The Way Out Is In / Mindful Consumption (Episode #29)

00:00:00

Hello dear listeners and welcome to the latest episode of the podcast. The Way Out Is In.

00:00:22

I am Jo Confino, working at the intersection of personal transformation and systems change.

00:00:27

And I am Brother Phap Huu, a Zen Buddhist monk in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, in the Plum Village community in France.

00:00:35

And today, brother, we’re going to be looking at one of the core teachings of the Buddha, which are known as the Four Nutriments which are edible foods, sense impressions, volition and consciousness. Now, I’m not sure if I know what all this means. I know about edible foods, but listen, dear listeners, and hopefully we will by the end of this, have a clue what’s going on.

00:01:03

The way out is in.

00:01:16

Welcome, dear listeners. I am Jo Confino.

00:01:19

And I am Brother Phap Huu.

00:01:21

And today, brother, we’re talking about what’s called the four nutriments: edible foods, sense impressions, volition and consciousness. Now I am sort of feeling like I get a couple of these, but I’m going to look, I’m going to lean on you heavily for support on this podcast, because my sort of basic understanding is that we are in a dynamic relationship with life and often we’re not really conscious of that. But actually there are many ways in which we are in relationships. So we eat food, we think, we have judgments, we have ambitions, and wishes, and dreams. And also we have the sum total of our thoughts and the thoughts of our ancestors and then the thoughts of our community and the world. And so all those are actually in dynamic relationship with each other. Is that sort of what we’re talking about?

00:02:14

In a way, yes. And we will also be talking about how we take care of our wellbeing in body and mind and also spirit.

00:02:25

Right. So what’s the best way? Should we should we go through each one? Or do you want to talk about the Buddhist teaching as a sort of overall message? What is he trying to tell us?

00:02:34

So when I was learning how to be more mindful in my daily life as a monk, this is our bread and butter. Every morning we wake up, we start our day, and already when you wake up, you begin your day, you are training to take care of your mind and take care of your body. So we know that the relationship to our well-being and the world is very interconnected. And how we relate to the world, how we relate to everything outside of us is also in our capacity. We actually have agency for all of this. So to practice Buddhism and to practice mindfulness is to learn to nourish our body, nourish our mind, care for our body, care for our mind, understand our mind more, understand our body in order to be an offering also to the world. So we know that in Buddhism, the Buddha always teaches us that everything needs food to survive. This is for me, this is one of the I would say, the second noble truth that the Buddha teaches us that everything has roots. So if we want to look at our well-being, we have to see how we are consuming, consuming via edible foods, nourishing our body — what we drink, what we eat. And then our sense impression. I think this is a very interesting one. I think we can go quite deep into this because in today’s world we’re not just consuming through smell and taste, but now what we are able to see through a small screen, all of the information throughout the world, the internet is so vast and we have to be very mindful of how we consume the media, how we consume the images, the sounds that will influence our perceptions, our judgment, our views, our way of life. And then how coming back to our own consciousness, are we aware of what we’re thinking, what we are producing in the form of our thoughts in daily life? And all of this is a relationship to us as an individual, but also a relationship to the collective, collective consciousness of our community, our family, our loved ones, our society, even consciousness to our planet.

00:05:21

And brother, I mean, it’s… We are under assault, basically. I mean, what you’re saying is that there’s so much coming at us from a thousand directions. And so if we are not aware of how we are responding to life, then we lose our agency and we become a victim. And also, you know, it’s true that, you know, when we look at social media and we look at, you know, the algorithms of a number of these platforms, they are there to take over our mind. So actually, it’s really critical that we actually start to become conscious, aware and to actually say, see, what is our relationship to life? Where are we relating in a way that is filling us with fear, or dread, or anxiety. And where we’re going that is feeling us, as you see, developing our well-being.

00:06:16

Yes, exactly. And I think this is why we have to speak about very practical things so that we can have a journey, a practice, so that we can become also aware of our habits. We have personal habits, and then I would even say we have collective habits, as a community, as a society. And then we have habits that are passed down through our ancestors to us in relationship to how we consume life.

00:06:45

So shall we dive in, brother?

00:06:47

Let’s go.

