Lunch Rituals

SUMMARY

This lunch ritual is loosely based on ōryōki, a Zen monastic eating meditation that places an emphasis on service, generosity, and appreciation. It was developed by Noa Jones and Catherine Fordham for the Middle Way School of the Hudson Valley.

Shared mealtime is an opportunity to foster a healthy relationship to food, enjoy each other’s company, and create a harmonious environment at the table. Creating a consistent mealtime practice can help children feel more focussed and be more present with their food. 

A printable, updated version of this document is available here.

The basic meal chant is:

Earth, rain, sun and air
Thank you for this food we share
Farmers, friends, and family
Thanks to those who made it be
Mouth, nose, ears, and eyes
Enjoy this meal and realize…
This life is good, and so are we
May all be happy, strong, and free

Read more for some guiding principles, context and ways to adapt this practice.

Middle Way Lunch Practice  |  Guiding Principles

The goal of lunch practice is to create an atmosphere that fosters healthy bodies and minds.  These guiding principles encourage us to approach details with delight, and precision:

Staying present 

In meditation, we bring our minds back to the present moment. During lunch, we place our attention on eating our food.  Can we stay in the present long enough to eat a single bite and enjoy the flavor? Lunch practice creates the environment for us to cultivate mindfulness. 

Not too tight, not too loose

Seek “the middle way” between a too-strict adherence to the ritual that might feel heavy-handed, and a sloppy approach that creates chaos.  Can the ritual be joyful and playful, even while maintaining the form? 

Celebration!

We celebrate this rare, precious, and fleeting life by enjoying our food, and the company of our classmates.  Celebration can be expressed with music on Fridays, but even a Monday can be filled with delight when we create a harmonious lunch environment that allows us to enjoy our meals. 

History and The Middle Way

Every student at MWS is issued a classic tiffin, a metal tiered lunchbox, instead of using lacquer oryoki bowls. 

“Ōryōki is not just a prescribed form of ritual. It is a state of mind. It’s not about chanting and bowing and bells. It’s a state of consciousness. Because food is life, it is of utmost importance that we receive it with deepest gratitude. When we eat we consume life. Whether it’s cabbage or cows, it’s life.” 

—John Daido Loori Roshi, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order,  from his book Celebrating Everyday Life

The roots of ōryōki trace back to the time of the Buddha and the wandering mendicant monks who possessed little more than their robes and begging bowls. The robes symbolized the external (clothing and shelter), the bowls symbolized—through the taking of food—the internal. To this day the robe and bowl are handed from Zen teacher to student as the central symbolic act of dharma transmission. Taking just the right amount of food, as the Buddha discovered, is essential to practicing the middle way of Buddhism. In the Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra it is said that “when a person is enlightened in their eating, all things are enlightened as well. If all dharmas are nondual, the person in their eating is also nondual.”

“What I like most about ōryōki is the way it influences how I serve myself oatmeal in the morning here at home. It’s a sense of appreciation through awareness,” said Sensei Pat Enkyo O’Hara. Zoketsu Norman Fischer concurs: “Of course I don’t use any of the rituals if I’m not eating ōryōki, but the feeling is there and the feeling gets into the body, into the heart, and into the mind.”

Middle Way Lunch Practice | Step-by-step

Teacher, helper, or parent prepare the lunch area:

• Chairs and other items that don’t belong on the ground cleared
• Space swept
• Prepare the Buddha’s lunch: one tiny bowl with a morsel of food to place on  a small table near the Buddha. 

Beginning:

1. Teachers use “quiet coyote” to begin noble silence. 
2. BELL #1: Children start walking to the lunch area or table

Remind class to walk to lunch with “calm bodies.” 

Arrival: 

1. Maintaining silence, students take their seats in a circle or small groups facing each other.
2. BELL #2: Place Setting – Students lay their cloth placemat neatly, point toward them, open their tiffins, and arrange their bowls and utensils on the mat. 

Students can be encouraged to create an arrangement they find beautiful. Place setting is done in silence. 

Mealtime: 

1. BELL #3: Buddha Offering – teacher, parent or child holds up the Buddha’s meal with both hands at eye level (above their mouth so they don’t breathe on the offering), bows to the statue, and places it on the Buddha’s platform. Then take their seats. 
2. BELL #4: Bow and chant – Students bow to the food, followed by the chant (see below). 
3. Students say ITEDAKIMAS to their meal mates and then take their first bite in silence. Teacher may read a quote of the day (options provided below, or created by each teacher) and give a prompt of some sort. Eating together in silence  has proven to be a positive experience for kids with sensitivities and issues around food.
4. BELL #5: Quiet Conversation – Students are invited to enjoy a conversation. Teachers may suggest a subject, discuss the daily reading as they continue to eat, or naturally loosen into another topic as the meal continues. 
5. Begin a timer for 15 minutes — this is the amount of time students are expected to remain seated before they can go to the next activity. 

