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Edible Food & Sense Impression
We have pleasant and unpleasant feelings, and we must learn the art of handling both: nourishing our pleasant feelings and taking care of our unpleasant ones. The Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing teaches us to recognize, embrace, and look deeply into a feeling to see its roots and achieve transformation. When a feeling is there, you can say, “Breathing in, I know a feeling is in me. Breathing out, I smile to my feeling.” This practice helps us with ill-being, or duḥkha, which is like a war within us. To stop the war without, we must stop the war within. The practice is to look deeply into the nature of ill-being to find the kind of nutriment that has brought it into being. The moment you are capable of seeing this, you are already on the path of emancipation.
Our peace, happiness, and joy—or our suffering—depend on the kind of nutriment we consume. The Buddha described four kinds of nutriment:
- Edible food
- Sense impressions
- Volition
- Consciousness
Mindful eating is a deep practice. The Buddha told a story of a couple crossing a desert who had to eat the flesh of their own son to illustrate that we should eat with the awareness that we eat to survive, not for pleasure. When we eat without mindfulness, we can destroy our own body, our compassion, and the Earth. We also consume through our six sense organs. What we watch, read, and listen to can contain unwholesome elements like violence and despair, which can destroy us and our children.
The practice of mindful consumption is crucial for our protection. We must be aware of the conversations we engage in, the thoughts that carry us away, and the projects and anxieties that consume us. We have to be responsible for what we eat. A Sangha, a community of practice, is essential for this. Without a Sangha, we cannot help our children or ourselves. The Sangha offers protection, helping us to consume mindfully and be in touch with wholesome things like nature. By practicing together, we can be there for each other, transforming suffering and nourishing peace and joy. To help a suffering brother or sister is to help the whole Sangha.