00:06:47

Shall we start with edible foods? So that seems the most obvious thing to people. And I was I was thinking about this a bit today, brother, because I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth. And so I sort of was watching my habit today. So I got up, had a cup of tea with a sugar in it, then had another cup of tea with some sugar in it. And then I had a piece of banana cake. And then I had a macaroon, and then I had a slice of cake. And that was all before lunch. So, so I was watching myself do that and realizing that with edible foods, you know, it’s like each time I had something sweet, it’s like I was having a moment of sweetness. So some sense is in my mouth were excited and enjoying that food. But actually, I was not thinking at all about the fact that that food was going into my stomach, that it would take many hours to process it, that that the sugar content was probably changing my mood and behavior, and that it was probably going to affect at some point my body weight. And so, in a sense, what I was doing was I was responding to a sort of a craving for something that I’m habituated to, but I have no… I never normally think about. Actually, there’s a long tail to that behavior. So is that sort of a bit of what we’re talking about here?

00:08:23

That is, Jo, you just talked about mindfulness of consumption right there. And and we, as a practitioner, we learn to have a relationship with food. And if you actually reflect on your relationship with food, you can see how it is connected to your everyday, feelings, emotions, and even your suffering. A lot of the time when we are lonely or we have nothing to do, and we are filled with silence in our life or with emptiness, we have a habit to cover it up. We have a habit to put things into that empty hole, that void. And it’s very easy to just consume food because, like you said, it gives you this feeling of joy, this feeling of happiness, this feeling of also you are doing something to cover up. And now, with the lens of mindfulness, with the lens of awareness, we can see that that is a habit that we have inherited from our way of living and the consequences of it, it can make our energy lower later in the day. It can make us feel, actually not better, but even a little bit worse. So there are so many relationships when we talk about food. And for us the word that comes to my mind and in our meditation is that we need to have moderation. We have to have moderation in order to to take care of our body. So when we speak about about this element, you know, I think you might think that oh, Brother Phap Huu is going to say, oh, I shouldn’t be eating at all because that’s not good for you. But actually, we, as a practitioner, we do have the right to enjoy life and to enjoy sweets, enjoy that piece of cake. But are we doing it with mindfulness? That’s the key right there. It’s like, am I consuming because I actually need it? I think most of the time we consume when we don’t need the food and we are consuming it more in a way of just to cover up a space. And our body pays for all of that. Our desire tells us that, oh, maybe a piece of chocolate would feel good right now, but our bodies are like, ‘No, I don’t need that actually, what I need is more water,’ for example. So when we practice mindfulness of body, coming back home to the body, we have to become aware of how we are caring for our body. And food plays a very big part in that. So we know that whatever we consume it becomes our energy.

00:11:25

Yeah. And also, brother, it’s about, for me, there’s something about availability. So if I open the cupboard and there was no cake, and no biscuits, or no chocolate, I’d actually be fine.

00:11:39

Yeah.

00:11:40

You know, I might momentarily have that sort of desire, but it’s not there and I would get on with my day. But I think one of the problems and for a lot of people is that, you know, especially in the West, there’s… The cupboard is normally, you know, for people who have money, there’s food in the cupboard. And so, you know, it’s a bit like social media, it’s all available. And so therefore, actually, the temptation is always stronger. And I think when, you know, when I was growing up, you know, it was called a treat because it was something you had once in a while. And now, you know, almost it’s no longer a treat. It’s just like it’s there and I can just grab it when I want. But, brother, I think it’d be good to talk about the sort of broader aspect of food. Because, you know, one thing again, when I was growing up I ate meat, and I ate fish, and I ate all sorts of food and I never once in probably my first 30 years of life ever thought about where the food came from, or the conditions of the food, or the condition, or its relationship to the planet. You know, it just wasn’t in my gestalt. It wasn’t discussed. It wasn’t sort of it wasn’t reported on. But for people who are sort of living through these times, I mean, food has become also a very big political and environmental issue because actually it’s not just now how food affects our body, it’s fact that if we choose to eat a packet of biscuits, that often includes palm oil, and palm oil is responsible for destruction of rainforests. Or if we’re eating beef, we realize that meat sort of accounts for, whatever, 17 or 20% on average of global emissions. So actually mindfulness of eating, I think, in the last ten years has fundamentally shifted.

