Nutrition for the Soul

Gone are the days, thankfully, of beginning the New Year with a hangover. This year, after a friend’s recommendation, I went to Plum Village, a monastery in France founded by Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay), a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist, known as the 'father of mindfulness'.

What a gift to have a whole week where we were encouraged, again and again, to be in the moment. There was time dedicated to sitting in meditation, but then there was mindful walking, mindful eating and mindful serving. Every now and then the sound of a bell would cue us to stop whatever we were doing and, just for a moment, focus on our breath. 

Such was the reverence for food and for eating in this community, we would eat in silence. On occasions I wasn't sure which was louder, the sound of people's cutlery chinking against plates around me, or the sound of my own thoughts.

Quite how eating has got so mindless with me, I’m not sure. Come to think of it my time in the army wouldn't have helped; I learned to inhale my food. Food was fuel and eating was seen as a means to an end.

My experience in Plum Village has shown me it’s more than that; it’s a doorway into a deeper relationship with ourselves, others and nature itself. Eating is an activity we all do on average three times a day - a great opportunity for us to practise mindfulness, something many of us 'haven't got time for'. It is also an opportunity to be grateful; to receive the gift of life; to transform mental attachments that come up in relation to food; to cultivate compassion and respect in choosing food that is kind to the planet; to come together and connect.

I've developed a habit of using food to suppress and distract from my boredom, impatience and irritability. I now see that when I ‘use’ food in this way, I am ingesting the very things I am trying to move away from. Instead of feeling into my impatience and allowing it time to pass, I am swallowing it down, feeding it and reinforcing an association that links food with impatience. No wonder then, when I eat food, I feel impatience. Not to mention my other habit of watching the news when eating, a toxic diet to say the least!

So, I'm making a concerted effort to pause, smile, see the beauty of the food, thank of all the people involved with getting it onto my plate, marvel at the wonder of how food grows from the soil and remember how lucky I am. Then, and mindfully, I'll consume all of those good vibes and let them nourish me and others. 

I know my life will be richer for it, let’s see how I go. 

These words from Thay stay with me. ‘You don’t need extra time to practise mindfulness… time is life, not money…and you don’t need more money to be happy, but more mindfulness.’