A Potato Chip Meditation
Here's the challenge: to taste--really, fully, mindfully taste--what you're eating.
By Edward Espe Brown
Reprinted with permission from "Tomato Blessings and Radish Teachings: Recipes & Reflections" by Edward Espe Brown (Riverhead Books).
Years ago at a meditation retreat, we had an eating meditation. Raisins were passed out. We were encouraged to help ourselves to a small handful, "But don't eat them yet!" I sighed. I am not thrilled with this kind of exercise. I prefer to have these experiences on my own, instead of having them spoon-fed to me.
We were instructed to look at the raisins, to observe their appearance, to note their color and texture--"But don't eat them yet!" I supposed it could be worse, like "Ready now, one, two, three, open your heart to the raisins." Next we were invited to smell the raisins, and finally, after a suitable interval allowing for the aromas to register, we were permitted to put the raisins in our mouths, "But don't chew them yet!"
In cultures where eating rituals were widespread, people experienced few eating disorders.
By now I was feeling annoyed and increasingly aware of an urge to smash something. "Leave me alone," I complained (loudly to myself.). "Let me eat, for goodness' sake." To have your act of eating abruptly arrested is upsetting and disturbing. Get something tasty in your mouth, and your teeth want to close on it. But WAIT! We were then instructed to simply feel the raisins in our mouth, their texture, their presence. We were obliged to restrain saliva flow and the impulse to chew.
At last, we were permitted to complete the act of eating. The raisins could be chewed. More juices flowed. The sweet and the sticky were liberated from their packets--"But don't swallow yet!"
"Be aware of your swallowing. See if you can make your swallowing conscious." Some people, I guess, just have a knack for knowing how to take all the fun out of things. This noting and observing, attending and awakening, certainly doesn't leave much opportunity for joyful abandon, but I'll always remember those raisins.
Indeed, I thought of them when I taught a workshop on Zen and psychoanalysis with Andre Patsalides, a Lacanian psychoanalyst. We called the event "Eating Orders and Disorders." Andre explained that in cultures where eating rituals were widespread, people experienced few eating disorders. Conversely, we see that ours is a culture with few eating rituals and numerous disorders. Many families, perhaps 25% to 30%, almost never eat together, according to many reports. The refrigerator, freezer, and cupboard are full of each family member's favorites, which can be microwaved when each one wishes, maybe between TV shows.
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