Dear Friends,
We’ve spent 10 days looking at the first way of establishing mindfulness – mindfulness of the body – including mindfulness of breathing, body postures, actions of body, speech and mind, body parts, elemental qualities, and the changing, impermanent nature of our bodies.
The second foundation of mindfulness is often called mindfulness of feelings. In English, the word “feelings” can mean many more things than what’s intended in this context. Here, we are more interested in the “flavor” of an experience, which we can classify into one of three categories: pleasant, unpleasant, or neither (aka neutral).
The first aspect of this practice is just to know what flavor of experience is happening. Perhaps in your meditation, you hear a sound, and you can notice whether it is pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. We can also notice how this feeling-tone changes.
Jill Shepherd has a brief talk about mindfulness of feelings:
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/637/talk/35594/
And then you can follow that up with a 30 minute guided meditation, where we’re invited to explore pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral:
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/637/talk/35595/
Outside of meditation, eating is an excellent opportunity to practice. The first bite of that sandwich might be very pleasant, but if you pay attention, you’ll likely notice that as you get accustomed to the tastes and sensations, the next bites might tend to more neutral, and if you’re getting full, you might even notice unpleasantness.
Jan Chozen Bays has a book on mindful eating, and she wrote a blog on the topic:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindful-eating/200902/mindful-eating
In the blog, she suggests four mindful eating exercises:
Pick your mindful eating homework
(1) Try taking the first four sips of a cup of hot tea or coffee with full attention?
(2) If you are reading and eating, try alternating these activities, not doing both at once? Read a page, then put the book down and eat a few bites, savoring the tastes, then read another page, and so on.
(3) At family meals, you might ask everyone to eat in silence for the first five minutes, thinking about the many people who brought the food to your plates.
(4) Try eating one meal a week mindfully, alone and in silence. Be creative. For example, could you eat lunch behind a closed office door, or even alone in our car?
I’ve gotten into a habit at work of eating while working, so I’m going to try her suggestion of alternating the activities of eating and working. I’ll post a follow up comment after lunch today, to let you know how it goes, so check the blog later! I invite you to share your reflections too.
With best wishes,
Andrea
Andrea D brought this from Thich Nhat Hanh for the retreat last summer…..we said it as a kind of grace before eating simple delicious food…. I had never seen it before….. I have it posted on my fridge & as often as possible read it aloud before we eat…..
New Contemplations before eating:
This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.
May we eat with mindfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food.
May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed and learn to eat with moderation.
May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.
We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our Sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.
As promised, here is my report…
Breakfast: cereal, yogurt, tea. I sat down and enjoyed the first bite of cereal – crunchy and sweet. And I noticed the immediate pull… I should check email! I noticed the tension in the body, the unpleasantness of that wanting, and returned to my cereal.
Mid-morning munchies at work: I’m trying to workout a more efficient solution to a big data update that needs to happen. I was really focused on that task, and I noticed how often when I’d be running an idea in my head my hand would want to reach for my lunch bag. So I’d pause on the problem solving, take a moment to appreciate the slice of cucumber or bit of trail mix as I ate it, and then would return to the problem solving. I noticed that by doing this more deliberately, I not only enjoyed the cucumbers and trail mix more, I also found I had better focus on the problem solving.
Lunch: I grabbed a sandwich from the shop on the main floor and returned to my office. I enjoyed the first few bites, that I was giving myself this gift of presence. I was able to appreciate the texture and flavors, and I brought to mind the people and processes who were involved in the production of this sandwich in my hand. Of course, after a few bites, I could feel that tug of “you know, you could just check this one thing…” So I put down the sandwich, and then turned to my computer, giving this task full attention. Then returned back to the sandwich.
What I like about this experiment is that I’m approaching this with curiosity and kindness. I don’t need to get it “right”, and when I do multi-task, I just notice that and renew my intention to eat OR work.
So that’s been fun! I’ll continue to play with this exploration!
Beautiful Andrea! I sometimes find myself saying, hey, I’m going to going to eat and read, both pleasurable activities, so why not do them together. But what often happens for me is I get lost in the words I’m reading and forget to be mindful of what I’m eating. Which sometimes results in eating more than I needed. 🙂
Great emails, Andrea! I don’t know how you find the time to write such long detailed emails everyday. I guess your used to it from always doing it for your job. Keep up the good work.
I look forward to each day to open up your e-mails & daily topics! Thank you for your geneoristy & sharing your talents.
On the topic of being mindful/present with eating, I find that I at times struggle with “head hunger”, the “wanting” or “desire” for more. This often happens when I am not being present with my eating experience.
I believe that a pattern for me is seeking pleasure when something feels unpleasant.
My lunch break is a half hour so a part of me “whines” (LOL!) that it would be in my best interest not to multi-task (eat & read together). I notice that my experience is very different when when I’m eating when I’m eating & reading when I’m reading, not doing both at the same time. When my focus is on doing one task at a time I’m giving myself my undivided attention & self love. Therefore, it’s awin-win situation! I