Eating Meditation
Basic
Be aware of:
- reactions in the body and mind such as sweetness, pleasure, urge and other experiences
- the cause of the reaction such as sweetness or urge (e.g, food, farmers, motivation, earth, sun, your body, mind, ancestors)
- your motivation for eating
Patterns
Be aware of the following patterns of eating by pleasure:
- Tasting favorable food results in experiencing pleasure.
- Experiencing pleasure results in desire to continue experience the pleasure.
- The desire makes you eat.
- Summary: food, pleasure, desire, eating (lifting food, chewing, swallowing)
- Simpler version: food, desire, eating
Be aware of the following patterns of eating by displeasure:
- Experiencing hungry sensations results in experiencing displeasure.
- Experiencing displeasure results in desire to not to experience the displeasure.
- The desire makes you eat.
- Summary: hunger, displeasure, desire, eating
- Simpler version: hunger, desire, eating
Relations
Be aware of the relation between:
- the unpleasantness and the desire
- the pleasantness and the desire
- the desire and your eating (e.g. chewing, swallowing)
- the food and the pleasantness
- the sun and the food
- the sun and the desire
More Practices
- Be aware of the causes for the food
- Be aware of the causes of interpreting hungry sensation as unpleasant.
- Know the followings: why hungry sensation being perceived as unpleasant; what truly is eating; are you creating a contradiction?; what you do not know; the mind that is aware of the eating experiences; the one who is eating and experiencing; the cause for being liking/disliking the food; the dominant eating experience.
- Eat with gratitude.
- Discover yourself in food.
- Eat as a whole.
- Eat for others.
Guidelines
- Voluntarily chew and swallow food by your choice rather than by urge.