Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference (17 page)

How often do you actually
taste
the food you eat? Most people tend to acknowledge the first few bites, just to ensure they’re eating what they think they’re supposed to be, and then slip into a semi-conscious state of eating. I don’t mean some kind of semi-
comatose
state, but rather involvement in other activities, such as thinking. As it’s not particularly complicated to move a fork back and forwards from a plate, or a sandwich from hand to mouth, we’ve developed an ability to carry out the task without even thinking about it, in much the same way we have with walking.

For fans of multitasking this probably sounds like a dream come true. It means we can sit and eat our food while reading the newspaper, working on the computer, speaking on the phone, or mentally working through our plans for the evening or weekend ahead. It’s equally common in the evenings, when we get home late from work feeling tired, already thinking about having to get up early the next morning or perhaps putting the kids to bed. The result is a meal prepared in the shortest possible time, cooked in the shortest possible time, and then eaten in the shortest possible time. This assumes we haven’t just grabbed some fast-food on the way home from work and finished it before we’ve even walked in the front door. I’m not saying this is wrong, this book isn’t written to tell you
what
you should eat,
where
you should eat it and
how
you should do it. That’s up to you. But I would like to briefly explain how mindfulness and meditation can be applied to the simple act of eating with some remarkable benefits.

In contrast to the hurried mealtimes that most of us experience, mealtimes at the monastery were generally a sedate and dignified affair, with a few notable exceptions I might add. When you don’t have much else to focus on, food takes on an extraordinary importance, as do the other simple things in life such as having a cup of tea, or taking a warm shower. These things are described as ‘sensory pleasures’ in the monastic tradition and, as a general rule, we were encouraged not to indulge in them too much. They were seen as additional activities to train in mindfulness rather than luxuries to indulge in. However, I trust it now goes without saying that this way of living is very specific to the monastery and you shouldn’t feel for one moment as though you need to deny yourself the simple pleasures in life to get the full benefit from your meditation.

There was one Western monastery where I lived (the one with high walls again) that had its own unique approach to food, as it did to everything else. When I arrived on my first day I was asked to make a list of all my favourite foods and drinks. ‘Wow,’ I thought, ‘this is amazing. It’s like a five-star monastery.’ I was also asked to make a list of all the foods and drinks I didn’t like. Again, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so considerate.’ They even had three meals a day, eating dinner in the evening. It felt like moving into the Four Seasons of Buddhist monasteries. So, you can probably imagine my disappointment when dinner was served up with many of the things I’d put on the list as not liking. In fact, as I looked more closely at the plate, it appeared as though pretty much everything had come from that list. Had there been some kind of mix-up, some kind of mistake? Perhaps I’d got the two pieces of paper mixed up.

It turns out that there’d not been any mistake at all. In fact, the reason for asking those questions had been merely to ensure that we were not indulging in foods that we enjoyed. It was also to ensure that we had, and I quote, ‘the opportunity to examine the experience of dislike’. As if the food wasn’t bad enough, I was then given coffee afterwards. Now in my experience coffee is pretty much a love or hate affair for most people and I really disliked it. Sure, it smelt great, but the taste was horrible and I disliked the jittery sensations it left me with afterwards. And yet here were these monks serving me up a mugful just a couple of hours before going to bed. In addition to feeling nauseous while drinking it, I was absolutely wired all night. And, as I soon found out, this was something to be repeated on a regular basis during my stay there. I guess my reasons for scaling the wall after a few months are becoming more obvious. But there was a funny side to this too. Conscious of the fact that I didn’t want to turn into a whale, eating three meals a day while doing nothing but sitting on my backside meditating, I had written down things like chocolate, biscuits and cake on the ‘I don’t like . . .’ list, thinking that it was an easy way of making sure I ate a healthy diet. Little had I known that this was to be my ‘He must eat . . .’ list, and I was therefore served up chocolate and cake at the end of every evening meal, much to the annoyance of the other monks.

