For The One Who Suffers
Step 1 – Training in Virtue
Step 2 – Exercising Sense Restraint
Step 3 – Moderation Of Your Eating
it continues….
Do you want to break free from the endless cycle of seeking pleasure through food? If so, then it’s time to start practising self-control and sense restraint when it comes to eating.
Eating is a fundamental part of life and a source of pleasure and comfort. But it cannot provide you with the freedom from needing comfort, no matter how much tasty food you get. However, with the right approach, you can learn to moderate your feeding habits and break free from the hold that cravings have on you. By being mindful of why you eat and practising restraint, you can transform the way you experience food and gain some mental fortitude to be able to handle other difficulties in your life.
After developing some self-control through virtue and sense restraint, eating can become a more intense experience. Even if you have restrained yourself in other areas, eating can become a way for craving to be maintained. Therefore, it’s crucial to be mindful of why you’re eating and not undermine your previous efforts to starve out that craving.
To continue on the path of eliminating all traces of craving, you need to moderate your feeding habits by eating only what you need rather than what you desire. Before eating, review your reasons for doing so. Are you eating out of boredom or to alleviate discomfort? Are you seeking pleasure from food? Or are you eating to maintain your strength so that you can continue to live a beneficial life? Is your feeding time resulting in a loss of self-awareness and absorption into sensory pleasures?
There are various reasons for eating, some of which support cravings while others undermine them. So reflect on these reasons both before and during meals. Breaking the habit of mindlessly eating can be challenging, given that it’s a long-established behavior. That’s why it’s useful to set aside a specific time for one meal a day and take a moment to reflect before you start to eat.
And how is a bhikkhu one who moderates his eating? Here, with concurrent reflection (Simultaneously, knowing what is being done and why it’s being done.), a bhikkhu takes food neither for entertainment, intoxication nor for the sake of physical beauty and attractiveness, but only for the support and maintenance of this body, for ending discomfort, and for aiding the holy life, considering: ‘In such a way, I shall end the old feeling and not rouse a new feeling, I shall be healthy, blameless and live at ease.’
Just as a person anoints a wound only to help it to heal, or just as one greases an axle only for the sake of transporting a load. – Sn35.239
Remember it’s not about what or how much you eat, but why you eat. If you consume out of craving, that’s where your practice is being underfed.
It may seem extreme to tighten your restraint around food, but gaining some perspective can help. You don’t have to starve yourself or eat only bland food. What matters is the quality of your consumption. Are you eating out of lust, greed, self-hate, irritation, or distraction? If so, you must reshape your attitude by recollecting the right reasons for eating and following through with those wholesome intentions. Eat only enough to remove actual hunger and sustain the body. If you discern unnecessary craving for a particular food, restrain yourself.
Quite simply, not so easy.
To maintain your progress in restraining yourself from sensuality, it is important to be mindful of how feeding time can become a last resort for seeking sensual pleasure to cope with suffering. This can completely undermine your practice, even though it may seem like a small thing. If you cannot give up this attachment to sensual pleasure during feeding time, it will keep you bound to sensuality and liable to suffering.
To summarise, if you can practise restraint in your eating habits, it will be easier to practice restraint in other areas of your life where unwholesome pressures arise. By limiting your feeding time to once a day, you will also bring a sense of renunciation to your daily life and remember the purpose of your practice: to expel the cause of suffering. This might seem like a small thing, but it can have a profound impact on your overall practice and help you to overcome future temptations.
How to deal with your suffering then? Previously you used sense pleasures, such as your favorite biscuits and so on, to cope with the pain of existence, but that coping style never equaled freedom. It only resulted in a new coping skill, a few extra pounds, and a novelty way of managing your suffering. So if sense pleasures don’t work, what are you going to use to maintain your sanity in the face of suffering, anxiety, and pain? And if what’s keeping you together are biscuits…your mind is bound to crumble under any pressure.
The only option that you have left, for the ending of suffering, which has never been done before, is the Middle way. The path of non-resistance. The way of peace.