00:13:40

You are correct, Jo. The way we consume through what we eat, edible food, it has a large impact on the environment situation that we are in right now as a human species. So when you start to see that food is not also just a means, but there’s a relationship to it, I think you have to shift your way of looking at food. And, our practice, you know, before we get the food from the dining table in our monastery, so we have a practice already when we are lining up for the food, we are practicing moderation. We eat just what is enough. And this is really crucial. This is really important because this is to help us not take more than what we need from the Earth. And as humans, I think that we have this habit, and this pride, and this kind of like thinking that man is everything and everything belongs to us. But that is not the insight of our ancestor, and that’s not the insight of Mother Earth. Actually, we are all interconnected, so if we know how to consume more mindfully, we will in relation take care of our planet in a more skillful way. And what we choose to eat is also very important. I think the awareness of the meat industry, alcohol industry, all the impact that all the farming of the crop in order to just feed the cows, in order to just make beverages for us, it costs more than we think. So we have to really take a moment in our day, in our weeks, and just contemplate how do I consume food? What is enough? And we we have to sometimes meditate on seeing what we are eating. Sometimes we’re not just eating the food, but we’re eating the future, in a way. I know it’s a very tough meditation sometimes, because if we consume the way we are as humans, there’s not going to be much for the future. And if we think in that way, we have that… then we can say this is insight. And if we have that insight and we want to apply that insight, we have to change. And to change is not difficult. It’s just in the view and our understanding. So for us, you know, in the monastery, we choose a plant based diet because we know we are also nourishing our compassion when we eat these kind of meals. And it has not just spiritually supporting us and then mentally, and then compassion, but we also are nourishing our body because we know that our body is easier, and digesting plant based food. So this is a personal choice, I know, for everyone, but we know that it has a very direct relationship to Mother Earth and caring for the environment. Then our teacher has encouraged many of our friends who come to Plum Village, after the retreat, if within one month they can eat two weeks of vegetarian throughout the month, you know, just to slowly divide the meals so that we can see our interrelationship with the whole universe.

00:17:31

You know, in some ways, food is quite political. I remember when I was at The Guardian, one of the things I wanted to do was to bring in a one day a week vegetarian only meal in the canteen. And I thought, you know, The Guardian is obviously a very liberal newspaper. And I thought, you know, this would be welcomed. But actually there was so much anger and aggression that one day a week we were going to go vegetarian. And so eventually it did not go ahead. And I was just really intrigued because food also is very cultural. It’s very… It’s based on, you know, family history, you know, and people feel that they have a right, their individual right to eat whatever they want. But in some ways, I felt at the time that was very selfish, that actually we need to broaden our horizon. And one thing, as you’re talking, brother, that came to my mind is that I think people have a sort of a reverence for the taste of food, but. I don’t think they have a reverence for the food itself. And I’m aware of that myself. So last time I went shopping, I had my trolley and I went to the sort of fruit and veg section, and I just grabbed, you know, I didn’t do it in a hurry, but I just took, you know, you open a bag, grab a handful of beans, I throw it in the bag, and then later I just toss it into the shopping cart. And then I, you know, and I don’t actually have any relationship to it. There’s no sort of sense of, wow, you know, if I were to really stop and I think this is one of, you know, Thay’s deepest teachings that touched me was… I always remember, I was in one of his talks, and he said, you know, ‘If you take a single piece of carrot, and before you put it in your mouth, just look deeply at that piece of carrot and you can see that the entire universe is in that piece of carrot.’ And he was saying, well, you know, for the carrot to grow, it needs the air, it needs the water, it needs the soil, and it needs the sun. And for the sun to exist, the whole universe has to exist. And then from a human perspective, it needs the farmer and the person picking the crop, and then delivering it to the shop, and then the shopkeeper to sell it to you. So actually in just one carrot. If you really stop and look, you would actually develop a reverence for that carrot because you see that actually all of life was needed for that carrot to exist. But even though I know that, and even though it touched me very deeply, I’m in the supermarket is just filled with food and I just bag it up and and take it out.