While this approach may sound extreme, until then I’d never really thought about why I liked and disliked certain foods. I had always assumed I ‘just did’. Having the opportunity to become more aware of the process was definitely beneficial and, to my surprise, I actually started to eat many of the foods that I’d never liked. Once I’d got over the initial resistance and all the mental chatter around it, I found that the direct
experience
of the food was quite different to my
idea
of it. Similarly, foods that I’d once enjoyed as an idea, but were probably not all that good for me, became less of an obsession. Once the desire had faded away somewhat and I actually started paying close attention to how the food made me feel, suddenly it didn’t look quite so appetising, at least not in the quantities that I might have previously consumed.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that ‘mindful eating’ is being touted as the next wonder diet. There’s no question that mindfulness can fundamentally change your relationship to food (including your food choices, the quantity you eat, and the way in which you eat it), but it doesn’t really do mindfulness justice to think of it purely in terms of the next weight-loss sensation. The reason I say this is because there can then be a danger of confusing
mindfulness
as a way to happiness with
weight-loss
as a way to happiness. They are two very different things, the latter offering no lasting sense of fulfilment or headspace whatsoever. However, developing a healthy relationship with food can only be a good thing and, if you can lose some excess weight as a result of being more mindful around food, then that’s a wonderful thing. It comes back to that same idea of having greater perspective, the necessary space in which to respond skilfully rather than acting impulsively.

I’ve met very few people who are completely comfortable around food, who have no hang-ups about what they eat. Most people I speak to say that they often feel guilty about their eating habits, that there is always this gap between what they ‘want’ to eat and what they think they ‘should’ eat. This definitely used to be the case for me. Before I went away to train as a monk I was fanatical about food. I was competing in gymnastics at the time and training in the gym every day, completely obsessed with fitness. I would plan my meals for the week down to the last ounce, weighing out just the right amount of food for each meal. I avoided anything that would be considered even remotely enjoyable by most people’s standards, even when I went out for a meal. If a craving for anything sweet came along I’d just push it back down to wherever it came from. I became so fanatical about it that I would even phone ahead to the restaurant I was going out to and order something special in advance (egg white omelette anyone?). There was very little mindfulness in this way of living. It was an extreme, and extremes are rarely a healthy way of living, no matter which end of the scale they may be. So when I went away to the monastery I had a lot to learn about just how much emotional attachment I had to my eating habits. There are many stories to choose from to illustrate this, but the one that highlights the emotional relationship we have with food is what has become known as ‘the ice-cream story’.

Mealtimes in the Burmese monastery were solemn affairs. In fairness, it was a silent monastery so there wasn’t really that much to communicate anyway. And besides, mealtimes were designed to be formal eating meditation sessions. We’d sit on the floor around big circular tables, with about six monks to each table. It was a big monastery, with well over eighty monks, so the dining room was quite big. There were nuns too, but they remained hidden on the other side of the dining room separated from us by large and seemingly insurmountable wooden screens. The rest of the room was quite open, which meant that we looked out on the monastery gardens. It was a very pleasant place to be.

It didn’t matter whether it was breakfast or lunch, the food was always the same, curry and rice. The curry was thick and oily (not great for digestion), but always tasted good. A bowl and a spoon would be sitting waiting on the table when we arrived, and two monks would then come around and dish out the rice and curry. Following a short verse or two of traditional text, a gong would be sounded and we’d have an hour to eat the food. When I say an hour, I mean an hour – no more, and no less. At this particular monastery everything was done very, very,
very
slowly. I mean it might take twenty seconds even to get the rice from the plate to your mouth, never mind eating it. There was a good reason for this of course as it allowed us to examine the workings of the mind in a very detailed way. But it was slow, very, very slow. By breakfast time I was often really hungry and would just dive into the food without really thinking much about it. I would then feel a hand on my shoulder. It was the hand of the discipline master whose job it was to make sure that everyone was conducting themselves in a manner both conducive to training and befitting a monk. I got to know the discipline master very well during my stay there.

