CHAPTER 3: You Are More Than What You Eat

CHAPTER 3

You Are More Than What You Eat

When something has come to be, we have to acknowledge its presence and look deeply into its nature. When we look deeply, we will discover the kinds of nutriments that have helped it come to be and that continue to feed it.

—Samyutta Nikaya 2, 47

ADVANCES IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH since the late twentieth century reinforce the understanding that our bodies a ect our minds and our minds a ect our bodies. Skipping breakfast has been

shown to dull students’ memories and lower their test scores.¹ And physical activity has been shown to sharpen thinking, reduce

anxiety, reduce depression, and enhance memory.² The mind also has a powerful e ect on our bodies. In stressful situations—like being approached by a bear in a national park—our brains kick in the ght-or- ight response to help us cope with the threat. Our sympathetic nervous system is recruited, stimulating the release of glucagon and cortisol hormones to increase fuel to our muscles and our brain, helping us to make the right decision and escape danger. More recently, research has found that the risk of heart disease increases in both men and women as levels of anxiety, anger, or

more general symptoms of distress increase.³ Therefore, to attain well-being, we need to take care not only of our bodies but also of our minds. Mindfulness practice is central to seeing the interdependence of mind and body.

The same applies to weight control. Getting weight under control certainly means paying attention to the body—making more healthy food choices, cutting back on the amount of food we eat, and exercising more. But none of these bodily changes can happen, or can be sustained in the long term, if our minds aren’t well fed

with nourishing thoughts that help us stay on track—and that address the issues that caused us to gain weight in the first place.

The four nutriments taught by the Buddha provide the path for doing just this.

When most scientists think of nutriments, they think of foods such as nuts, fruits, and vegetables; drinks such as juice or milk; and nutrients such as protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals. Buddhist teaching, however, o ers a more inclusive way of looking at nutriments. Besides edible food and drink—the nutrients that sustain our bodies and feed our brain—there are three other types of nutriments that enable us to preserve the health and well-being of our body and our mind. These other nutriments are the following:

SENSE IMPRESSIONS: what we see, hear, taste, smell, touch, and think

VOLITION: our inner motivations, our deepest desires

CONSCIOUSNESS: the totality of everything we have thought, said, or done throughout our lives as well as the knowledge, habits, talents, and perceptions of our ancestors. Thus consciousness is both individual and collective.

If we experience a problem in our body or a disturbance in our feelings, our mind, or our consciousness, we need to identify what types of nutriments we have been feeding ourselves that have led to our negative state. Once we have identi ed those nutriments, we can stop ingesting them and, in turn, heal the problem areas. For example, if we nd ourselves easily getting angry, agitated, or sad, which then causes us to eat too much out of frustration, we need to look deeply to see what has brought about our anger, agitation, or sadness: What foods have we eaten? What types of sensory input have we taken in? What are the intentions that drive us, and what is the state of our consciousness, in this moment and as an accumulation of experience over the course of our life? Maybe we have read glossy magazines full of advertisements for clothes and

accessories we cannot a ord and do not need, and this has made us

feel anxious and inadequate. Maybe we are frustrated that loved ones don’t act as we wish, which lls us with anger and resentment.

Once we identify what nutriments we are consuming that are harming us or others, we can work to change our actions and nd

healthier ways to deal with our obstacles. This will not only help

with our well -being but also keep us from gulping down calories to deal with our difficult emotions.

 

The First Nutriment: Edible Food and Drinks

The rst nutriment is essential for our well-being. What we eat and drink, and the way we eat and drink, profoundly a ect our physical and mental well -being. That is why it is essential to know which foods and drinks promote health and which foods and drinks harm us. Nutrition research over the past fty years has found that maintaining a healthy eating pattern can reduce our risk of major chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and cancer. This scientific nutrition advice is summarized in chapter 5.

