the second bowl. I put it on top of the second bowl because one time I put it into the second bowl, which I always used to do, with the water in it, and it floated up and flipped out onto the floor. So I always put it on top now. So then you pick up the wiping cloth at the corner and like this. And don't do anything until I tell you. You don't do this. You do this. You do it from you out. And then the thumb just goes right in.

[29:27]

So it's from you out, not from out in. This is also a dharma gesture. You work from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Then you put your thumb in and the whole thing is covered. Then you turn the bowl. And then with your left hand, you pick up the corner again. With your left hand, you pick up, and the two fingers, remember? Right hand, sorry. Right hand, you pick up the corner and hold. Yeah, if you're right-handed. I don't know what to tell you if you're left-handed, except to do it right-handedly. I know this gives people, left-handed people, trouble, but I'm sorry, but put the, right, and then you pick it up again with your right hand, and you got the bowl also, right?

[30:36]

And then you fold in the wiping cloth, and kind of wipe it inside, and you leave the corner out a little bit, and then you put it down. Then you pick up the spoon like this. Just like that. That's right. And turn it over. Can you turn it over? Yeah. And put it in your left hand. Do it again, I'm sorry. You pick it up like this. Just slow down. Okay. It's really easy. Just turn your wrist over. That's it. That's exactly right. And then your left hand on top. You just transfer it to your left hand. So it's like this. It's not complicated, just like you do that. Then you pick up your Setsu and you wash, and you turn it over and you wash it, turn it over and you wash it.

[31:41]

Then you put the Setsu down and put it back with your hand on the bottom. Your right hand, you hold it on the bottom. And then you take the end of the cloth and you wash and you wipe it and turn it around and push it through. So you're holding on to the bottom like that. You just push it through. That's right. And then you, with your right hand on top, you pick it up and put it in that little pocket. So that's all one, huh? Put it in the pocket, in the top. You don't put it all the way in. You just put it in the top. You know what I'm saying? As far as it goes, because you have it folded in thirds, so it can only go so far. So that was one, that's one gesture, right?

[32:45]

That works nice and smoothly. Then you pick up the chopsticks the same way. Turn them over. Just turn your wrist. And then pick it up into your left hand and watch them. Turn them over. Put the setsu down. And pick up the chopsticks with your right hand on the bottom, with your fingers on the bottom. And wipe them the same way. Turn them over. Wipe them. We turn them around. Swivel them, okay? Swivel, swivel. That's right, and push them through. And then take the chopsticks with your fingers on top, and they just go right in there.

[33:46]

What? They go next to the spoon. Next to you. Those little points are arbitrary. There are some points that are arbitrary. Not everything. The main thing is how you make everything go together, work together. But whether one's on the left side or the right side is not so important. It's really not that important. So with your left hand, your thumb on top and your fingers on the bottom, you pick up the whole package and hold it up. And then you take the top part, it's got the, and take hold of everything and let this go down.

[34:51]

And then you push these down. so that you don't make a big noise and just let them fall. Then put the top back on and with your right hand, thumb on top, right thumb on top, and you turn it around and put it down. The arrow pointing left. Then you wash the middle bowl. And after you wash the middle bowl, you move the small bowl to the middle with your left hand. The small bowl is on the right, so you move it to the middle. You look confused, Raul. Oh, okay. The Setsu is in the small bowl.

[35:56]

The middle bowl, I mean. You haven't done anything yet. I haven't got that far yet. Yeah, you got ahead of me. So now we're going to pour the water from the middle bowl into the small bowl the same way we did with the big bowl with the two fingers on top of the setsu. But you only pour part of the water in. You don't pour all the water in. You pour half the water or whatever, depending on how much water is in the bowl. But you pour half of it in there, so to speak. Then you put the setsu down on the small bowl and you drink the water from the middle bowl, all of it. Then you're holding it in your left hand and you pick up the wiping cloth like this again and from you out and then put your thumbs in and wipe the bowl.

