Eat your way
February 2010
When we hear about meditation, we picture someone sitting calmly on a cushion, hands held just so. Well, that is one form of meditation, but there are many, many others, some of which are a lot easier to fit into a busy schedule than the traditional 45 minutes on the cushion.
One such is eating meditation. Begin by selecting a piece of food. A bit of fruit or vegetable is good. Once you’ve got the food in your hand, don’t eat it just yet.
First, just as a bare material phenomenon, feel the food with your fingers, or just gaze at it with focused attention. Allow yourself the pleasure of being entranced by this object. Next, “check in” with the heart. As you’re about to eat this food, what desires do you have? Are you hungry? Nauseated? Thankful?
Just note it attentively, without judgment; stay with it for a couple of breaths, and see if it shifts, or intensifies, or ebbs. Now, moving from body to heart to mind, consider for a moment all of the people involved in bringing this food to you, farmers, truck drivers, factory workers, storekeepers. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people whose labour created the simple occasion of this food arriving in this moment.
Savour the moment by eating with all your senses Then widen your consideration even further. Consider all the conditions necessary to have created this food. Maybe it’s the traditional framework of the four elements, or a more modern conception of the genetic information in the plants, or energy from the sun. Allow the poetry of this simple piece of food to be felt in your body. Finally, place the food in your mouth. Before chewing and swallowing, experience the tactile sensations of the food on your tongue, the tastes, the feeling of the mouth watering. What happens to your whole body when you put the food in? Calibrate your sensitivity as finely and exquisitely as possible. See if the food tastes different in different parts of the mouth. Really give yourself a juicy, rich experience of this bit of food. You might keep your eyes closed for the duration of this practice, simply to focus your attention on what’s going on in your mouth, rather than on other things.
This is a very simple practice, but it’s the prerequisite for real gratitude. See what five minutes a day, or one bite a meal, does for you, even if only for the duration of those five minutes. Believe it or not, people report deep relaxation, delight, insights into their personalities and needs, and immense gratitude – all from eating!
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