As modern society has learned more and more about what constitutes a healthy diet, our current food industry system has become more and more complex. We no longer grow our own food, and we rarely buy our foods from local farms o ering basically whole foods with minimal processing and no pesticides. Nowadays, most of us buy foods from supermarkets that have tens

of thousands of items for us to choose from.⁴ Each year, the U .S. population spends roughly 10 percent of its income on food—

roughly one trillion dollars in 2008 alone.⁵ And each year, thousands of new foods and drinks are introduced. Many of these products are highly processed and loaded with sugar, salt, or refined carbohydrates, which compromise our health.

The choices are mind-boggling. Walking down supermarket aisles at eye level, you nd many varieties of snack foods such as cookies, snack and cereal bars, chips, and drinks that have a long list of unrecognizable ingredients. Though some may make nutritional

claims that they are high or low in certain nutrients and are good for you, these claims can be deceiving. For example, a cereal bar may be enriched with vitamins and minerals, but it likely contains too much sugar and re ned carbohydrate to be considered a healthy choice. In this world of abundant choices that are designed to appeal to our tastes and our desire for convenience, if we are not mindful as we scan the supermarket shelves, we could end up buying and consuming foods and drinks that insidiously hurt our health without our being aware of it.

Mindfulness also helps us look beyond the packaging to see how we grow and where we get our food, so that we can eat in a way that preserves our collective well -being and the well -being of our planet. If we do not take care of our planet, we will not have the adequate sunshine, air, temperature, rain, clean water, and wholesome soil needed to grow our food. Instead we will have unwholesome and contaminated foods that harm our body, our mind, and our world. We have to know what we are eating, where our food is from, and how it affects us.

The Buddha speci cally advised us to eat mindfully so that we can maintain compassion in our hearts and ensure a good future for the next generations. He taught that if we take a shortsighted and sel sh approach to the food and drink we consume, we will hurt not only ourselves but also our children and our planet.

One teaching from the Buddha that addresses this issue directly is the Sutra on the Son’s Flesh. This parable may sound unimaginable, cruel, and totally unacceptable. But it contains a powerful lesson about the foods we consume and the future of our planet.

Sutra on the Son’s Flesh

A young couple and their three-year-old son had to cross a vast desert and move to another country, where they wanted to seek asylum. They were not familiar with the terrain, nor did they know how long the journey would take, and they ran out of food while they were only halfway through the desert. They realized that without enough food, all three of them would die in the

desert, with no hope of reaching the country on the other side of the desert. After agonizing re ection, the husband and wife made the decision to kill their little son for food. Each day they ate a small morsel of his  esh in order to have enough energy to move on, and they carried the rest of their son’s esh on their shoulders so that it could continue to dry in the sun. Each time when they  nished eating a morsel of their son’s  esh, the couple looked at

each other and asked, “Where is our beloved child now?”

Having told this tragic story, the Buddha looked at the monks and asked, “Do

 

you think that this couple was happy to eat their son’s  esh?” “No, World-
Honored One. The couple su  ered when they had to eat their son’s	esh,” the
monks answered. The Buddha taught the following lesson: “Dear friends, we
have to practice eating in such a way that we can maintain compassion in our
hearts. We have to eat in mindfulness. If not, we may be eating the	esh of our
own children.”

The story may be extreme, but we need to wake up so that we are not, albeit guratively, consuming our children’s esh and experiencing the pain of the couple. In fact, much of the world’s su ering comes from not eating mindfully, from not looking deeply into what and how we eat. This mindless eating can lead to the weight we gain and the diseases caused by poor nutrition, and it takes a toll on the health of the planet also. We have to learn ways to eat that preserve the health and well-being of our body, our spirit, and our planet. (Appendix B contains the sutra in its entirety, see p. 241.)