When faced with pain – refrain from craving against it. When faced with pleasure – refrain from craving for it. This does not mean ‘try to get rid of pain or pleasure’, which is impossible for as long as there is a body, but rather ‘try patiently endure’ a feeling without any trace of longing or aversion. And by doing that repeatedly, you will come to recognize the Middle – the island which no flood can overwhelm.
By staying in that Middle- that place of right endurance, you will come to see, for example, just how redundant your sense of self is. Feelings feel and do not need you. Body bodies, and does not know you. Any appropriation (assumption of ownership) that exists or existed in the past is/was gratuitous and the source of all of your unnecessary suffering.
Through this gradual reduction of your wild, unchecked behavior, you can get to a place of safety and fulfillment. A place that no amount of ice cream, chocolate, or other sensual consumables would ever help you reach.
Mn66: The Quail Simile:
“…Ven. Udayin, early in the morning, having put on his robes and carrying his outer robe and bowl, went into Apana for alms. Having wandered for alms in Apana and returning, he went to that forest grove for the day’s abiding. Going into the forest, he sat down at the root of a tree. Then, as he was alone in seclusion, this train of thought arose: “So many painful things has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many pleasant things has he brought us! So many unskillful qualities has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many skillful qualities has he brought us!”
Then, in the evening, Ven. Udayin left seclusion and went to the Blessed One. On arrival, having bowed down to him, he sat to one side.
As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: “Just now, lord, as I was alone in seclusion, this train of thought arose: ‘So many painful things has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many pleasant things has he brought us! So many unskillful qualities has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many skillful qualities has he brought us!’ For in the past, lord, we used to eat in the morning, in the evening, and in the day at the wrong time (the afternoon).
Then there was the time when the Blessed One addressed the monks, saying, ‘Monks, please discontinue that daytime meal at the wrong time.’ For just a day I was upset, for just a day I was sad, [thinking], ‘The exquisite foods that faithful householders give us during the day at the wrong time: even those the Blessed One has us abandon; even those the One Well-gone has us relinquish!’ But, considering our affection, respect, and shame around the Blessed One, we abandoned that daytime meal at the wrong time.
“So we ate both in the evening and in the morning. Then there was the time when the Blessed One addressed the monks, saying, ‘Monks, please discontinue that evening meal at the wrong time.’ For just a day I was upset, for just a day I was sad, [thinking], ‘The more exquisitely prepared of our two meals: even that the Blessed One has us abandon; even that the One Well-gone has us relinquish! It has happened, lord, that a man, obtaining some good curry ingredients during the day, would say to his wife, ‘Put this aside and we’ll all eat it together in the evening.’ All fine cooking is done in the evening, and next to none during the day. But, considering our affection, respect, and shame around the Blessed One, we abandoned that evening meal at the wrong time.
“It has happened, lord, that monks wandering for alms in the pitch dark of the night have walked into a waste-water pool, fallen into a cesspool, stumbled over a thorn patch, or stumbled over a sleeping cow. They have encountered young hooligans on the way to or from a crime. They have been sexually propositioned by women. Once I went for alms in the pitch dark of night. A woman washing a pot saw me by a lightning flash and, on seeing me, screamed out: ‘I’m done for! A demon is after me!’ When this was said, I said to her, ‘I’m no demon, sister. I’m a monk waiting for alms.’ ‘Then you’re a monk whose parents are dead. Better for you, monk, that your belly be slit open with a sharp butcher’s knife than this prowling for alms for your belly’s sake in the pitch dark of night!” On recollecting that, lord, the thought occurred to me: ‘So many painful things has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many pleasant things has he brought us! So many unskillful qualities has the Blessed One taken away from us! So many skillful qualities has he brought us!'”
The Buddha:
“In the same way, Udayin, there are some worthless men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why this petty, elementary thing? He’s too strict, this contemplative.’ They don’t abandon it. They’re rude to me and the monks keen on training. For them, that’s a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.
“Suppose a quail was snared by a rotting creeper, by which it could expect injury, capture, or death, and someone were to say, ‘This rotting creeper by which this quail is snared, and by which she could expect injury, capture, or death, is for her a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.’ Would the person speaking that way be speaking rightly?”
“No, lord. That rotting creeper… is for her a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.
