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"Mindful Consumption: Protecting Our Consciousness"
In 1996 at New Hamlet, we continued to explore the four kinds of nutriments—the four types of food that we take into body and mind: edible food, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness as food. Sense impressions arise from the contact between the six sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind) and the six sense objects (form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and objects of mind). These impressions can become nourishing or toxic food for our soul. Without right view—the correct recognition of the four kinds of nutriments—we easily consume “toxic sense impressions” through television, newspapers, images, and advertisements, leading to anxiety, hatred, and violence. To protect the six sense organs, we need to guard them with mindfulness, to know how to stop when we recognize toxins are entering, and to choose spiritual nutriments that nourish peace and happiness.
Understanding clearly the three kinds of spiritual and material food helps us to recognize the sources that nourish our body and mind, and at the same time to apply the three turnings of the twelve aspects—the three stages of turning: recognition, encouragement, and realization, corresponding to the Four Noble Truths (suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path)—in order to gradually end suffering and bring about peace and happiness. The essential lesson is to always be awake, dwelling happily in the present moment, abiding in the here and now to heal the past and design the future, while nourishing our consciousness with bodhicitta—the mind of awakening. Only when we have deep right view regarding the kinds of nutriments and practice mindfulness to guard the six sense organs, can we be liberated from the ocean of suffering.