There are certain days of the year in Burma when members of the local community are given time off from their jobs to come and practise meditation at the monastery. I’m not sure if they were very enthusiastic meditators or were just happy to have the day off work, but lots of people would visit on these days. When they came they would often bring food to donate to the monastery kitchen. It might be sacks of rice, vegetables, or even meat and fish. One day a man arrived with several big shiny containers, almost like oil drums. I had no idea what was inside, but it was unusual for a lay-person to come into the dining room during a mealtime. There was something else different that day too. The bowls and spoons that were usually on the table waiting for us were not there. I could see the two monks who usually handed out the food making their way towards our side of the dining room, but rather than carrying the usual pans of rice and curry, they were handing out very small dishes with something yellow inside. Almost like busy waiters in a restaurant, they were hurriedly moving backwards and forwards from the kitchen handing out these small bowls. And from what I could see through the small gaps in the screen down the middle of the room, the same thing was happening on the other side of the room.

I suddenly realised what it was. The monks were handing out ice-cream! Now before I get too carried away, just momentarily pause and consider what it would be like to eat the same curry and rice every day and never to have anything different. OK, so now imagine someone serves you up a bowl of ice-cream. Pretty exciting, right? Well, I was excited – however ridiculous it sounds, I genuinely felt a rush of excitement. It was like being a child at a birthday party when the cake comes out. One by one the bowls were handed out to every monk and nun. I stared at the ice-cream. It was summertime, over 40 degrees . . . the clock was ticking. But of course nobody could begin until the gong had been struck. I grew quickly impatient, my concern for the ice-cream’s longevity far exceeding that which is appropriate for any human being to feel towards a frozen ball of cream and sugar. Of course, there was nothing wrong or even unusual in my reaction, but it would be fair to say that my levels of desire and craving at this point were nearing the far end of the scale.

Then I saw what the hold-up was. The two monks who’d placed the ice-cream in front of us were now going around putting our regular bowls and spoons down on the table. I started to talk to myself. ‘It’s OK, the bowls are empty, this won’t take long, the ice-cream will last.’ But by the time they finally reached our table I could see that what they were doing was pushing the bowls of ice-cream towards the middle of the table and placing the empty bowl and spoon in front of it. Behind them, two other monks were walking around with the pans of rice and curry, filling the bowls up. It was then that I realised what was happening: we would have to eat the curry before the ice-cream. Now in the privacy of my own home and with no speed restrictions I would have fancied my chances, but not here, not in the monastery. It would take almost an hour to eat the curry and rice and I was quite certain the discipline master would make sure of it.

I felt a surge of anger, closely followed by lots of angry-looking thoughts. ‘This is ridiculous! It’s torture! What a waste of food! I thought Buddhism was supposed to be about kindness, there’s nothing kind about this! And what about that lovely man who’d spent his money on this ice-cream, had they given a moment’s thought to how he might feel?’ Some of the thoughts went further still as I mechanically moved the fork in slow motion back and forth from the plate, looking longingly at the melting ball of ice-cream. I had no headspace and no sense of awareness. Far from being mindful, I was entirely absorbed in my own thoughts. In fact, I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I couldn’t even see that in reality the real cause of anger was simply me not getting what I wanted. I guess you could call it attachment, wanting something so much that when you don’t get it you resist, you struggle. Well, I was struggling all right, no doubt about it.

Funnily enough, people often get angry on my behalf when I tell them this story. But remember, I was staying at the monastery of my own free will and could get up and leave at any time. I was a willing participant in these situations and felt that I had something to learn from the experiences. It’s just that sometimes I got so caught up in my own thoughts and feelings that I temporarily forgot to be aware of this simple fact. Once again, this approach is specific to monastic training, you don’t need to torture yourself with melting ice-cream to get the most from your meditation. There will be plenty of other situations that will come along quite naturally in life that will test the stability of your own awareness and compassion.