00:20:27

Yeah, Jo, I think what you talk about, I think that’s a lot of us. It’s not just you. And one of our practice that we have to bring up as we eat is gratitude. And what I’ve experienced is whenever we have gratitude for the meal, the food becomes ten times more delicious. And it’s very interesting how, you know, we have, most of us, if we’re lucky, we have three meals a day. And some of us two meals a day or even just one meal a day. But we think that food is just like fuel for our engine, so that’s why we don’t have this relationship and we don’t see our connection to food, and that’s why we don’t feel grateful for the food. But if you put yourself in the position of someone who is hungry, a hungry child who don’t have enough to eat, who is very skinny, and just to have a cup of milk it means the world to them. And Plum Village has the Hungry Children program that we would always have a fund to give to programs that support hungry children in Vietnam. And we supported another trust in India and some other places in the world. And when I was an aspirant, I was asked that every month we get pocket money, €40, and if we would like to put anything in to that fund. And every time that pocket came and I would put five or ten, depending on my generosity of that moment, but I felt so grateful that I know that I can feed someone else outside of my circle. And then that helped nourish my gratitude to food. And that really shifted my whole consciousness to realizing that even having a bowl of rice and soy sauce was already a blessing. So one of my favorite, I didn’t have a sweet tooth like you, Jo. My mother does, but I love savory foods. I love chips, crackers, and I love soda. So I think I grew up on those kind of things, always in the fridge. And coming to Plum Village, we are so far away from the supermarket — which is a good thing — but slowly there’s more supermarket coming closer to Plum Village, which is a little bit dangerous just for the practice of moderation. But I was so grateful for this training because I was really able to break free from this habit of eating junk food. So, you know, like whenever I went home from school as a child, I think the first thing I did coming home from school was turn on the TV and then start munching on chips or anything available. And that slowly just became a habit. Like, just like you said, every time you go home, the first thing you go to is put your backpack, turn on the television, and then open the cupboard. So when I came to Plum Village, that wasn’t available. And the conditions of the environment is also very supportive to changing of your habit. So I would also want to mention that if we can recognize what are the habits of our consumption of food, sometimes we just need to switch, change the situation that we’re in, maybe put the bag of chips or the cookie a little bit further down the cupboard, put a lock on it or something, or even don’t have it for a few days of the week. And you see it will change. But we have needs and those needs become… We think they’re essential for us, but if we reflect and we review the way we are consuming. I think we are happy with having less.

00:24:46

And brother, just one other thing around reverence for our food. When I was working in New York, the last few years, you know, so many people at the HuffPost where I was working would basically grab their food and sit in front of the computer and work while they were eating, and eating very fast. And I know in Plum Village you have two things. One is about chewing your food many times, and you know how that brings out the sweetness of food. So I’m not very good at that, but maybe you could tell us a bit more about that. And the other thing is that when we sit down for lunch, there’s normally 15, 20 minutes of silence.

00:25:33

Yes.

00:25:34

What’s all that about?

00:25:35

Yes. So let’s talk about the eating… the chewing, because that was such a training for me. So another habit that we have is that let’s just get it through, let’s just finish the meal and check it off and then get on with life. I think a lot of the times we relate to food in that way. I also do that from time to time here, in Plum Village. And now that we speak about it, I need to begin anew, refresh my practice with this. Yeah, so having the time to be present for the food is our practice. If we don’t establish yourself in the present moment and then look at the food and recognize the food and see for what it is. And when we look at the food deeply, we can see beyond the food. We can see the sun. The whole universe have come together, all the farmers… Like there’s just so much conditions that have come together for the fruit to be there. And Thay has this calligraphy that I really love whenever I enter into the dining hall back then, I don’t see it around anymore, I don’t know where it is, but ‘The bread in your hand is the body of the cosmos …

00:26:55

… cosmos.

