Mindful Eating

Mindful eating has been part of my spiritual practice almost from the beginning. Jishu took me on my first dive into mindful eating.  During a course on the Zen paramitas, the practices of enlightened beings, she asked us to pick an everyday activity that we did without paying attention.  I took a four-month plunge into eating without reading. I wasn’t dieting, I wasn’t focused on how much I was eating. This plunge was about the way I ate, and it was illuminating, showing me how inattentive I was. Thirty years later, I’m still working with this challenge, and I’m finally paying attention. I’m especially enjoying my breakfasts, the preparation and the eating, berries and apples and pears, washing and chopping, raisins and granola, yogurt. Enjoying eating, chewing, my sips of coffee.

I took a second dive into mindful eating following my carotid artery surgery. My guardian angel, who’d gotten me to a top surgeon, steered me to his nutritionist. She got me into intermittent fasting. She wasn’t much interested in what I ate (which surprised me) or in how I ate. She focused on when I ate. It worked. I lost 30 pounds, eating just two meals a day, shutting down snack times. I have no idea if the “science” of intermittent fasting is valid. But intermittent fasting got my attention. I ate less. Maybe that’s how all diets work, by making eating mindful.

Now, I’m taking a third dive into mindful eating, just as the Universe, in its strange, magical way, has me reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, one of the many books on my shelf which have been waiting years for my attention. I’m stunned by the aptness of what I’m reading. To reduce our suffering, we need to stop bringing poisons into our lives. It’s a Buddhist teaching with which I’m well familiar. I’ve been sharing for years what I’ve learned about letting go of toxic friendships and reducing the amount of depressing, upsetting news that I absorb. But I’ve always resisted the most concrete form of the teaching, not taking in foods which harm me no matter how good they taste. Maybe it’s still my stubborn resistance to my mother’s advice.  Mom worried about carcinogens. She warned me about bacon. I believed her, and I don’t eat bacon often – I’m not a pig guy – but the occasional taste of bacon can’t be resisted. I’m not a fanatic and proud of that.

But Mom thought fat was bad, put me on skimmed milk, and that teaching stuck. Now, I hear Dr. Cori saying fat is good. Okay. I’m transitioning from non-fat to full-fat yogurt for brunch. Then Dr. Cori says, “Grassfed beef is good.” What about the non-killing precept? The Buddha warned us off eating animals. Bernie gave non-killing a different spin. All of life is killing. We can’t breathe without killing microorganisms. We can’t drink a glass of water without killing living beings. We have to find a balance. I have to find a balance.

I have my Bodhisattva Vow to free all creations, to lead all beings to the enlightened way. To continue to teach, I need to take care of this body. I have to take care of my health. That means eating healthy. Mindful eating means paying attention to what I’m eating. It’s sounds to simple now, but somehow it’s been eluding me. What am I going to do about beef? So far, I'm not ready.