Looking deeply at the way we eat from a global perspective, we can see that meat production is a huge drain on the planet. The United Nations report Livestock’s Long Shadow, an in-depth assessment of the damaging impact of livestock on our environment, concluded that livestock’s negative e ect on our environment is massive and that we need to address it with urgency. The report estimates that raising livestock uses 8 percent of our planet’s water and contributes strongly to water depletion

and pollution.⁶ Some scientists have estimated that it takes one hundred times as much water to produce a kilogram of beef as it

does to produce a kilogram of protein from grain.⁷ Part of the reason that so much water is needed to produce livestock is that cattle are fattened on vast amounts of grain, which requires water to grow. In the United States, cattle consume seven times as much

grain as the U .S. population as a whole.⁸ An Environmental Protection Agency report on U .S. agricultural crop production in 2000 states that, according to the National Corn Growers Association, about 80 percent of all corn grown in the United States is consumed by domestic and overseas livestock, poultry, and sh

production.⁹ Yet, ironically, more than nine thousand children die

each day from causes related to hunger and undernutrition.¹⁰ It is a painful realization that the grain and resources we use to raise livestock could be used more directly instead to feed the starving and malnourished children in the world.

Furthermore, a 2008 report by the Pew Charitable Trust and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that factory farming in the United States is taking a heavy toll on human health and the health of the environment—and that keeping livestock in these “concentrated animal feeding operations”

constitutes inhumane treatment.¹¹ Animal waste pollutes the water and air around the farms, causing illness among farmworkers and farm neighbors, as well as land degradation. Heavy use of antibiotics in factory farming leads to new strains of viruses and bacteria resistant to antibiotics, creating “superbugs” that may pose a public health threat to us all. In the report, the experts recommended phasing out and banning the use of antibiotics in farm animals except for the treatment of disease, instituting tighter regulation of factory farm waste, and phasing out intensive

confinement systems.¹²

The devastating environmental and societal impact of raising livestock goes beyond the use of water and land to grow food. Our society’s hunger for meat contributes mightily to the production of climate-changing greenhouse gases. The livestock industry is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,

a higher share than the entire transportation sector.¹³ Seventy percent of forests in the Amazon have been cut to provide grazing land for cattle, and when such forests are destroyed, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released into the

atmosphere.¹⁴ The meat, dairy, and egg industries are also responsible for two-thirds of human-induced emissions of ammonia, which in turn plays a role in acid rain and the acidi cation of our

ecosystem.¹⁵

The data suggest that one of the best ways to alleviate the stress on our environment is to consume less meat and eat more plant-based food, which results in reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. We do not need cattle to process the food for us. It is much better and more e cient for us to eat more plant-based food and process it ourselves. It may seem like a huge change for many people, but reducing the amount of meat and dairy in your diet is a great way to keep your weight in check, improve your overall health, and take steps toward improving the health of our planet. When we learn to eat more vegetables, grains, and beans mindfully, we will enjoy their taste, and we can be happy knowing that we are supporting a new kind of society in which there is enough food for everyone and no one will have to suffer from hunger.

We must take urgent action at the individual and collective levels. For individuals, going toward vegetarianism can have great weight and health bene ts. Vegans and vegetarians tend to weigh less than people who consume animal products; they also tend to have lower

risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers.¹⁶ In chapter 5, we go into greater detail about the health benefits of plant-based diets.

Many Buddhist traditions encourage vegetarianism. Although this practice is primarily based on the wish to nourish compassion toward animals, it also o ers many health bene ts. Now we also know that when we eat vegetarian, we protect the earth and help reduce the greenhouse e ect that is causing her serious and irreversible damage. Even if you cannot be 100 percent vegetarian, being a part-time vegetarian and consuming a more plant-based diet is already better for your own health as well as the health of

our shared planet. You may want to start by eating vegetarian for a few days a month, or you can eat vegetarian only for breakfast and lunch every day. This way, you are already more than half vegetarian. If you feel that you cannot eliminate animal products from your diet for even one meal, simply reducing the portion of meat and eliminating processed meats like bacon, sausages, and ham can lower your risk of colon cancer and your risk of dying an

early death from heart disease, cancer, or other causes.¹⁷ This is a good rst step to adopting a more plant-based, healthful, environmentally friendly diet.