[37:05]

Then with your two fingers of the right hand you pick up the end again, hold the bowl with your hand and then fold up the cloth, put it inside, and wipe out the bowl, and leave the cloth in the bowl. Are you wiping with your left hand then? Yeah. If your right hand's holding the bowl, you only have one other hand to wipe it with. That's called the left hand. Sorry. I think a number of us have done If you do it the opposite way, it's okay. I'm just showing you what I'm doing, right? I'm showing you what I'm doing. As I, you know, so you do it the other, but really it's, if you do it with, are you left-handed? No. Well, I pick up the bowl and I hold it in my left, in my right hand and do it this way.

[38:11]

Because you got this this way, right? With your right hand you have the wiping cloth. So if you have the wiping cloth in your right hand, and you put it over, and you hold the bowl with your right hand, then you fold this up with your left hand, you're wiping it with the same hand. Why change hands? Because I used to hold it with the left hand. Oh, okay. Well, you know. It's okay to have a variation as long as it works. Okay? But, this is the way you do it. You put the cloth over. See, the way you've been doing it may not be the way we do it. And so you think we should be doing it that way. Well, That's okay, I mean, I'm not arguing with you.

[39:19]

Right, but no, you put your thumbs inside. And you put your thumbs inside and do it that way. Then you take it with your right hand again, fingers, and you roll it up with your left hand and wipe it out. Okay, so transfer to that one. It's very simple. You just go, thumb, dot, [...] dot. Take it again with your right hand. Hold the bowl with... You got both of them in your right hand. If you do it on top, they can't go wrong. So... Yeah, that's right. Then you put it on top. Then you take it the same way you had it before. Which is just like... No, no, I mind. I do mind. I do mind. Okay, take it this way. Do that. Then put your thumbs inside.

[40:20]

And turn the bowl. Then the same hand that you put the... Your left hand? No, right hand. You're holding the bowl with your right hand now? I'm holding the bowl with my left hand. And I'm putting the cloth over with my right hand. Then I put my thumbs in. Then I turn the bowl. Then with my right hand again, I take up the cloth. Nothing's changed. No, it hasn't. The only thing that's in your left hand is the bowl. Look. Do this again. Okay, right hand. Remember that. Put your two thumbs inside, and turn the ball to the right. Okay, then, the same hand, no. Hold the ball with your left hand. Look, you're turning the ball.

[41:20]

Keep the ball with your left hand, and with your right hand, again, do that. That's right. Then, you hold the ball with your right. No, don't do anything extra. See, you're doing something extra. Okay, now, I wasn't going to do this before, but now I can. After you transfer the bowl to the right hand holding... That's right, your bowl goes in the right hand along with the cloth. And then with your left hand you just fold it up. And wipe it. It's simple. Okay, then you put it inside. And you wash out the small bowl.

[42:22]

And when you're done wiping out the small bowl, of course you don't have one of these, what do you call those things? Spatula. I don't know what you do with that, because I never used one, but I go like that to squeeze the water out, and then I... You're holding it in your... Oh, I'm sorry. Then I'm holding it like that. In your... Right hand. Still in your right hand? Yeah. Okay. And then I kind of squeeze it, and what do I do? take it with my left hand on top and wipe it through the cloth, you know, like this. Right? How did it get from your right hand to your left? I put it in there. It's like this, right, and then I'm holding on to both hands here so I can put it, right, and then I put my left hand up here on top.

[43:33]

Put your thumb on That's it. And then run it through back and forth. No, no, keep your hand up there. Put your left hand on top. With some on top. It's strange with a spatula because I didn't have to squeeze it. Well, yeah, that's true. I understand that. I'm just realizing that's where my difference is coming from. Right. I've done that because I've never had to squeeze it before. That's right. That's right. So, you know, you can right away take it with your left hand. on top and push it through back and forth to wipe it off. And then push it through once all the way and then take the bottom this way with your left hand. See, you're holding it in your right hand, right? And you're pushing it through with your left. You're holding it with your right hand. And you're pushing it through to wipe it off with your left hand. And then you push it all the way through. And then with your left hand, you pick it up again.

