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Taking Care of Ourselves, Taking Care of Others
With heart established in mindfulness, go home to yourself to take care of body, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness throughout the day—in walking, sitting, eating, brushing teeth. Mindfulness is the energy that brings order, harmony, and well-being by:
- Recognizing and enjoying each in-breath and out-breath, releasing past and future, cultivating mindfulness, concentration, insight, and happiness in every moment.
- Not forcing the breath but gently allowing it to be itself, which in a few moments makes breathing deeper, slower, more peaceful, and brings body and mind together.
- Practicing the Buddha’s fourth exercise in the Anapanasati Sutta: becoming aware of the body and then releasing all tension—face, shoulders, arms—so that smile and relaxation heal and accelerate the body’s capacity to heal itself by ten times.
- Scanning the body “like a farmer” with the ray of mindfulness—eyes, heart, liver, etc.—breathing in and smiling to each part, embracing it with compassion, and deciding to nourish it wisely (e.g., stop drinking alcohol, eating too much fat).
Mindful consumption of the four nutriments prevents feeding fear, anger, and ill-being. The Buddha’s teaching on the four nutriments:
- Edible food—eat to preserve compassion, joy, and peace; avoid “eating the flesh of our own sons and daughters” by wasting cereals on meat and alcohol when children starve.
- Sensorial impressions—protect yourself from toxic sights, sounds, conversations; when depression or fear persists, recognize and cut off the sources of toxic media or talk.
- Volition—examine your deepest desires; wholesome desires to help others and protect the planet bring happiness, whereas desires for revenge, fame, sex, power, or wealth lead to suffering.
- Consciousness—cultivate right thinking (compassion, forgiveness), right speech (loving words), and right action (protective deeds); every compassionate thought, word, or act heals you and the world and can even neutralize past unwholesome karma.