Using mindfulness to look deeply at what you eat can make it much easier to make such changes, because you realize the bene ts they can bring to the planet and yourself—lower weight, lower risk of colon cancer and heart disease, and more energy for doing the things you enjoy. We are “interbeings”: we and our environment are interdependent. And even small changes on our part can have a large impact when combined with others. Our market economy is driven primarily by consumer demand. As a population, if a large number of people make even small moves to eat less meat and more plant-based foods, the livestock industry will shrink. Over time, farmers will nd other crops to support their livelihoods. Through such collective awakening we can make a difference in our world.

 

Second Nutriment: Sense Impressions

Sense impressions arise from the sensory activities and responses of the six sense organs, the six sense objects, and the six sense consciousnesses. The six sense organs are the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The six sense objects are form, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile objects, and mental objects, or objects of mind. The six sense consciousnesses are eye consciousness (or sight), ear consciousness (or hearing), nose consciousness (or smelling), taste consciousness (or tasting), body consciousness (or touching), and mind consciousness (thinking). Objects of mind include all

physiological, physical, and psychological aspects of our senses.

What we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think, all that we sense in our body and all that we become aware of in our mind, is food for our sense consciousnesses. Throughout our waking hours, our six sense organs are actively engaged. The nutriments we ingest through our six senses can be either healthful or harmful— especially when it comes to our attempts to reach a healthier weight. Think of a day in your life. As you get up, you turn on the radio and your favorite piece of music is playing. Because your ears are functioning well, you can hear the music, and you feel good and lighthearted. That piece of music lingers in your consciousness, and for the next few hours you nd yourself humming it and smiling to yourself. During your lunchtime walk, you hear that same piece of music on your MP3 player, and it brings a lightness and energy to your step. You walk by a bus that has an ad on its side promoting a new television thriller series, and you store the information in your consciousness. After work, you stop at the supermarket, intending to buy some healthful food for dinner, and you pick up a magazine at the checkout counter. Flipping through the pages, you see an ad for fancy chocolate, and the woman who eats it looks relaxed as she enjoys this indulgence. As you wait in line, you can see and smell the chocolates that line the checkout aisle, and you decide to throw a few chocolate bars into your cart. That evening, you turn on the television to watch the thriller advertised on the bus that you noticed during your afternoon walk. As you watch the program, you become tense and edgy because there are many scary, suspenseful scenes. You then crave chocolate and decide to eat a chocolate bar before you go to bed, since somewhere in your consciousness you have the impression that chocolate can help you relax. That night, you have a vivid dream lled with suspense and fear. You wake up tense. You take another chocolate bar along with you to work to snack on at your desk during the day.

Mass media is the food for our eyes, ears, and minds. When we watch television, read a magazine, watch a lm, or play a video game, we are consuming sensory impressions. Many of the images

we are exposed to through the media water unwholesome seeds of craving, fear, anger, and violence in our consciousness. The images, sounds, and ideas that are toxic can rob our body and consciousness of their well-being. If you feel anxious, fearful, or depressed, it may be because you have taken in too many toxins through your senses without even knowing it. Be mindful of what you watch, read, and listen to, and protect yourself from the fear, despair, anger, craving, anxiety, or violence they promote. The material goods they promise are only quick, temporary fixes. True contentment lies within.

In the United States, consumerism dominates our culture. We are able to shop around the clock, thanks to the Internet and twenty-four-hour stores. The same is true for foods: we can buy food anywhere and at any time. And we don’t really ever stop and ask ourselves: Why are we buying so much? Do we really need all this “stuff”? Why are we eating so much? Are we truly hungry?

We all really need to take a step back and take a deep look at what our true needs are. And one way to help do this is to become mindful observers of the market-driven, ad-driven world we live in. Advertising is designed to create a need where one does not exist— and it must work, because companies spend hundreds of billions of

dollars a year on it.¹⁸ Often in commercials, buying a certain food or gadget is portrayed as an antidote to loneliness or insecurity. People in commercials consuming fast food or ice cream all appear to be so happy when they are eating these products, so ful lled and vibrant. We absorb and store these perceptions and messages in our consciousness without censoring their content. Later, we nd ourselves consuming these foods, even though we know they can cause us harm. And we wonder why.