[44:36]

With your fingers on top so that you can turn it over. See, it's like this. Watch. You push it through and then you turn it over. That's right. And then it slides right into that little pocket. Slides right into the pocket. Push it through from the top. That's right. That's right. And then put it into the pocket. See, it slides right into the pocket. That's right. So it depends on which way you put your hands, whether you're holding it this way or this way. And if you hold it that way, it goes in. So that's what I say. It's subtle, but once you learn how to do it, It's enjoyable, but when you don't know how to do it, it's not.

[45:41]

Maybe, but usually not. So then, when the servers come with the water, you take the water, take the third bowl, and you pour half of it into the bucket, and you bow to the server, and then you drink the other half. You don't cover it. You can cover it if you want to. People have different ways of doing it. Some people go this way, you know, and some people go this way, and some people cover it. I've been through the whole business, believe me, of covering it, not covering it, doing it this way. Just get it in the bucket. The reason you do this is so that you can do it quietly, so the water doesn't make a splash.

[46:46]

That's the reason for doing that. But you can do it this way, you can do it without making a splash, without doing that, because you pour the water on the side of the bucket rather than into the water. The point is not whether you do it this way, the point is to do it quietly. If that's helpful, do it. You can do that. I'm just trying to get it there. The servers, sometimes they hold it up high, sometimes they hold it low. I've been through all that too, believe me. The best way is to just put the edge of the bucket on the meal board to make it accessible. So you don't have to lean way over or something like that. It's right there. But it's not a big deal. I don't want to make it into a big deal.

[47:48]

So anyway, you drink the water, right? Then you drink half of the water. Pour half the water in the bucket and drink half the water. Then you take this again, this way, then your right hand. And you put it forward and put your thumbs in and turn the bowl to the right. And then when you're done, you keep the bowl in your left hand. Take up, take this, take up the cloth with your, that's right. And then you hold the bowl in your right hand. You don't have to do anything extra. You just hold the bowl in your right hand. Do that again. With your right hand, you put the cloth over the bowl, right? Then you put your thumbs in the bowl, and you turn the bowl. And then you're holding the bowl with your left hand. The bowl and the cloth with your left hand. And your right hand, you take up the cloth, and don't do anything else.

[48:57]

You just put the bowl also, take hold of the bowl as well. And let go of it with your left hand. The coat with your left hand. That's right. Then you roll up the cloth with your left hand. Because you got the bowl already. Just roll it up. And then... It's like a magic trick. And then... You transferred it. Yeah, transfer. When you were drying it, right? You were drawing it. Why not just keep it in your right hand? Because. And then roll up with your left. You do. No, you said take it in your left hand. Well, I mean keep it in your left hand. You know, take, keep. It's doing this. And you have it in both hands now, right? Right. And then you let go with your right. This motion is to get the portion of your drawing out of the bowl.

[50:00]

Why not just keep it in your left and then take your You do. No, keep it in your right hand. No, because I said so. You know, there are all kinds of ways you can figure out to do something else. No, it's not extra. You're holding it in both hands. So there's nothing extra. And you're going to roll up with your left hand. So you take this in your right hand because that's where it belongs. You're holding it in your right. And then you hold the bowl too. If your left hand wasn't free, you couldn't do that. When you used your thumbs, you scrunched some portion of the cloth into the bowl. So when you hold the bowl in your left hand, you take it off. The instructor. It makes the roll easier. At that point, you're about to take it in your fist. Yeah, but it doesn't matter. That's the next move.

[51:04]

We didn't do it that way. The other bowls, we kept it in our right hand. We took this and kept it in our right hand. We didn't... This is different because you're going to keep it. Okay? This is different. It doesn't follow. You got the bowl in your left hand and you do this because you're going to keep it. You're not going to put it in the bowl. You're going to keep it in your left hand. And then you put the bowl inside there. Left hand. It ends up in your left hand. Then you put the bowls here in the middle. And you bow.