“In the same way, Udayin, there are some worthless men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why this petty, elementary thing? He’s too strict, this contemplative.’ They don’t abandon it. They’re rude to me and the monks keen on training. For them, that’s a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.
“Now there are some men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why does the Blessed One have us abandon this? Why does the One Well-gone have us relinquish this petty, elementary thing?’ But they abandon it and are not rude to me or the monks keen on training. Having abandoned it, they live unconcerned, undisturbed, their wants satisfied, with their mind like a wild deer. For them, that’s a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.
“Suppose a royal elephant, immense, pedigreed, accustomed to battles, its tusks like chariot poles, were snared with thick leather snares, but by twisting its body a bit it could break and burst those snares and go off wherever it liked. And suppose someone were to say, ‘Those thick leather snares by which the royal elephant… was snared, but which, by twisting its body a bit, it could break and burst those snares and go off wherever it liked: for him, they were a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.’ Would the person speaking that way be speaking rightly?’
“No, lord. Those thick leather snares… were for him a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.”
“In the same way, Udayin, there are some men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why does the Blessed One have us abandon this? Why does the One Well-gone have us relinquish this petty, elementary thing?’ But they abandon it and are not rude to me or the monks keen on training. Having abandoned it, they live unconcerned, undisturbed, their wants satisfied, with their mind like a wild deer. For them, that’s a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.
“Suppose there was a poor person, poverty-stricken, with a single little shack, dilapidated, open to the crows, not the best sort; and a single bed, dilapidated, not the best sort; and a single pot of rice and gourd seeds, not the best sort; and a single wife, not the best sort. He would go to a park and see a monk, his hands and feet washed after a delightful meal, sitting in the cool shade, committed to the heightened mind. The thought would occur to him: ‘How happy the contemplative state! How free of dis-ease the contemplative state! Oh, that I, shaving off my hair and beard and putting on the ochre robe, might go forth from the household life into homelessness!’ But being unable to abandon his single little shack, dilapidated, open to the crows, not the best sort; and a single bed, dilapidated, not the best sort; and a single pot of rice and gourd seeds, not the best sort; and a single wife, not the best sort, he wouldn’t be able to shave off his hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, or to go forth from the household life into homelessness. And suppose someone were to say, ‘That single little shack… that single bed… that single pot… and that single wife, not the best sort, by which that man was snared, which he was unable to abandon, and because of which he couldn’t shave off his hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the household life into homelessness: for him they were a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.’ Would the person speaking that way be speaking rightly?”
“No, lord. That single hut… that single bed… that single pot… that single wife… were for that man a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.”
“In the same way, Udayin, there are some worthless men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why this petty, elementary thing? He’s too strict, this contemplative.’ They don’t abandon it. They’re rude to me and the monks keen on training. For them, that’s a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.
“Now suppose, Udayin, that there was a householder or householder’s son, rich, prosperous, and wealthy, with vast amounts of gold, grain, fields, land, wives, and servants. He would go to a park and see a monk, his hands and feet washed after a delightful meal, sitting in the cool shade, committed to the heightened mind. The thought would occur to him: ‘How happy the contemplative state! How free of dis-ease the contemplative state! Oh, that I, shaving off my hair and beard and putting on the ochre robe, might go forth from the household life into homelessness!’ And being able to abandon his vast amounts of gold, grain, fields, land, wives, and servants, he would be able to shave off his hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from household life into homelessness. Now suppose someone were to say, ‘Those vast amounts of acquisitions by which that householder was snared but which he was able to abandon so that he could go forth from the household life into homelessness: for him, they were a strong snare, a thick snare, a heavy snare, an unrotting snare, and a thick yoke.’ Would the person speaking that way be speaking rightly?”
“No, lord. Those vast amounts of acquisitions, were for him a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.’
“In the same way, Udayin, there are some men who, when I tell them, ‘Abandon this,’ say: ‘Why does the Blessed One have us abandon this? Why does the One Well-gone have us relinquish this petty, elementary thing?’ But they abandon it and are not rude to me or the monks keen on training. Having abandoned it, they live unconcerned, undisturbed, their wants satisfied, with their mind like a wild deer. For them, that’s a weak snare, a feeble snare, a rotting snare, an insubstantial snare.”