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Understanding Our Cravings
Thursday, November 8, 2007

Dear Still Water Friends,

Several months before the heart attack that eventually killed him, I watched my overweight father eat a meal of eggs, bacon, and toast, and then slather butter on and eat two or three more pieces of bread. I don’t remember whether I said something, or if it was just the way I was watching him, but he looked up and said: “Don’t worry, I’ll start my diet next week.”

When I think about that meal I feel sad for my father. For his entire adult life he struggled with his weight -- he was self-conscious about it and doctors frequently warned him about the health consequences. He had an image of what a healthy diet was, but day to day he just couldn’t do it.
When I think about that meal, I also feel some sadness for myself. I learned many of my eating habits from my father. And I also struggled for years with my food consumption -- trying and failing to eat in a way that was optimal for my weight, cholesterol, and sense of well-being. In the past few years, the balance has shifted. Although there are still many lapses, overall, and in good part thanks to mindfulness practice, I am much more likely to make healthy choices.

From the perspective of mindfulness practice, what went on in those moments when my father reached for another piece of bread, or I reached for another cookie? We were already adequately nourished -- it was not biological hunger that drove us to keep eating. My understanding is that at that moment we were filled with a certain energy -- in Pali it is called Tanha, the thirst or craving for pleasant feelings -- that was greater than any other energy manifested in us at that moment. Any internal objection to the fulfillment of the desire was brushed aside or rationalized. 

Our behavior changes when we understand our cravings and when there arises in us an aspiration for health and well being that is stronger than the cravings we feel. Each time we are able to become aware of our cravings as they are arising, embrace them, and not act on them, their power over us incrementally decreases. This is true not only for food cravings, but for other unwholesome cravings as well, such as our cravings for distraction, entertainment, fame, revenge, or acceptance. In the Plum Village tradition of mindfulness, the Fifth Mindfulness Training encourages us to develop our wholesome aspirations. The training especially directs our awareness to the effects our actions have not only on ourselves, but also on others, now alive or yet to be born. (The text of the Fifth Mindfulness Trainings is below.)

This Thursday evening, after our sitting meditation, we will recite together the Five Mindfulness Trainings and then focus our discussion on the Fifth Mindfulness Training. We will begin by exploring how this interplay of cravings and wholesome aspirations manifests in each of our lives.

You are invited to be with us. (The best times to join our Thursday evening gatherings are just before the beginning of our 7 p.m meditation; just before we begin walking meditation, around 7:25; and just after our walking meditation, around 7:35.)

Also, beginning this Thursday (and on the second Thursdays of succeeding months), Still Water MPC will be collecting clothes for Shepherd's Table, a community resource center for those without homes.

Please bring clean, usable, clothes and shoes for men, women, and children, especially warm clothes for the winter. Your donations are tax deductible and we can provide receipts. Lissie Sorenson is coordinating this effort -- for more information contact her at lissie126@verizon.net or 240-631-2797. (You can also drop off clothes at Shepherd's Table any weekday or weekend afternoons. Driving directions are on our website: click here.)

You are also invited this Thursday to share an informal dinner with other Still Water practitioners --  beginning at 5:45, at The Lebanese Taverna (next to the fountain on the Ellsworth Avenue Restaurant Row). If you have questions about the dinner, please email Steve Allen at sallen@jubileemd.org.


Warm wishes,

Mitchell Ratner
Senior Teacher

The Fifth Mindfulness Training

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 am committed to ingesting only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practicing a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.