We can choose to resist these messages—but it will be easier if

we mindfully choose to limit our exposure to such messages. Turn o the television. Stop mindlessly reading glossy magazines.

Children especially need protection from the media, since their minds simply are not mature enough to understand that advertisers

are deliberately trying to in uence them.¹⁹ We also need to shield ourselves and our children from unwholesome lms, TV programs,

and video games, in addition to advertisements, because they can ll us with anxiety, violence, and craving. They can also ll us with

stress, and stress may, in turn, contribute to weight gain.²⁰ When we spend a lot of time in the sun, we can wear sunscreen to protect ourselves from harmful ultraviolet rays while still being able to enjoy the warmth of the sun. In the same way, mindfulness is the shield that can protect us from these corrosive and stressful messages in our everyday environment while helping us lter and choose positive, wholesome sense impressions that water seeds of happiness and peace in our consciousness so that we are less likely to eat out of our negative emotions.

Learning to mindfully consume sensory impressions can help us reduce our craving, anger, fear, sadness, and stress. And all of this may ultimately help us in our quest to achieve healthier weight.

 

Third Nutriment: Volition

The third kind of food is volition, or will—our deepest desire to obtain whatever it is that we want. What we want drives our daily actions. What we want also determines our personal aspirations. We have to ask ourselves: What is my deepest desire in this life? We have to look deeply into ourselves to see what kind of energy motivates us in our daily life. We all want to go somewhere or realize something. What is the purpose of our life? Our desire can take us in the direction of happiness or in the direction of su ering. Desire is a kind of food that nourishes us and gives us energy. If we have a healthy desire, such as a wish to save or protect life, care for our environment, or live a simple, balanced life with time to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, our desire will bring us happiness.

Everyone wants happiness, and there is a strong energy in us pushing us toward what we think will make us happy. But we may also su er a lot because of this relentless pursuit. There are those of us who believe that happiness is possible only when we gain a lot of money, fame, and power. Yet these things can be su ering

disguised as happiness, as they are often built on the su ering of others. For instance, the opium and slave trade in icted tremendous human su ering around the world. Or a modern-day version of the slave trade: the global sex trade, which dehumanizes young women and children from many countries who are forced to work in foreign countries in the booming sex industry, sometimes with legal “entertainment visas,” as in the case of Japan. The desire to make money, in and of itself, is not a bad thing if your pursuit of material wealth does not harm anyone along the way and if you use your money in a compassionate way. It’s important to look deeply at our desires and see if they are built on positive or negative intentions. This can help us steer our desires toward those things that are bene cial to others, to the world, to our family, and also to ourselves.

In a 1999 meditation retreat for business leaders, many participants shared stories of how people with great wealth and power also su er tremendously. A very wealthy businessman said that despite having over three hundred thousand employees, with operations in many parts of the world, he was extremely lonely. This man’s loneliness, and the loneliness of many wealthy people, stems from being suspicious of others. They feel that those who want to befriend them do so because of their money and only want to take advantage of them. They feel lonely because they do not have any real friends. Children of wealthy people also su er deeply; often their parents have no time for them because they are so preoccupied with maintaining their wealth and social status. The su ering of many wealthy people shows us that money cannot buy us true happiness.

Our deepest desire is the basis of all our actions, including our career. If you want to be a doctor and heal people, you will focus your energy and prepare yourself for many years, going through demanding training in medical school, internship, and residency to become a board -certi ed doctor. After you become a doctor, you forget about the hard work and many sleepless nights, and instead simply feel good about the contribution you are making to society.

Unfortunately, there are many other professionals whose primary desire is just to make more money for themselves. The fund managers who advanced personal monetary gains for themselves during the 2008 housing bubble are now left with the realization that they had a major role to play in the crumbling of the world economy, causing many people around the world to become homeless and jobless. Can they be truly at peace with themselves, living with this realization?