00:26:56

The bread in your hand is the body of the cosmos. That’s so beautiful. So it’s saying that in this piece of bread, the whole cosmos have come together for it to manifest. So if I have that insight, I’ll be so grateful for this piece of bread. And one of the practice of mindfulness, it is to help us become more aware, and we have to slow down our habits. Most of us, we are walking, running… It seems like we’re running after something at every moment, like we’re chasing after the future, even when we’re eating. So when we come to Plum Village, we kind of ask everyone to go from gear five to down to like gear two, if possible. And if some need to go down to gear one just in order to really shift our habit, our habitual actions, you know. So chewing is something we do when we eat. And when you are present with the food, you know that by chewing the food you help nourishing your body. And instead of like just putting food into our mouth and eating like a machine, do we actually have time to even taste the food? So this practice is to help us recognize the food, taste the food, enjoy it, and then let the food become us and not… Thay usually tell us, ‘I want you to eat the food, don’t eat your thinking.’ Wow. Don’t eat your thought. Don’t eat your project. Eat your food. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, we are eating our food, but most of the time we are eating the past, the future, our worries, our anxiety, our excitements, our thinking. So do we actually… Have we tasted that piece of carrot? Right. So this practice is very fundamental, is very basic, but at the same time, it is one of the most deepest practice because that is allowing yourself to be mindfulness. Mindfulness is not an app. Mindfulness is not just breathing. Mindfulness is every action. So when we chew our food… One time Thay told me, ‘Did you know that when you’re chewing your food isn’t amazing, that you don’t bite your tongue?’ And I was like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute.’ And I started to realize how skillful your tongue is pushing the food to the right or the left side in order to consume the food into your body. So there are so many things happening at that moment that you’re eating. So that becomes a whole practice in itself. And the practice of chewing for 30 times, it seems crazy. When I first heard about it, I was like, wow, chew for 30 time? This is going to take an hour of just eating this bowl of rice and food. But actually it’s not as bad as it seems. And another practice that we do, that I was trained, is that when you take a spoonful, you learn to put the spoon down and chew the food. Wow. Another new technique, because we have this tendency to take one spoonful, put it in our mouth, and then already, as we’re chewing, we’re preparing for the next thing, the next spoonful. Isn’t that just our mind going into the future again? So this is another technique that you all can put into practice. Like if you take a spoonful, put the fork or spoon down and just enjoy chewing that food. And the silence, the silence allows us to be more available. Conversation is very beautiful because conversation helps connection. So in our practice, especially for lunch and dinner in the Upper Hamlet, the morning, we keep it completely silent. So, no bells, we just begin in silence and end in silence. Even if you’ve finished, you respect a noble silence in the dining hall. And after you wash up, you can start your conversation, but outside, because, you know, others are practicing. But for lunch, it’s like, lunch is like one of the main meal in the monastery because it’s the time of when the Buddha and his community ate, so that’s like the main course of the day. And we all gather and we would wait for three-fourths of the community to be seated or sometimes the whole community. And we would start altogether with two sounds of the bell, a contemplation and then another sound of the bell. And then we would allow the community 20 minutes of silence just to eat. And that silence is very interesting. If you’ve been a long time practitioner, I think you would really enjoy it. For some, it’s almost scary to eat in silence and just to be aware of the food or aware of yourself. So this, the space that we offer, it’s a real time of practice to be, to have a connection with the food and also to have that space and time to see what manifests in the mind while you’re eating. That’s my own practice. And Thay says that we have a nonstop radio station. And can you help quiet that radio station in your mind by directing it to the attention of the food? So before I put that broccoli into my mouth, I would give it a split second and I would even say, ‘this is broccoli’ as as my training.

00:33:10

So, brother, looks like we could talk about food all day.

00:33:13

I know. We got to go on.

00:33:16

We got to move on. We got to move on. So the second one is sense impressions. So, do you want to give us a sort of brief intro?

00:33:27

Brief intro, sense impression. We have many, many windows in our body. Our eyes are windows. Our ears are windows. Our nose is smelling, it’s another window. And then all of that has an influence on our mind and it has an influence on our spirit and also our view of life. So does this sense impression we are always consuming. Even when you are listening to this podcast, you are consuming. But are we consuming mindfully? So it’s not about not consuming is about how are we consuming? What are the direction we are giving ourself. So when we are in a very busy city, let’s say New York, Jo, because you lived in New York. I visited New York a few times and there’s so much going on from what you see, the sound and even the smell. And that all has a relationship and is communicating something to you. Right? And I remember being in New York like I always heard the siren every day. And my practice, whenever I heard the siren was to contemplate compassion because something has gone wrong. That’s why the siren is on. So I generate compassion. But if you live in an environment like that, 24/7 and I know many do, that will have an impact on our life, on our way of thinking, and our way of going on, carrying on with our daily lives. So how do we have practices to balance all of this noise, all of these images, etc.? So but more practically, I think what a lot of times when I we talk about sense impression, first of all, we talk about what we consume with our eyes — movies, televisions, shows, just social media. All of those are food for our consciousness and our spirit also. And it will have an influence on our view of life. So we have to have time to become aware of what are our mental formations. When I say mental formations, it means our feelings, our emotions, our anger. Like what comes up in our daily life more and more? And this is mindfulness. We have to be aware of what we’re feeling today. And what we are feeling, how is it being nourished? That’s very important. And a lot of times we can connect it to what we consume by our senses, especially by our eyes, and what we read, then what we hear, what we listen to. I love music, Jo. You know that. I do a lot of singing and sometimes, from time to time, a little bit of hip hop, a little bit of rap. And I have a tendency I love sad music also. And there’s something about it that it brings you into a place that makes you feel vulnerable and makes you feel, I don’t know, just empty in a way. And this is not emptiness of Buddhism. This is more empty of feelings and whatnot. And so part of the monks trainings in our precept is to be mindful and selective of what we listen to. So that was a real training for me as a young monk. I had to stop consuming these… my favorite music that in the past, and to change what I hear, because all of that becomes a source of energy for me.

