Daily Dharma 06: Eat Mindfully
(Guest post by David from DailyDharma.net)
Day 6: Eat Mindfully.
“Know you that your bowl of rice, each grain from hardship comes?” — Cheng Chan-Pao, Chinese philosopher
Food sustains us, and connects us to the Earth. Let us not eat more than we need, nor eat ungratefully. Let us savor each bite as if it were the only morsel of the day.
Photo by Smaku
Today, Eat Your Meals Slowly, and With Purpose.
In our frenzied Western lives, food often becomes an afterthought, and we find ourselves grabbing junk food on the run from one place to the next. For some, food becomes more than sustenance – it becomes a crutch to alleviate daily suffering. Such habits can beget poor nutrition, low energy levels, and obesity.
Our solution to reverse these trends is to follow various diets that instruct us to eat certain foods or according to a certain formula. But diets hurt more than they help. Diets make eating more complicated than necessary, they make us avoid foods we enjoy, and they create stress and disappointment when they do not produce desired results.
Our common sense, and usually our bodies, help us distinguish the best foods for us. Fatty foods make us feel bloated and greasy, sugary foods can make us spike and then crash. Our bodies can tell us how to be healthy, if we choose to listen.
Just Eat
Day Four talked about doing one thing at a time, or “solo-tasking.” To eat mindfully, we should apply this principle to eating.
Often, this is not easy. We eat in front of the TV. We eat while reading. We eat while working. We eat while driving.
To eat mindfully, we should sit – in silence – with our food. We should savor its flavor, and allow it to nourish our bodies. Finally, we should eat slowly.
Not only is mindful eating powerful spiritually, we will actually eat less this way. Our bodies will have the time to process the food in our stomachs, and tell us when we are full.
Today’s Challenge
- Choose a meal to eat mindfully.
- Choose simple, natural foods, and prepare them with love.
- Eat in silence, and do nothing but eat. Do not watch TV, read, or converse.
- Eat slowly, savoring every bite.
For more, visit MindfulEating.org
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This is well timed for me. I’m on day 4 of an ayurvedic cleanse. I’ve noticed that I never eat meals and always eat while doing something else, the hardest part of this week for me is just sitting still and actually eating a real plate of whole food instead of eating a quick snack while doing something else.
The cleanse starts off pretty meager and increases food as we go. Right now I am so grateful for vegetables after eating spicy daal for a whole day. (sattva makes a nasty looking face) Today sitting with a bowl of oat meal will be a big treat.
hmmmm. i’ve been attempting to be more mindful while i’m eating. fresh summer corn was thoroughly savored this evening. in addition to my sometimes hectic pace of life and eating while on the go, i also struggle to have some sanity about food as far as guilt and and overthinking my eating habits. it’s hard to be immersed in US culture and not have some twisted sense that delicious food and fat are the twin relics of an evil unhealthy lifestyle. too much overthinking or dieting or “watching what you eat” in that sense, deadens my enjoyment of both the food and my body. i just wanna eat a good sandwich and love it and pay attention to what my body needs and never think that much about calories.
This is one I have been working on for some time, there are times when I realize that my plate is clean and I did not notice what was on it. Doing Oryioki (meal ceremony) during sessin helped with helped me with this, the meal is more about the ceremony than it is about the food.
Also, my wife and I did not, until recently, bless or chant or read poetry over our food now we do the a chant that I got from our zendo. The shortened version we do goes like this: We reflect on the effort that brought us this food and consider how it comes to us. We reflect on our virtue and practice and whether we are worthy of this offering. we regard it as essential to keep the mind free from excesses such as greed. We regard this food as good medicine to sustain our lives. For the sake of enlightenment we now receive this food.