We must look deeply into the nature of our volition to see whether it is pushing us in the direction of liberation from su ering and toward peace and compassion, or in the direction of a iction and misery. What is it that we really want deep in our heart? Is it money, fame, power? Or is it finding inner peace, being able to live life fully and enjoy the present moment? Happiness reveals itself when we are at peace with ourselves. We are not happy because we weigh more than we should. But weight by itself may not be the underlying cause of our unhappiness.

Desire is often at the root of weight problems: our desire to eat too much tasty food, our desire to avoid di cult emotions by distracting our minds with snacks and television, our desire to work long hours at the o ce for career advancement, leaving us little time to go to the gym or walk in nature. How do we balance all these desires or set priorities for them?

Taking a deep, mindful look at our true desire can help direct us on the right path to well -being. By observing the interdependent nature of our eating problems, and our volition to achieve well-being, we can certainly identify and change conditions that will bring about inner peace and joy.

 

Fourth Nutriment: Consciousness

Every day our thoughts, words, and actions ow into the sea of our consciousness. Our sense perceptions are continuously feeding our consciousness. The imprints of all our experience and perceptions are stored as seeds in the deepest level of our mind, called the store

consciousness. There are also seeds that contain the inherited habit

energies of all  our ancestors and a ect our pattern of seeing,

feeling, and thinking. As long as they are in store consciousness,

they are still sleeping and lying dormant. But when watered, these

seeds have the capacity to manifest in our daily lives as full-grown

energies. When you plant a ower seed in the spring, by summer a plant will mature and bear owers; from these owers new seeds

are born, and the cycle continues. Similarly, seeds of compassion,

joy, and hope, as well as seeds of sorrow, fear, and despair, can
grow in the	eld of our mind. The germinating seeds grow into the
upper  level	of  the  mind, called  the mind consciousness. Mind

consciousness—our everyday, waking state of consciousness—should be like a gardener, mindfully attending to the garden, the store consciousness. The gardener has only to cultivate the earth and water the seeds, and the garden will nourish the seeds to bring forth the fruit.

Our mind is the foundation of all our actions, whether they are actions of body, speech, or mind, i.e., thinking. Whatever we think, say, or do arises from our mind. What our consciousness consumes becomes the substance of our life, so we have to be very careful which nutriments we ingest. In describing the second nutriment, we talked about sensory impressions and the need to guard our senses. Our senses are sometimes referred to as gates because all the objects of our perception enter our consciousness through sensory contact with them. The mind consciousness, the gardener, has to be an attentive guard at these gates of our senses and carefully choose which sense impressions to allow in. Mind consciousness must also recognize and identify the wholesome seeds in store consciousness, practice day and night to care for and water those wholesome seeds and help them grow, as well as prevent any negative seeds from being watered. The way we do this is through mindfulness.

According to Buddhist		psychology, when a seed rises up from
store  consciousness  into		our  mind  consciousness  it  becomes  a
mental	formation. Formation  is  a  technical  term  meaning

something that manifests itself based on conditions—a composite of

di erent elements or attributes joining together when the conditions are ripe. A ower is a physical formation of several elements: seed, rain, sunshine, earth, air, space, time, and so on. When these elements come together under the right conditions, a flower manifests itself.

Regarding the fourth nutriment, we are speaking not about physical formations that make up the food of our consciousness but about mental formations. Fear is a mental formation. It is composed of several mental and emotional elements: anxiety, doubts, insecurity, misperceptions, and ignorance. Despair, anger, love, and mindfulness are other examples of mental formations. These are merely symbols or names that we use to describe the experience resulting from the interactions between our sense organs and their sense objects, which give rise to all kinds of mind states, including responses to thoughts, feelings, perceptions, mental trauma, and memories.