00:37:29

Yeah. And also, you know, we are… We lose our sovereignty.

00:37:34

Right.

00:37:35

And or, you know, agency or whatever we want to call it. Because for me, it’s like if we’re constantly consuming things, then actually, you know, that’s what we become. And, you know, but the Buddha said, you know, with our thoughts we create the world. But also our thoughts are generated from our experiences and what we see in the world. And if we’re constantly… And this is what we’re seeing with polarization in the US that if you’re constantly listening to conspiracy theories and that you mix with friends who also believe conspiracy theories, you’re going to actually build a universe around absolutely believing those conspiracy theories and then acting on them. And then anyone who doesn’t believe them or the people who are the victims of the conspiracy theories, you know, it just becomes, you know, we… unless we’re aware, we lose ourselves. And I noticed that even in the last week. I don’t know why I’ve been noticing things in the last week, but I have. And I’ve noticed that whenever I am making food, what I tend to do is I’ll stick something on the pan and then my phone will be there and I’ll pick up and I might look at Instagram or I might look at something. And what I feel is how quickly I get lost in that. And then I’ll smell, smell of burning, and I think, ‘Oh my God,’ you know. And I did that a week ago, I sort of burned the pan because I was heating it, ready for something, and I got caught by something, a bit of news or whatever. And then you just start following it down a rabbit hole. And I completely lost my sense of time. I completely lost my sense of place. And I completely lost my mindfulness of what I was doing. And I think that, you know, as you say, within cities, you know, like I always felt with cities and particularly with London, that there’s almost a psychic energy, that cities actually have an energy and that if you have a sensitivity, often you’ll get drowned in that energy. You know, I used to, I remember, I used to sort of walk into the underground, into the subway station in London and go down the escalator. I would just start to feel that energy of being rushed, of speed. And then, you know, the culture in journalism is about speed, and suddenly you realize that your whole life is speeding up. So, brother, what’s the best way of almost, you know, just turning that? Because it’s very easy to say, well, just switch it off. And we know that there are lots of practical things we can do, like an hour before bed don’t look at the news or don’t look at any media because then you take it into your sleep. And when you wake up don’t immediately switch on the phone. But there is in a sort of an addiction, we are living in an addictive society around this. And I’m just wondering how to be mindful, you know, if people are stuck in this place, which I sometimes am, but I tend to develop an awareness and try and moderate it. But how do we start to work with this?

00:41:00

I think first what we can do is reflect on and be honest with ourselves what we are addicted to. Is it television? Is it music? Is it information? And then can we start to switch our channels of what we’re consuming to have something more wholesome, such as hopefully this podcast is a kind of good nutriment. But we also have many other things that we can consume that can be nourishing for ourself. And then finding that balance. And we know that nature is a very good television. But it’s not about just watching it, but is being in it. And I see that we get into these addictions is because we feel there’s nothing else to do. And so our teacher tells us that we have to learn to recognize the energies that are in us. Even if it’s restlessness or even if it’s dullness, it’s like nothing to do, we can shift our energy by doing, by being active in it. So the practice is to really look and recognize and be honest what is our habits. What is it that makes us go away from the present moment? That’s what it is. Because all of this going through our telephone, going through the Internet, is to be away from the here and now, to be away from us. And if we recognize that and we see that by coming back to our self, oh, I do feel empty. And how can I nourish myself now? And there are so many different ways. And consuming the media is only one way. There is walks in nature. There is connecting to a friend, doing writing, reading, doing a hobby that can nourish our spirit. Our teacher does calligraphy on his free time because that nourishes his joy, bringing his practice into writing. Some of us love gardening. We would spend time, hours, to just take care of the bonsai, take care of the orchids. So it’s about shifting our attention. I think this is the art. This is a whole art, but it’s very doable. And then, if we can’t do it alone, find friends to do it with in order to change our habits. And we have to take it step by step. Sometimes you feel very caught up in something and you feel it’s so hard to be out of it. What you need is support from others. And if we are lucky enough to have those friends that can be a support for us, we can program once a week. Can we go for a walk together, for example, just to have different… Is like having different food within our meal plan. So instead of just being caught in one system and thinking that is everything, actually, the world is so vast and there’s so much things to do, and there are simple things that can actually bring a lot of joy. I love cleaning, so I would…

00:44:46

Come round to my house anytime, brother.

