Eating

(Cori's plant based Thanksgiving)

When a man is always mindful,
Knowing moderation in the food he eats,
His ailments then diminish
He ages slowly, guarding his life

(402, 13 Kosaisamyutta, Sagathavegga (part 1), Samyutta Nikaya)

The king, who these verses were spoken to, then paid someone to say that to him before every meal. I suppose he could have just memorized that and done it himself, but maybe he was looking for a job for someone so he could employ them.

There was a list to avoid when eating (M 91, p 191 The Life of the Buddha), and one struck me, eating for embellishments. In food prep, embellishments are the garnishes, but they were not saying that the person eating was a garnish. I guess it means you don't eat so you look good. I'm pretty sure most people would say not eating helped you look good, but times change, and in times of hunger being fat is a desirable trait. Here is the quote:

"The food he takes has 5 factors: it is neither for amusement nor for intoxication nor for smartening nor for embellishment but only for the endurance and continuation of this body, for the ending of discomfort, and for the assisting the holy life."

Now this is advice for a monk and not a lay follower and king.

I've always thought that enjoying a well cooked vegan meal was a safe venture, because being vegan it minimized suffering in the world. That would contradict that amusement was a factor. I've always sort of felt like you "kiss the joys as they go by", that it's OK to enjoy these things. But there is a real ascetic streak he preaches for the monks. They are not to enjoy the sense.

I think this is at a crux of my question. I have the idea that moving towards enlightenment is to make a bigger box of mindfulness so that seeking out pleasure reactively doesn't happen. Does it help you to get there because you've suffered a bit.

I've always wondered if starving yourself to death and then eating enough to sustain yourself would be a better ramping up to the spiritual path, than say a middle class American trying to be "mindful when they eat", because that could be anything. Just don't go nutso. Like when I was at a end of the year cross country banquet, in high school, that was all you can eat, we did it competitively, trying to stuff as much food as we could to beat each other. In the end nobody was keeping track of food, we were just trying to push ourselves into discomfort to take advantage of the all you can eat. I'd say in general going to an all you can eat place is pretty diabolical. There's an all you can eat meat place on Northern Boulevard in Queens and my review calling it out as sick was put aside because I had an ideological idea against it. We're not far away from having a vomitorium so you could puke and then eat some more. I guess that would be even worse.

Being mindful of how hungry you are is important, and getting all the nutrients so you are healthy isn't a bad idea. Where does that put the cleaning your plate idea I got from my grandfather who survived the depression? You eat it all because you might not get food again. It turns out meals come about pretty regularly in my experience, though there were times I was poor and pretty hungry. But was it hungry like my 4 year old daughter, who is only really hungry for her preferred foods, but not starving hungry.

I also think about the richette principle. People who go on deprivation diets usually end up gaining weight, and the diets that work emphasize not deprivation but healthy choices like eating satisfying nuts more often.

Eating is such a complicated modern phenomenon. Theravadan monks will eat meat when it is given to them because they don't want to offend the giver, and probably because they also don't want to train people not to give them meat. I think a modern Theravadan should train the people who give them food to not give them meat. There's some weird kind of culture around not training donations to avoid meat, even though we know now that vegetarianism is good for you and helps the planet, and doesn't harm animals. Vegan is even better, but one step at a time training those who donate. The view from a vegan perspective is that being vegetarian is a walk in the park. They sneak milk or eggs into so many products you really have to read every label and question waiters at restaurants very closely. There was a big uproar that fast food places have been doing vegetarian burgers but they cook them on a grill that contains meat grease.

Poor cultures revere meat, because often people don't eat meat, and when poor immigrants come to America they tend to gain weight, and have terrible diets in the land of plenty, if they don't transcend their childhood conditioning. I live in an immigrant city and the love of meat is pretty strong, though of course suburbia can also be meat loving and ranches can be meat loving in rural areas. So in the end, I think cities hold out the best promise in the evolution of vegan culture.

I used to run so that I wouldn't feel like I had to limit my eating, that's how much I hate limiting myself. I get really nervous when my friend did a Master Cleanse fast. I could never do that, though I remind myself I'm not a fixed self, the future is unknown. I couldn't do it at present. I have experimented with intermittent fasting, and that is kind of natural to our ancestral environment. Eating disorders are no joke, body dysmorphia is nothing to play with the addiction to the pleasure of throwing up is also something to be wary of. In a way, my fervent hope parenting is that I don't give my children an eating disorder, though everyone has to own their own behavior.

In the end I like Sangharakshita's approach. We apply the principle of moderation to our modern existence. Really apply it. My fear is that leaves quite a lot of wiggle room to just indulge yourself, and we lose the tradition of the Buddhist monks expectations and live a Buddhist light lifestyle. And that means I needed to be vigilant with myself--the opposite of preaching to others. The older I get the more and more I realize how important vigilance is. Really committing to something and not just transciently thinking it's a good idea.

The initial quote is right though, I've seen research that people who eat reduced calorie diets do live longer. And heart disease is the number one killer in America. I sometimes wonder if the seriousness they have taken over the quarantine for Covid-19 were transferred to things like heart disease, or even gun control, we would have a more vigorous approach--though people don't like to be told what to do. Gun wielding protesters in Michigan, and a few of my Facebook friends have gotten twitchy about being told to stay at home, for their own good. Many people have pointed out the irony of people wanting others to go back to work so they can be served food or get a haircut. They want other people to go back to work so they can get services. In a way, everyone has had unique challenges to the quarantine based on their circumstances.

You can't feast every meal, but I'd say you can enjoy a family feast on a holiday, and tomorrow is Vesak Day! Happy Vesak day everyone!