Day 9

I have experimented with mindfulness of eating in the past but I found that I just kept thinking instead, and gave up on it. As I was eating my croissant yesterday I was listening to a French radio station, which I do to improve my French. So today I sacrificed listening to the Manchester United versus Sunderland match to notice my sensations :-)

I found that a lot of the time I was just thinking of what I will say in this wiki. I have always had a problem with rehearsing future conversations during meditation. But... now I just notice the tendency. I often find creative ideas pop into my mind at mealtimes. I have no idea why this is, but I keep a note book handy in case.

I'm not sure that you can force yourself to be mindful. I find that an awareness of my thoughts which has developed from daily meditation spills over into the rest of my life, so that I am naturally more aware.

Today
for the very first time
I ate a lettuce and
almond butter
sandwich.

Made with
freshly
baked
bread.

I ate it at the dining room table and looked outside at the trees and inside at the plants along my window sill.

Chewing
slowly,
Enjoying the taste and stickiness of the butter
with the crispness of the lettuce
and the roughness
of the bread.

I sat and considered this sense experiment, sipping a glass of water,
Realizing my windows need washing
Enjoying the soft sunshine on the cedar needles.

Then I began on the second half of the sandwich.

I found it an enjoyable 10 minutes
of sight and taste
and the occasional thought commentary. edited 21:29, 30 Mar 2013

Did this with a drink and some nuts in the evening.

I found that spaces in meditation, like happiness, come more easily when they are allowed in as side effects than when they are pursued directly. So, after a few minutes of trying to "incorporate pauses", I switched to focusing on the food(/drink), while allowing spaces to happen. This did bring on gaps. I noticed how pauseless my normal eating is, how I try to make it into a continuous stream. I was definitely more aware after a gap, which made the food taste better, but also made me feel I'd had enough earlier than I might have otherwise.

Food for thought...

So enjoyable, reading your post Aph, and am relating very much with what you describe Zen, regarding rehearsals. A few mention this from time to time and I'm not sure how to approach it either, other than simply noticing. There is a way in which sharing helps with follow through, feedback creating continuity of accountability; but there is a way in which the center can be lost that way too.

My experience was similar to Wester's in a certain way, which brings me to think of meditation or yoga instructors who will sometimes advise that the out-breath takes care of itself. Or maybe it is alternate in/out breath depending on the focus, but the comparison is a "feeling" one in this case. Although I went through the motion of stopping for pauses, in retrospect no pauses were remembered or felt to have been there. Really fascinating. edited 01:32, 31 Mar 2013

Loved reading every bodies experience

ok so I take a bit of my oatmeal and "notice the space" after the bite . . . easier said than done . . . so what is this space . . . the empty landscape of our minds? can we enter into that dark cave of emptiness? I focus on the breath . . . exhale . . . exhale on average: 6 x 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 oxygen atoms . . . each with a unique history . . .so no matter how unlikely any event is for any given atom in each breath full of atoms, some atom in each breath may have experienced it . . . so my breath's oxygen atoms may have been recycled into my oatmeal only to be recycled into what I now think of as me . . .

ok, so . . . after pondering the space between bites, my oatmeal is now cold and a distinct difference is felt between my last bite and my next one :) edited 17:52, 31 Mar 2013

/me giggling wildly and :P :P :P

Transition spaces... something to watch for, fall into. It's already happening, so you don't have to do anything. For some reason I find this particularly strong by the kitchen sink. just the motion of moving a dish from sink to rack, perhaps with mind/body already settled by the sink, discloses an opening. Little moments around the table likewise. Lift knife, move head. If there's some kind of grin around that the noticing can also be let go, which also enables more easy arrival.