Spiritual Teachings On Mindful Eating
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Buddhism
There is a practice in Buddhism called, “The Five Contemplations While Eating.” This practice engages the mind to create a new relationship with food that takes it beyond just sensory enjoyment. The Five Contemplations are a way to connect food, body, mind, and spirit to the universe at every meal. The first contemplation involves imagining how the food grew, how it was cultivated, and how it got to your table. This creates a sense of gratitude and connection to the processes involved in food preparation. The second contemplation is to become aware of your present state of consciousness and adjust it, if necessary, to be peaceful and harmonious. In this way we become ready to receive our food in a joyful way. The third contemplation is to question whether the food on our plate is to nourish us or to satisfy a greedy desire, such as eating more than we really need. This type of thinking challenges us to eat in a sustainable way. Many Buddhist teachers consider meat eating a greedy desire because for the sake of your own enjoyment you are taking the life of another. The fourth contemplation is to think about how food is medicine. Without it we perish; by eating too much we can become sick. Eating just the right amount of healthy food is one of the major keys to good health. The fifth and last contemplation is to be thankful for the nourishment that the universe has provided you. In this way you become filled with gratitude, joy, and connection to the forces of the universe.
This is a very profound practice that can take the act of eating to a level you may have never imagined. Eating mindfully in this way is a spiritual practice that can generate compassion, health, greater awareness, and peace. If you find that you don’t want to do all five contemplations, try doing just one and see the results it produces.
Taoism
A key practice in Taoism is the cultivation of chi, or energy. Through chi cultivation the mind, body, and spirit become in harmony. When there is a lack of harmony between these levels of our being, the possibility for present moment mindful awareness is decreased. The spiritual teaching that emerges from this understanding is that certain foods have the ability to increase or decrease our chi level and flow, which then correlates to our mindfulness level. Without going into too much detail into the Taoist diet, the basic principles are to find out which of the five elements is out of balance in your body, and then to eat foods which will help restore it to balance. Also, to eat foods related to the particular season is a way to balance the chi flow. In this way the Taoists discovered that the ability to eat mindfully was partially dependent on developing a diet that harmonized the chi flow. Mindful eating would then emerge spontaneously.
Ayurveda
Ayurveda, which means life knowledge, is a system of healing that originated in India around 5,000 years ago. In this system, the way in which we eat plays a major role in the overall state of our being. In order to eat mindfully and experience the benefits that this can have, Ayurveda teaches us to turn off the telephone, T.V., or whatever might distract you, and then eat in silence to immerse your senses in the aromas, flavors, colors, and textures of the food. By doing this the mind is not allowed to wander into day dreams, but is instead merged with sensory reality. This merging is said to produce spiritual insights into the nature of the body, and its relationship to the five elements within and without, which are earth, air, fire, water, and ether in this system.
The Essenes
The Essenes were mystical Judaic groups that lived near the Dead Sea in Palestine around the time of Jesus and before. There is evidence that they practiced a live-food vegetarian diet, and often lived to the age of 120 years or more. The Essenes realized a profound insight into how to eat in a mindful way that would maximize nutrition as well as the heightening of consciousness. It is actually a very simple procedure, yet one that is often hard to achieve in our modern world. What they did was eat food right after it had been picked from the earth. Such as picking and eating a fresh fruit, or vegetable. This may seem like nothing amazing at first, but how often have we eaten food freshly picked? Maybe a handful of times, maybe never! The Essenes found that eating freshly picked food released a powerful energetic force that quieted the mind and helped it to tune into the energies of the earth and cosmos. Try growing a garden or eating wild food. You might be amazed at the difference between the effect of truly fresh food, and food that has traveled a great distance from its place of origin and has sat on a shelf for a week, weeks, or even a month or more.
The task at hand, for all who wish to take it, is to become mindful eaters. As we have seen, this involves more than we may have thought. It requires that we learn new ways to focus the mind so that it can learn to take in more information from the sensory and intuitive levels rather than dwell predominately in the mental level. This information has the ability to bring us joy and greater sensitivity to the forces that shape all levels of our being. All that is required is that we become present to the fullness of the moment, and be open to the blessings that come through eating food in a conscious way.
Mindful eating is the key to proper nutrition. Hope alone is a very powerful phenomenon. The Zen Buddhism vegetarian perspective believes it is wrong to exploit animals as food sources. The camp food system should be used with caution. Taoism focuses on healthy balanced nutrition. Ayurveda separates diet according to body type certain cooking oil s are deemed better for different types. Some Indian s are vegan and if a vegan from India ate lactose they would probably have extreme diarrhea from it. Cook Thai food, it is good for omnivores and herbivores alike.