00:44:47

Your house is actually very clean, Jo. But, you know, like just the joy of sweeping, the joy of doing your laundry, all of these simple things can be a practice. Washing, washing up after a meal, etc. So they’re…. It’s all about… Our teacher used to say it’s changing the peg. If you know you’re doing something that makes you suffer or that makes you down, make you lose yourself, you have to have the courage to change. And you can’t just say, I’m not going to do anything, because our habit is going to, it’s going to be drawn to that that addiction again. And so we have to change the peg. We have to bring in new elements.

00:45:30

Yeah. And that does take, you know, a commitment and courage. You know, you have to take ownership again, coming back to agents, I remember I was doing some self-development work with an experiential group and I remember there was one workshop and someone came in, it was a three day workshop, and he was talking about his addiction to gambling. And he was quite a focus of the three day workshop, and the facilitator worked very deeply with him around, you know, the causes of his addiction and, you know, his childhood traumas. And, you know, he was given a lot of time and space and a lot of love from the group to change. And then I remember on the last morning, just before we closed, he put up his hand to the facilitator, turned to him, said ‘yes.’ And the guy said, ‘You know, we’re coming to the end, and I’m really worried that I’m going to go back to, you know, gambling again. And, you know, what’s your advice to me?’ And the facilitator was quite frustrated at that point, just turned to him and just said, ‘Just stop’ and ‘Just stop it.’ And there’s also an aspect that we use our addictions to avoid suffering. And I think that’s that’s one of the aspects, brother, you started to touch on. But I think maybe we could go a bit deeper on, which is that why do we consume things all the time? Because why are we rushing? Because there’s the fear of what happens if we stop. And it’s like a downward spiral that we are fearful of our traumas or our suffering in our life coming up to the surface. So when it starts to bubble up, we look for an escape. And by looking for an escape, we block our sufferings. Our suffering goes deeper underground. It therefore builds its power. And so this whole sort of cycle is actually an avoidance of our suffering. And because we are avoiding it in our mind, it must be so big. If we are avoiding, it must be because we can’t deal with it. And so so by constantly avoiding it, we’re constantly making it bigger in our mind until eventually, you know, we just block out completely. Whereas actually if we were to face it in that moment when it comes up rather than look for an excuse, we will realize actually it’s not so big. We can handle it, we can look after it, we can be there for our suffering. It doesn’t have to overwhelm us. So I think there’s something around recognizing that actually the way to stop the addiction is to recognize that what it is we’re trying to cover up.

00:48:14

Exactly. Exactly. And I think in today’s world, even for myself, in the monastery, like we have, we have created like shared emails, a kind of sanga eye on even like our social media pages of the community and just to support each other as we interact in this whole new, this whole new world. Because all of that, it’s also can be an addiction. Right? And there’s many documentaries and research that shows how social media can also give a sense of worth, self-worth in our dopamine. Yeah, exactly. So like we are entering into a world where it’s so important of just human relationship. I feel that’s why our teacher was so strong on building communities, because a lot of our addiction is because we are alone. We are disconnected. And we don’t feel love. We don’t feel… and we don’t know how to love also. And therefore, we go on this path of self-pleasure, self harm, and death. Pleasure and harm can also be addiction. And what we recognize is that communities can be a great support to overcome this feeling of loneliness and these feelings of habits that are so hard to change. And sometimes we can’t do it alone. We need the support of others. And I think, for myself, I can’t practice mindfulness by myself in two days where I feel it’s just so much, there’s just so much sense impressions that are pulling me in so many directions. And I have to be reminded that being still and doing nothing is an art and is so enjoyable. And that’s why we have a very holy day in Plum Village that will never change in this tradition, and it’s called lazy day. And a lot of the times when we have this free, lazy day, you know, we tend to pack it up with more things to do than on a normal schedule. And sometimes I have to tell myself, do not plan a new thing, just let the day manifest, just let the day be, and just to go with the flow of the day. And you can see how beautiful 24 hours can be. So even planning can become a source of food for our self, but it can direct ourselves to become more anxious or even more goal oriented. It means we become more pushy with ourselves and we are not free. We are not liberated in the present moment.