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Please explore and reflect on your relationship to and view of your body, how you care for your body, and your relationship to food and eating. Please approach these questions with a fresh beginner’s mind, with a spirit of inquiry and curiosity. One way we bring openness into our lives is through a willingness to examine our deeply ingrained beliefs and assumptions about ourselves, our preferences, and our habitual ways of acting.
Experiment with ways of eating that are new and different for you. This could include both changes in what foods you eat and in how you eat, including mindful eating practices (e.g. silence, eliminating distractions while eating, reciting the meal gathas). You may want to choose one specific change to practice daily, or you may want to experiment with different changes. Again, please bring a mind of curiosity and inquiry to this process.
Although we were once all infants with very simple needs for nourishment and survival, our relationships with our bodies have grown complicated over time due to influences such as our upbringing, gender, society and more. It can be very helpful to stop and ask ourselves these questions: “What do I see as the purpose of my body? What is the view through which I approach and relate to my body?” Most of us see our car as a vehicle for taking us to certain destinations, and we maintain the car so that it will serve that purpose. If I consider my body as a vehicle, where is it that I want it to take me? Below are some questions to help you uncover and reflect on your view and how this view plays out in your life – how it affects your actions of body, speech and mind and the choices you make, and ultimately, how this view affects your happiness and well-being.
How do I relate to my body?
Why is my body important to me?
What motivates me in how I care for and treat my body? To be healthy? Avoid pain and discomfort?
Experience pleasure? Energy level? Not get sick? Live a long life? Be able to do the activities I want to do?
Looking good to others? Being noticed, admired by others? Ego-boosting? Self-worth?
Do I view my body as a vehicle for transformation and for living my aspiration?
How, and how well, do I take care of my body?
What kind of body do I want to have?
How important is having a healthy body to me?
How does this inform and guide the choices I make in eating, sleeping and exercise?
What are the bases and motivations for my food choices?
How much of my eating is automatic, unthinking and how much is deliberate, intentional?
What is the role of habit energy?
What is the role of emotional factors?
What is the role of sensory factors—appearance, smell, taste?
What is the role of nourishing my body?
How do I eat?
On the run? (e.g. in my car, at my desk, while doing tasks at home, etc.)
While doing other things? (reading, using computer/phone, watching TV, listening to radio/podcasts, etc.)
What determines how enjoyable or not enjoyable my eating experience is?
The food itself—taste, smell, appearance?
How I eat?
My state of mind? My emotional state?
Do I take time to look deeply into the sources of my food?
The contributions of others to making this food available to me?
In what ways do the Meal Gathas resonate with me?
How much do I consider the broader impacts of my food choices on others and on the earth?
How do these practices affect how and what I eat?
How does my consumption of food contribute to my well-being? To my joy? To my suffering?
How do my aspirations and intentions affect my choices in how I care for my body—in eating, sleep and exercise?
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