Eating Together
With the energy of mindfulness, even eating can become sacred. We have a chance to get into deep contact with the miracle of food, and the people surrounding us, whether they are family, friends, colleagues or fellow-practitioners on the path.
Mindfulness allows us to look deeply to see the wonders of earth and sky in what we are eating and drinking. We can see the hard work and all the causes and conditions that have brought it to us in this moment, and gratitude and wonder naturally arise.
Looking deeply, we can see that a simple cup of tea, a tangerine, or a morsel of bread are nothing less than an “ambassador of the cosmos.” Eating with the energy of mindfulness we can experience our interbeing with the planet that is nourishing and sustaining us, and heal our feelings of loneliness and disconnection.
We can become fully aware of the miracle of our body – the taste buds in our mouth, and our body transforming food into energy and vitality. We also have a chance to encounter our habit energies around food, which may have been transmitted to us over many generations.
We tend to eat a little more slowly, to allow us to really savor every mouthful. We train ourselves to chew each bite at least thirty times, to allow us to really slow down and encounter the food, without rushing to swallow. When we can do this, we have a chance to touch peace and freedom right in the present moment. Many of us like to put down our cutlery between mouthfuls, to allow our hands to relax and to not race forward to the next bite while we still have food in our mouth.
Eating a meal together is a meditative practice. We should try to offer our presence for every meal. As we serve our food we can already begin practicing. Serving ourselves, we realize that many elements, such as the rain, sunshine, earth, air and love, have all come together to form this wonderful meal. In fact, through this food we see that the entire universe is supporting our existence.
We are aware of the whole sangha as we serve ourselves and we should take an amount of food that is good for us. Before eating, the bell will be invited for three sounds and we can enjoy breathing in and out while practicing the five contemplations.
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.
We should take our time as we eat, chewing each mouthful at least 30 times, until the food becomes liquefied. This aids the digestive process. Let us enjoy every morsel of our food and the presence of the dharma brothers and sisters around us. Let us establish ourselves in the present moment, eating in such a way that solidity, joy and peace be possible during the time of eating.
Eating in silence, the food becomes real with our mindfulness and we are fully aware of its nourishment. In order to deepen our practice of mindful eating and support the peaceful atmosphere, we remain seated during this silent period. After twenty minutes of silent eating, two sounds of the bell will be invited. We may then start a mindful conversation with our friend or begin to get up from the table.
Upon finishing our meal, we take a few moments to notice that we have finished, our bowl is now empty and our hunger is satisfied. Gratitude fills us as we realize how fortunate we are to have had this nourishing food to eat, supporting us on the path of love and understanding.
Tangerine Meditation
By Thich Nhat Hanh
When you wake up in the morning, everything sounds alive – the trees, the wind, the stars, the moon. And around us so many things are like that – very alive, very beautiful, very refreshing and healing. And if you are truly there, and then you’ll notice their presence. Because when we are real, when we become real, thanks to the practice of mindful breathing, mindful walking, become real. And when we are real and true, something else is also true and real, and that is why when you pick up your tea and hold it like this, because you are real the tea becomes real also. If you are not there, if you are lost in your thinking, your worries, the tea does not really exist. Go to a coffee house and observe – they are having coffee, tea, everything but their minds are not really there. So in order to be truly there, in order to drink your tea, really, you have to be there. And when you are there, your tea will be there, as a reality and not as a phantom, not as a ghost. And when you live without mindfulness, everything is like in a dream. A trip, the subway, the street, the car, everything is like in a dream. And if we are awake, mindful, if we are truly there, everything becomes real again. And that is the miracle of mindfulness. So when I pick up a tangerine with mindfulness, I come in touch with a miracle. A tangerine, please, try. A tangerine is nothing less than a miracle. If you are truly there, and you look, the tangerine is a miracle. And if you are truly focussing on the tangerine, we see it is a wonder, it is a miracle.
You can see the tree. You can see the white flower and the rain and the sunshine that go into it. They’re still there. The white flower, the blossom, the tangerine blossom, is still there. And the rain and the fog and the sunshine are going through it. And you begin to see a very tiny green tangerine. And because the sunshine, the rain, continue to go through it, it continues to grow. And now it has acquired this beautiful shape. Beautiful. The whole cosmos has come together in order to produce this wonderful miracle, which is a tangerine. And only with mindfulness and some concentration, could I recognise the miracle of the tangerine. And because I am true, I’m real, that is why the tangerine is also true.
And I remember about 40 years ago, I gave a guided meditation in California, eating, we were eating an orange. We called it orange meditation. We sat on the beach, a number of Zen practitioners, and we had a session of orange meditation. We spent one hour just eating a tangerine, and you can produce a lot of joy, brotherhood, sisterhood, happiness. And when you, mindfully, you take out some skin, you see that the smell is also a wonder. Do you think that in the Kingdom of God there are tangerines or not? I believe there are. When I was a young novice, I asked my teacher, “Do you think that in the pure land of the Buddha there are tangerines?” And I said: “If there are no tangerines, I would not like to go there.” that’s what I really told my teacher. If you go to the Kingdom of God, and if you don’t find tangerines growing, you will miss very much the planet Earth, because on the planet Earth, there are tangerines and many other things. That is why I am determined to stay here. Because the planet Earth is something very real. I do not want to exchange it for something that we cannot be sure that it’s real. And that is why, to me, the Kingdom of God is on earth, available in the here and now. That is my insight. And in order to go into the Kingdom of God, you have to be very alive. It means you have to be very mindful and concentrated. You don’t have to die in order to go to the Kingdom. It may be too late. You have to be very alive in order to do so, and to be alive, that is something you can do. If you practise mindful breathing, bringing your mind back to your body, you become alive, established well in the here and the now. And if you are mindful, concentrated, you only need to make one step in order to enter the Kingdom. To me, the Kingdom is now or never. And our practice is to enjoy the kingdom every moment of our daily life. Whether you are walking, or sitting, or having breakfast, you can always do it in the Kingdom of God. And this is possible; this is not theory. With mindfulness and concentration we can very well be in the Kingdom. There is understanding, love, life – true life.
So with that kind of awareness, mindfulness and concentration, we can continue to enjoy our tangerine. I am peeling the tangerine mindfully, and I enjoy every second, every moment. And this is life; this is true life. I will take one section. I look at it, always mindfully, and notice that it is something wonderful, real, before I put it in my mouth. And I notice the savour, the taste, the juice that is coming out, mindfully. So, I savour every second, every moment, of the time I take in order to enjoy the tangerine. And that is a spiritual experience also. So, when you have your breakfast in mindfulness and concentration, your breakfast not only nourishes you, your body, but it nourishes your mind, your spirit. And when you drink your tea, that is also a spiritual practice, because from the time you pick up the tea and hold it in your hand to the time when you’ve finished the tea, it is a meditation, it is a spiritual practice, and you are alive all the way through, drinking your tea. And happiness, and peace, and joy, and the Kingdom of God is available during the whole time of your eating just a tangerine, or your drinking your tea.