Eating mindfully connects you to entire cosmos

In modern life, people think their bodies belong to them, and they can do anything they want to themselves. ‘We have the right to live our own lives,’ they say. The law supports such a declaration; that is one of the manifestations of individualism. But according to the Buddha’s teachings, your body is not yours. Your body belongs to your ancestors, your parents and future generations.

It also belongs to society and all the other living beings. All of them have come together — the trees, the clouds, the soil, everything — to bring about the presence of this body. Our bodies are like the Earth. And there is the Boddhisattva Earth Holder holding everything together.

Keeping your body healthy is a way of expressing your gratitude and loyalty to the whole cosmos, to all ancestors and to future generations. If we are healthy, everyone can benefit from it — not only human beings but animals, plants and minerals. This is a bodhisattva precept. When we practice the Fifth Mindfulness Training, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva.

We are what we consume. If we look deeply into how much and what we consume every day, we will come to know our own nature very well. We have to eat, drink, and consume, but if we do it unmindfully, we may destroy our body and consciousness, showing a lack of gratitude toward our ancestors, parents and future generations.

We all know that sometimes we open the refrigerator and take out an item that is not good for our health. We are intelligent enough to recognise that. But still, we go ahead and eat it to forget our worries and anxieties.

The practice recommended by the Buddha is that when a feeling of anxiety, or fear comes up, try not to suppress it with the method of consumption. Instead, invite the energy of mindfulness to manifest. Practice mindful walking and mindful breathing to generate the energy of mindfulness and invite that energy up to take care of the energy that is making you suffer. If we don’t practice, we don’t have enough energy of mindfulness to take care of our fear and anger, and that’s why we consume to repress those negative energies.

The Buddha recommends that each monk and nun has a bowl with which to go on the alms round. The Buddhist term for the alms bowl is ‘the vessel of appropriate measure.’ Since the bowl is exactly the right size, we always know just how much to eat. We never overeat, because overeating brings sickness to our bodies. Obesity has become a huge health problem in Western society, while people in poor countries don’t get enough to eat every day. We ignore the rule of moderation. Mindfulness of eating helps us to know what and how much we should eat. When we eat mindfully, we are in close touch with the food. The food we eat comes to us from nature, from living beings and the cosmos. To touch it with our mindfulness is to show our gratitude. Our way of eating and producing food can be very violent to other species, to our own bodies and to the Earth. The practice of raising animals for food has created some of the worst environmental damage on the planet and is responsible for one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Eating in mindfulness, we are in touch with the entire cosmos.

Ahimsa Trust that represents Thich Nhat Hanh in India, is holding an ‘Evening of Mindfulness’ at India International Centre, New Delhi, on March 24, 4.30-8pm. www.ahimsatrust.org; ahmisa.trust@gmail.com