Lying deep down at the bottom of the store consciousness are all kinds of seeds. All mental formations are buried in the form of seeds in the soil of our store consciousness and can manifest themselves on the upper level of consciousness, the mind consciousness. There are many di erent kinds of seeds living in store consciousness, both wholesome and unwholesome. Wholesome seeds include seeds of love, gratitude, forgiveness, generosity, happiness, and joy. Unwholesome seeds include hatred, discrimination, jealousy, anger, and craving. For example, our hatred is a mental formation. When it is not manifesting itself, we do not feel hate. However, that does not mean that the seed of hate is not in us. All of us have the seed of hate in our store consciousness. We can be very openhearted and loving and not feel any hate at all. However, if we encounter an unjust, oppressive, or humiliating situation that waters the seed of hatred in our store consciousness, hate will begin to sprout and grow into a zone of energy in our mind consciousness. Previously hate was just a seed, but once it has been watered, it develops and becomes the mental formation of hate. We then become angry and full of ill will,

experiencing hateful thoughts and physical tension.

Whenever a seed manifests itself in our mind consciousness, we absorb it as food for our consciousness, the fourth nutriment. If we allow anger to come up into our mind consciousness and stay for a whole hour, for that whole hour we are eating anger. The more we eat anger, the more the seed of anger in our store consciousness grows. If you have a friend who understands you well and o ers you words of comfort and kindness, the seed of loving-kindness will arise in your mind consciousness. If you are in the company of that kind friend for one hour, then during that time you are consuming a whole hour of loving-kindness. Any seed, wholesome or unwholesome, that has an opportunity to manifest itself as a mental formation at the level of the mind is strengthened at its root in store consciousness. Therefore, we must learn to nurture wholesome seeds and to tame unwholesome ones with mindfulness, because when they return to the store consciousness, they become stronger regardless of their nature.

We can take care not to water our unwholesome seeds—such as anger, despair, and hopelessness—by being mindful of situations that can elicit them. These situations may be from images we see in the mass media or conversations we hear—either in our interactions with others or over the airwaves. Furthermore, we can help each other water the wholesome seeds in our store consciousness by being kind, thoughtful, and understanding of others. When we water seeds of forgiveness, acceptance, and happiness in the people we love, we are giving them very healthy food for their consciousness. But if we constantly water the seeds of hatred, craving, and anger in our loved ones, we are poisoning them.

Only by looking deeply into the nature of our su ering can we discover its causes and identify the nutriments that have brought it into being. After we have practiced for some time, we will see that transformation always takes place in the depths of our consciousness; our store consciousness is the support, the base for our consciousness. If we know how to acknowledge and recognize the presence of the mental formation, embrace it, calm it, and look

deeply into it, we will gain insight. This insight can liberate us and
transform our a  ictions in their	form as seeds, so that they	no
longer arise in mind consciousness.
How does this relate to our di	culty with weight? We must	nd

the source of our desire to eat too much of the wrong foods. Perhaps we eat out of sadness; perhaps we eat out of our fears for the future. If we cut the sources of nutriment for our sadness and fear, sadness and fear will wither and weaken, and with them the urge to overeat. The Buddha said that if we know how to look deeply into our su ering and recognize its source of food, we are already on the path of emancipation. The way out of our su ering is through mindfulness of consumption—all forms of consumption, and not just edible foods and drinks.

When fear, despair, anger, or pain is active in our consciousness, we can draw on mindfulness to bring us relief. If anger, fear, and despair are dormant, they will not be perceptible in our consciousness, and our life will be much more pleasant. Yet we ingest the toxins of violence, fear, and anger every day from our environment, including the media. We also ingest unwholesome interactions with others or painful memories from the past. So the negative seeds are frequently watered and become stronger and stronger. These negative emotions of anger, fear, and violence then become an integral part of our everyday lives, blinding us from seeing things clearly and keeping us in ignorance, which is the cause of su ering. However, if by cutting o their food or nutriments we do not allow these seeds of negative emotions to grow, we will not be overcome by violence, fear, or anger. And we will not be driven to overeat. (See figure 3.1.)

