72 LABORERS: The Series

I borrowed this title from the first two lines of a Zen meal gatha Iearned years ago while studying at San Francisco Zen Center. It begins: “... 72 laborers brought us this food; we should know how it comes to us.” (The entire gatha follows below.)

We, both my wife Marilyn and I, were sent to San Francisco from Boulder, Colorado, by Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche (from Tibet; now deceased) to study meditation technique. Trungpa is credited with bringing Tibetan vajrayana Buddhism to the West and to America and established a meditation center in Boulder. I was instructed by him in art also as, a master, he taught spatial arrangement at the University of Colorado where I was enrolled, studying advanced color theory after graduating from the art academy.

At Zen Center in San Francisco, we sat zazen and shared meals and conversation with the initiates—some monks wearing their popular black and grey robes—and participated in rituals (of which I was not particularly fond) while renting a small flat nearby. These first two lines of the gatha have stayed with me down through the years and capsulize my growing interest in farming technology, farm workers and communities.

This interest sprang from many years’ living in California, exploring and observing at a distance the natural work rhythms of fieldhands and farm workers that dot the countryside. Their dance-like movements exude a charisma that expresses to me a poise and grace that is ages old, the liveliness of which I attempt to capture in paint before their presence is lost in the mechanization of farming and urbanization of our contemporary cultures.

Coalescing with that, this same, time-worn gatha finds its way into my thoughts as I work, and brings with it smells of wet earth, the tramping of feet, and sights of stacked boxes and farm equipment, all which populate my panels.

As an American and one of the many and growing millions that prefer a life of freedom and democracy, I feel that to remain independent we must become acutely aware of our delicate balance with nature and bring our technological focus to bear on the conservation and preservation of our greatest natural assets—sustainable good air, fresh water, abundant food chain and renewable energy resources. It is good that we, in our passion for independence, consider how our food comes to us—by whose hands that is; by increasing our consciousness of not only who it is among us that is providing our food, but as important, that we remain capable of feeding ourselves and not become dependent upon but able to share with other peoples.

My desire is to extend this thought outward with a 72 Laborers Series of studies.

MEAL GATHA

First, seventy-two laborers brought us this food,
We should know how it comes to us.
Second, as we receive this offering, we should consider
Whether our virtue and practice deserve it.
Third, as we desire the natural order of mind, to be free from
clinging, We must be free of greed.
Fourth, to support our life, we take this food.
Fifth, to attain our way we take this food.
First, this food is for the Three Treasures.
Second, it is for our teachers, parents, nation, and all sentient beings.
Third, it is for all beings in the three worlds.
Thus, we eat this food with everyone,
We eat to stop all evil, to practice good, to save all sentient beings,
And to accomplish the Buddha way.

(Oryoki is the word for a formal Zen meal eaten in the zendo, or, meditation hall. This gatha however, extends to all meals.)