Conclusion

1. As each child finishes, they bow to their bowls as an expression of gratitude for their meal. Then they close their tiffin and wrap up in their mats. IF possible, it’s lovely for the entire class to bow, and clean up together —  this might work for some classes and not others. 
2. Teachers create the flow of where the tiffins go afterward, keeping consistent. 
3. The children who are finished first can engage in a quiet activity until all have finished their meals.  Choose a selection of books, keep in rotation
4. Helper, teacher or Harmony activity guardians sweep the platform 

Suggestions

• Once or twice during the meal, the teacher might ring the bell for a moment of silence, if they wish. When the moment is over, they ring the bell a second time for the conversation to begin again. This can act as a reset if the meal feels chaotic. 
• Harmonious Speech: If needed, the teacher might read the lunch rules after the moment of silence: 
  • Calm voices. This is not a time for voting or chanting. It’s a time for connection with friends and curiosity about food.
  • No joking about or criticizing other people’s food choices (Don’t yuk my yum)

FRIDAY LUNCH CELEBRATION:

On Fridays, lunch practice loosens to create a more celebratory atmosphere. 

• Students can invent their own ritual
• In the place of the reading, teachers are invited to play music during lunch. 

CHANTS, SONGS, AND BLESSINGS: 

Every day the children will do the MWS Meal Chant. And then they can sing a song or listen to a prayer. Change it up! Singing the same song every day gets old. Ask if any children who do meal blessings at home wish to lead or share. Recite, or teach them to recite any of the following.

MWS MEAL CHANT

Earth, rain, sun and air
Thank you for this food we share
Farmers, friends, and family
Thanks to those who made it be
Mouth, nose, ears, and eyes
Enjoy this meal and realize…
This life is good, and so are we
May all be happy, strong, and free

SONGS (optional)

• The earth is good to me, and so I thank the earth for giving me the things I need like the sun and the rain and the appleseed, the earth is good to me (listen here)
• Peace Like a River (we often change the word “soul” to “heart”)
• Earth My Body (earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit)
• Tis a Gift (Rewrite)

Tis a gift to be simple
Tis a gift to be free
Tis a gift to ac-cept we’re just as we should be
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
Twill be such a joy and a real delight

• Mealtime Thanksgiving (Blue Lion Album)  

Thank you for the food we share
Cooked with love and serve with care
Thanks to the sun and thanks to sun
Thanks to the rain and the farmers toil
Thanks to ants and the birds and bees
Thanks to the plants and thanks to the three
Thanks to those who cooked for me
May all living beings be happy
May all living beings be free

Eating Together by Thich Nhat Hanh

Eating a meal together is a meditative practice. We should try to offer our presence for every meal. Serving food to ourselves, we can already begin practicing. We realize that many elements, such as the rain, sunshine, earth, air, and love, have come together to form this wonderful meal. In fact, through this food we see that the entire universe is supporting our existence.

We are aware of the whole sangha as we serve ourselves, and we should take an amount of food that is good for us. At lunchtime, the bell will be invited before we eat, and we can enjoy breathing in and out while practicing the five contemplations:

1. This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.
2. May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food.
3. May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed and learn to eat with moderation
4. May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.
5. We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.

We should take our time as we eat, chewing each mouthful at least 30 times, until the food becomes liquified. This aids the digestive process. Let us enjoy every morsel of our food and the presence of the dharma brothers and sisters around us. Let us establish ourselves in the present moment, eating in such a way that solidity, joy, and peace be possible during the time of eating.

Eating in silence, the food becomes real with our mindfulness and we are fully aware of its nourishment. In order to deepen our practice of mindful eating and support the peaceful atmosphere, we remain seated during this silent period. After twenty minutes of silent eating, two sounds of the bell will be invited. We may then start a mindful conversation with our friend or get up from the table.

Upon finishing our meal, we take a few moments to notice that we have finished, that our bowl is now empty and our hunger is satisfied. Gratitude fills us as we realize how fortunate we are to have had this nourishing food to eat, supporting us on the path of love and understanding.

https://emilylightyoga.com/writings/oryoki