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Buddhist Guide for Healthy Eating

posted by Annie B. Bond Sep 26, 2006 6:18 pm
Buddhist Guide for Healthy Eating
17 comments

Adapted from The Power of Mind, by Tulku Thondup (Shambhala, 1996).

With eating disorders on the rise and obesity a national epidemic, these sane guidelines may bring healing and serenity to our issues around food. Our prescription: avoid trans fats and refined products, and read these thoughts from a great Buddhist teacher.

It is important to enjoy good, healthy food and drink in moderate quantity. Food should be consumed not in a vain attempt to fill emotional desires but in accord with your actual physical needs. See the food you eat as sustaining and nourishing, and enjoy it by being mindful of every taste you take. Try to be aware of the process of each sip of liquid and bite of food, and consciously follow the food’s movements in your body as far as you can. Feel that the food and drink are not only satisfying your hunger and thirst, but also generating health in your body and mind. Wish the same enjoyment for all beings. Appreciate and be thankful for the pleasure of every sip and bite you take.

A number of Buddhist trainings treat food as the means of healing. For example, imagine that blessing lights from the source of power transform the food into healing nectar. Then enjoy it as a blessed substance that grants you joy and strength.

Or, as you enjoy the food, think: “This food is giving me strength to enhance my own life and serve others.”

Or think of the food as a pure and wonderful gift, and offer it to the source of power. Visualize the source of power accepting the offering with pleasure and blessing it for your benefit in return. Then enjoy the food with awareness that it is blessed. This training combines devotion with practices of generosity and pure perception.

Or, with compassion for the innumerable beings who live in your body in the form of bacteria, enjoy the food, knowing that it will sustain them too.

Or, with pure perception, visualize yourself in the form of a deity, or even as an assembly of hundreds of deities. Enjoy the food as a blessed offering, a skillful means of wisdom, that brings the realization of peace and bliss.

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Mata Hari

Lisa A. what you posted..."I do not force My children to follow any discipline, but if they CHOOSE that path, they will reap the rewards of that path."

This gave me goosebumps! How awesome it is when God speaks a truth! How awesome it is of you...to have listened!

Love & Peace

Kim S.
  • Kim S. says
  • Jul 5, 2007 7:44 AM

I think if people need to be more concious of the ill side effects of processed foods and preservatives.. as well as being much more mindful to just what went into that steak or chicken wing they are eating.. perhaps if they saw the truck full of chickens driving down the freeway they or visited a slaughterhouse, they might not be so keen to putting that in their body, or at least be more respectful to the animal that died so they could eat it.

Bharat N.

it is very simple that what you are eating that you must know about it, and 1 st thing is proper time to eat and you must know what is how much you have to eat, it is not everytime you eat as hygenic, but you must like the taste of food, food is vital to keep your body feet so always think twice before what you eat
bharat n

Lisa A.

I hesitate in sharing the following experience, but maybe it will encourage someone else who also wants to upgrade their diet:

About two years ago, I and my sister both found out we had health issues. She has Endometriosis and Celiac disease, and I had a misdiagnosed case of Candidas, unusual weight gain, bloating and intestinal parasites.

My diet was good enough, with all the major food groups, but it was processed, pickeled, full of preservatives and antibiotics, hormones, and I ate far too much transfats, dairy and meat- and barely enough raw fruits and vegetables or healthy oils.

One morning, while laying in bed, I asked God, "Why does my sister and I need to change our diets, when everyone else in America eats the same things."

I actually heard God's response. Maybe it was because I was not distracted-- laying still in my bed that I heard the words I will never forget: "I do not force My children to follow any discipline, but if they CHOOSE that path, they will reap the rewards of that path."

Those words will never leave me. They have been the catalyst of a food and lifestyle conversion for me and I am even now reaping rewards in body mind and soul. :-)

Ken Taylor

Food is supplied by nature. If eaten from nature as needed one can only get the best from the food you eat. Reap what ye sow's one of the great books says.

Ruta Luse

The shape of your body is a vitness to your willpower.

virgil w.

i have 2 motto's when it comes to eating:
1. don't live to eat but eat to live.
2. if it comes from the earth you can eat it, if it is man-made, think twice (i.e. the simpler the better).

Rod Osten

It's important for all of us who are doing our best to eat clean, healthful foods and avoid things like trans fats, to know that most of the nutritional supplements we may be taking are actually sabotaging our good efforts. It's a well-kept secret in the natural supplement industry that the excipients Magnesium Stearate and Stearic Acid are TRANS FATS. And they're in just about every supplement on the market. The BEST way to boost your nutrition is to avoid these toxic substances and stick to fresh wholesome (organic) foods, with an abundance of greens. The more raw foods you eat, the more vibrant you will be. Keep your body alkaline!

Liz Macdonald

I have found that most people are completely disconnected from their food as the act of buying rather then growing has taken us a step further from the earth and it's bounty. Even if in a window box we need to teach our children to stick their hands in the soil and begin to think about the nutrients our foods supply to our minds and bodies. Children have a natural/inate sense of spirit and working the soil in some form reconnects us with the basics of life!

Marlis Kelleher

I think there is so much more to learn about food that we still do not know ,
thank you ,

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Adapted from The Power of Mind, by Tulku Thondup (Shambhala, 1996). Copyright (c) 1996 by Tulku Thondup. Reprinted by permission of Shambhala.

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