[52:05]

And you put the point nearest to you over... No, I'm sorry. Open the whole thing up. Put the point nearest to you over the bowl. Then take the point the farthest from you. Put it over the top. Then, in order to take the lap napkin off of your lap, you hold the top with the two fingers of the left hand on top and the thumb on the bottom, like this, and then you slide the right hand underneath, sneaky like, put your two fingers on top and the thumb on the bottom, and just pull it up, and you've got this, right? And you have the middle fingers just resting on the middle fingers like that, and you take your thumb, and then you take your left hand and move it over to... you're holding yours sideways.

[53:11]

That's it. Oh, I see. Because the fold looks to... from here, the folds look like they're going the other way. So anyway, so you take this crease and just fold it in. And then you fold the other one over. So you have the whole thing like this. And you have the open ends. On your right hand, you can see the open ends toward you. So then you take your thumb toward you and your fingers outside. Right hand, right hand. And then you use the scissors, put it in the middle. And just fold it over.

[54:21]

And then you just take it and put it down. So that the two open ends are on the top left. Then you take the wiping cloth and don't go like that. Just stretch. Utensils next. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Utensils next. So you put your utensils up there. Then you take the wiping cloth and you stretch. Stretch. Stretch, stretch, okay? And then with your two fingers and your thumb, you just fold, transfer it to your, see, you have it like that in between my thumb and my finger.

[55:29]

This is very easy, but it's the hardest thing in the world for people to get. You have it like that, right? With your left hand. And then you simply, Use this one to catch the other side. To catch it. Like that. So now it's in your right hand? No, it's still in your left hand. Use this finger. One, two, three. Thumb, finger, finger. That's all. It had nothing to do with your right hand except you bring it over there. Okay, then with your right hand, you put your finger in the middle The thumb on the finger, and you just kind of slide it over. Which way is the opening facing before you do that? When it's in your left hand? When it's hanging in your left hand? Is the opening on... You're right. You got it right. You got it right.

[56:32]

Then you just slide your finger down. On your left hand? Right hand down. Well, it was, it was, your thumb was to your left. Yeah, I'm sorry. You do this with your left hand. Okay, then my fault is... Can you do that again? You got it in your left hand. Okay. And then you put it... Bring it forward to you? No, look. Or away? Look, you just go like that. Yeah, but I can't translate because... Okay. Like this. You got it right. Okay. And then you just run your finger, you know, down you kind of like put your finger in the middle and then just run it down and then you got it like this and then you just kind of go like that and you got it like that same thing same thing okay then you do that you got it like that and then you put it down so the middle part is in the middle and you let the first

[57:40]

Let the bottom part go and then like that. Look, you have it like this. You know, if you use your thumb and fingers, you can't go wrong. You're an infinite number of ways to go wrong. Well, this makes it come out right. If you do it this way, it makes it come out right. Look, watch. Remember that? Okay, it's in here. Now, I'm sorry, I'm facing you. You just grab it. All I'm saying is you grab it with that finger. This finger of the left hand. You use the thumb and two fingers.

[58:43]

And one of them goes in the middle. Well, the problem is that you don't have your finger in the middle. Anyway, let's say we have it like this. with the open ends to the left. And then you put it down like that. That's the stuff. That's it. Good. Okay, then you bow. And all is forgiven. you put your hand like this. I don't do that anymore.

[59:47]

What I do is I reach over with my right hand and pick up the end and then put my left hand down over the two fingers. Some people put it over three fingers. I put it over two fingers of my left hand and then with the right hand again I pick up this other corner and bring it over so that This is like tying your shoes. What you're doing is making a half a bow. You're making a half a bow. So that's all I'm going to tell you. Make a half a bow. How do you do that? You put one under the other, and then you do it again. And you make a half a bow. You know, the way people have been teaching that knot is not exactly correct.