In our store consciousness, we also have the seed of mindfulness. If we water the seed of mindfulness often, it will grow stronger. Because all the seeds are interdependent in nature—the state of one seed can in uence the state of all others—a strong mindfulness energy can help us transform our negative emotions. This mindfulness energy is like a torch helping us to see clearly the true nature of our su ering. It also provides energy to manifest our seeds

of wisdom, forgiveness, and compassion so that ultimately we can free ourselves from our su ering. Without wisdom, forgiveness, and compassion, happiness and peace will not be possible. Suppose we are standing in front of the refrigerator after encountering a splash of anger from a family member. We are not hungry, because it is only an hour or so after dinner. We have a choice. Either we can be totally consumed by the unpleasant incident, get distressed, and then assuage our hurt feelings with food from the refrigerator, or we can mindfully tender the unpleasant emotions and recognize that overeating would lead us to feel even worse later—ashamed for abandoning once again our commitment to eat more mindfully —and would not help us resolve the hurt feelings from our quarrel with our family member. Mindfulness helps us free ourselves from dwelling on the unpleasant incident and stops any thoughts of revenge or overeating as it waters the seeds of wisdom and compassion in us. When we pause with mindfulness, we recognize that our family member must be su ering somehow. If one is happy and peaceful, one would not behave with such anger. Mindfulness practice can help reveal this kind of insight, which can free us from the imprisonment of past events so that we can make clear choices to help us manage our weight.

 

Figure 3.1 SEEDS OF MINDFULNESS

Collective consciousness is also a powerful source of nutriment. If we allow ourselves to be in an environment day after day where the collective energy of anger, despair, hate, or discrimination is powerful, then sooner or later this source of nutriment will penetrate into our body and consciousness and imprison us. We should avoid associating with individuals and groups of people who do not know how to recognize, embrace, and transform their energy of hate, discrimination, or anger. It is important that we select a good environment, a good neighborhood for us and for our children. Such an environment will help nourish our ideals and our wholesome volition, keeping us healthy, joyful, and happy.

In the light of the teaching concerning the third and fourth sources of nutriment, we see that it’s bene cial to look for and to live with people who share the same ideal, intention, and purpose. This is a sangha, a community that generates positive collective energy and is motivated to support one another to change harmful habits into bene cial ones. Everyone in the sangha does so by learning to practice restraint, observe the law of moderation, and share happiness, thereby bringing a spiritual and ethical dimension into their daily lives. Living among people who are healthy and compassionate will help nourish our ideals, our wholesome volition, and our beautiful beginner’s mind—our ability to see things without preconceived notions.

Nourish Yourself Mindfully with Four Nutriments Every Day

If you nourish yourself with four wholesome nutriments, consuming a healthy diet of edible food and drinks, sensory impressions, intention, and mental formations for your consciousness, then you, along with your loved ones, will bene t in concrete ways that are noticeable in your daily life. The Buddha said, “Nothing can survive without food.” This is a very simple and very deep truth. Love and hate are both living phenomena. If we do not nourish our love, it will die and may turn into hate. If we want love to last, we have to nurture it and give it food every day. Hate is the same; if we don’t

feed it, it cannot survive.

Nourishing your body and mind with wholesome nutriments will help you achieve peace and happiness and bring you further along the path of healthy weight. And it is important to realize that the mind and body are not separate. To achieve our goal of a healthier weight, we need to consume all of the four nutriments mindfully. We cannot just focus on one aspect of our being as if it is an entity separate from the rest. We need to address all aspects simultaneously, as a whole. Your previous weight loss e orts may have failed because of the lack of this holistic approach. You now know the essential elements needed to help you establish healthy, wholesome habits for life. This is a worthwhile journey to embark on. It will lead you in the direction of emancipation from all su ering and a ictions—to the heart of the issue and the underlying root of your unhealthy weight. When practiced consistently, each step of this mindful journey can astonish you, bringing you greater realization of confidence, joy, and peace.

 

 

The epigraph is taken from the Sutra of the Son’s Flesh. The sutra is included in its entirety in appendix B. For commentary on the sutra from which the epigraph is taken, see Thich Nhat Hanh, The Path of Emancipation (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2000), 84–91.

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