In Zen we’re instructed, “When hungry, simply eat.” Every time we eat or drink we now have the chance to show our consideration to the vivid readability of this very second of expertise—if we take time to simply eat.
Too typically we really feel that consuming is one thing to recover from rapidly whereas we multitask. We eat whereas speaking on the cellphone or engaged on the pc. It’s the simplicity of simply that we have to flip towards.
This second is the one place the place we’re alive. Our authentic buddhanature, our pure thoughts, shouldn’t be in another place or another time. It’s, because the Shangpa custom of Tibet says, “So shut you may’t see it, so easy you may’t consider it.”
The extra time we spend in moments of alive-ness, the higher ease and satisfaction we are going to expertise in our lives. Aware consuming provides us many alternatives to be totally current and expertise the liveliness that always arises within the huge subject of open consciousness.
In conscious consuming, we intentionally direct our full consciousness to that liveliness, within the type of the bodily sensations, ideas, and feelings that come up and disappear as we eat. Most essential, we do that with out criticism or judgement. We deliver clear consideration and curiosity to the colours and shapes of our meals (as if appreciating a murals), to the altering fragrances and flavors, to the textures and even the sounds of our meals.
Consuming is usually a dharma gate, as a result of once we are actually current with something we open the gate to Nice Presence, which is an inexhaustible supply of true nourishment. Listed below are 5 steps you may take to apply conscious consuming throughout each meal.
1. Start with Gratitude
Start your meal with a conventional grace, maybe one from childhood. Or you may take a number of silent moments to bring to mind all of the individuals (farmers, packagers, grocers, checkout individuals) and different life types (bugs, bees, earthworms) whose life power has contributed to the meals you’re about to eat.
Visualize all of them gathered at your desk and thank them. Analysis exhibits {that a} small ceremony earlier than consuming helps us eat extra mindfully and in applicable quantities.
2. Be Type to Your Abdomen
Too typically we stay at a distance from our our bodies and ignore the teachings they provide us in each second. Earlier than you’re taking your first servings of meals, deliver your consideration to your abdomen. How a lot quantity wouldn’t it be snug working with? One cup? Two cups? Three cups?
Serve your self two-thirds of that quantity to start. After you might have eaten it, examine in together with your abdomen once more. How full is it? The tongue could say it needs extra tastes, however does the abdomen actually need extra quantity to work with? We are able to study to make such each day life selections not from need or compulsion however from overarching consciousness. Consciousness brings alternative, and selection brings freedom.
3. Take Aware First Bites
Take a couple of minutes to savor the primary few bites of meals or sips of liquid. It helps to shut your eyes and produce full consciousness into your mouth. Take note of altering flavors, temperatures, and textures. Midway by means of the meal, pause and have one thing to drink so as to refresh your palate. Pauses like this allow you to savor the freshness of extra “first few bites.”
4. Gradual Down
It takes twenty minutes for satiety hormones to be launched and attain the mind, signaling that we now have had sufficient to eat. Slowing down will help us eat extra appropriately and expose our conditioned habits.
Strive consuming together with your non-dominant hand. It’s enjoyable and humorous. Or strive placing down the utensils between bites. Don’t take one other chew till the primary chew is totally chewed, loved, and swallowed. If you wish to eat much less and revel in it extra, decelerate.
5. Feed the Multitude Inside
There are extra residing organisms in your intestine than there are human cells in your physique. This “second genome” of 100 trillion beings is concerned in lots of facets of our well being, together with immune perform, extra weight achieve, coronary heart well being, and even psychological well being. (Be aware: the useful micro organism thrive on “actual meals,” not processed meals.)
So after you eat, deliver your consciousness to the universe of tiny beings inside your stomach. Ship them loving-kindness and a want for his or her good well being and persevering with assist of your physique, coronary heart, and thoughts.
Lastly, widen the sphere of loving-kindness with the prayer “Might all beings be equally effectively nourished, each with foods and drinks and likewise with essentially the most satisfying meals—the meals of dharma.”