[60:52]

But I can't get people to do it the right way, so... What's the right way? The right way is just to have this go that way. As opposed to... As opposed to this. I saw a whole bunch of them that way. It used to be this was style. Yeah, that's old style. Now you're teaching? Okay, good. Yeah, it's just, you just make a half a bow. You know, I'm not going to tell you how to do that. It's too complicated. It's really, it's a very simple thing, but to explain it is very complicated. So just, yeah. I mean, it's all the details and they're wonderful and point to all the teachings, but sometimes you'd say, oh, that detail doesn't matter so much. Oh, well, the kind of details that don't matter are whether this utensil lies on the left or the right.

[61:57]

You know, you put them in the bag and they change sides anyway. I mean, that's not an important detail. The important details are the ones where you're actually moving. Not whether the utensils are on the right and the chopsticks are on the left. That's not an important detail. It doesn't really matter. Or whether the chopsticks come out first or the spoon comes out first doesn't really matter. Because it's not a detail that has anything to do with rhythm. It simply has to do with what's first or what's second and it doesn't really, what's the what? Not with rhythm or action. Right. It doesn't change anything. Thank you. Well, you know, we have this book in the library, Les Kay's book. Les Kay's book, yes. I remember when that came out and we all said, but that's not right. So a number of us, because it's, you know, we don't get to

[63:03]

It's fine to follow SK's book. Yeah. I was just going to say, you know, I've been doing that, or when I teach orioke, I follow that, or I use that as a guide. So I have... This is a little bit different, but I think maybe... But, you know, I can do it differently. I mean, it's kind of hard, like, I think, oh, wow. Yeah. But, you know, to be flexible is good, too, I think. It's mainly the hands that are different in that book. He does things with the right hand that you're doing with the left hand. Yeah. And we just ordered more coffee today. It's okay with me as long as you do it. As long as you do it, that way it's fine. One of my favorite stories about Tassajara is they decided that they were going to have everybody do it exactly the same way. And Blanche and Galen and Maya got together. These are three like your senior form people, in case you don't know them.

[64:07]

But if you know them, then you really understand this. They couldn't agree. They also got together with me, and they all agreed with me. They said, well, that's a little bit funny, but we all agree with you. I was the first person to learn Arayogi at Zen Center. Suzuki Roshi taught me how to do oryoki and then Tatsugami kind of taught me how to do it. Did they all do it the same way? The people that showed me, yeah, pretty much. I remember doing oryoki with Okamura and these other Japanese priests. they did it they said oh no we do it you know they did it differently right so it's not a matter whether this is right or that's right or this it's a matter whether what you do works without introducing extra without yeah whether there's a rhythm and a flow to it and and you know how it works rather than just kind of stumbling along and doing

[65:31]

I don't know if this would help anyone else, but for me, folding up the left claw and the wiping claw always turns out wrong. And so I do extra movements to get the opening in the right corner. So, just maybe at some point, if we could just do that, just folding the left... During the meal, I'll point out certain points, just as we go along, maybe. Which will not prolong the meal. You've been sabotaged from the beginning. Well, I was just going to say, this is all nice to do this during Sushumna, but we also have Oriyogi instruction before Sushumna.

[66:47]

We have what? We have Oriyogi instruction always before Sushumna, so people could consider even if you don't want to. I think you should have as much Oriyogi instruction as you can. So, whenever Oriyogi instruction is given, I think you should do it, you should attend that, because the more you do that, the more you'll learn it. But it's not something you learn once, do once and learn. You know, you have to learn it over and over again. I mean, you have to, so that you kind of get it in your bones. So, you know, some people have learned it a certain way, and then if I saying that this is the way I do it, then they get uptight. So, I'm sorry.

[67:47]

Not really, no. Yes? Well, part of it, as a preschool teacher, is muscle memory. And it just takes a lot of repetition to relearn. Yeah. Yeah, so you have to get it in your bones. Yeah, well that's what I mean by bones. Bones covers everything. Okay.

[68:29]

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