Five Mindfulness Trainings | Nourishment and Healing
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.
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What do you think of when you hear the word 'consumption'? My mind immediately jumps to the political. To shopping, advertising, buying up of public space, environmental degradation, enforced gender stereotypes, greed, poverty, mis-use of resources, trade agreements, WTO, IMF, World Bank, Adbusters, community-shared agriculture, activism, Buy Nothing Day...
The fifth teaching of mindfulness highlights first the personal aspect of consumption. How does consumption affect your physical and mental well-being? How do you use food, sense impressions, volition and consciousness to distract yourself from loneliness, anxiety, fear, or regret. What is your relationship to craving? Do you over-use or become consumed by alcohol, recreational drugs, prescription drugs, video games, television or books?
I've explored the topic of consumption in a political/environmental context - reducing the use of unnecessary consumer goods, shopping at a food co-op, buying in bulk (hooray for reusing containers!), participating in a CSA program, buying eco-friendly products... I've also played with eliminating alcohol, caffeine, and other intoxicants (despite the accepted behavior in social circles).
I feel as though the fifth mindfulness training is asking for more... What do you use as a distraction from really feeling? It could be anything. Pornography, romance novels, movies, video games, knitting, pot, social drinking, yoga... anything. The fifth training is asking us to feel.
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