Eating meditation

Mindful eating, a concept unfamiliar to most Americans, and not often enough practiced by yours truly. Before we went to the musical yesterday, a few of my colleagues and I went to the California Pizza Kitchen. I have not been there often. In fact, I do not remember what I had there last time I went.

I will this time, though.

I ordered the Cedar Plank Salmon, which was served with a white corn and spinach succotash, topped with feta cheese. Oh my...!

I had already decided that I wanted to try eating meditation, but I had not planned to do it Friday evening. It was not an optimal situation, but I decided to try it anyhow.

I was particularly hungry since I had not eaten since breakfast, and I had just gotten done at the gym.  I knew that, with company around, I could not simply ignore them while I concentrated on my meal.  It was easier than I had thought it would be.

Perhaps I am wrong, but Americans (and probably people elsewhere) often shovel their food into their mouths, again, myself included. At times, I have barely finished chewing one mouthful before preparing the next forkful for launch. So, this time, I wanted to be very deliberate with my tastes.

Each piece of that delectable entree melted on my tongue. I did not really want to chew it, so I broke it apart with my tongue, letting it roll around on my taste buds, fifteen to twenty seconds per bite - and small bites they were.  Not only was the taste supreme, but the food was sufficiently hot, on the edge of burning but not.  The seasoning was vaguely salty, but not to the point of being too much.  I sensed a tinge of garlic, which I love, but I honestly do believe that the bulk of the deliciousness was the result of being prepared on the thin slab of cedar plank.

The succotash was also scrumptious. The corn was crisp and flavorful, with no hint of chewiness, and the spinach was a perfect complement, being neither too tangy nor too bland. The feta was the final touch, providing an ideal balance for the vegetables and seasoning.

As I immersed myself in my meal, I occasionally sipped just enough water just to temporarily cleanse my palate so that I might once again lavish it with more of that scintillating salmon. I found myself very calmly and quietly enjoying the conversations going on around me, and I frequently chimed in, but I tried to be subtle about my tasting experiment. I eventually told them what I was doing.

I can honestly say that my conscious mindfulness during dinner made the evening much more memorable. After a while, this paying attention to the world around me can become a very good and interesting habit.

Second meditation

I am writing this post to show you that mindfulness takes many forms. When I awoke after my first meditation, I wanted to keep that feeling going, so I tried to be more mindful during my preparations for school. Now, this is not traditional meditation, but it is practiced mindfulness.

 I normally turn on the radio in the morning, thinking that I want to hear whether anything important happened since the day before. The station I normally listen to usually has many interesting talk topics throughout the day, but the morning host I find to be intensely annoying, which is unusual for me since I generally do not let people annoy me. At any rate, I guess I turn the radio on sometimes even though I know that this guy is going to get my goat. This particular morning, though, I decided not to turn the radio on. I decided to prepare for work in silence.

As I stated earlier, I was still feeling the calming effects of my previous meditation, so I started in a good place. What I did was pay careful attention to everything I was doing. As I walked, felt the carpet against my feet. As I reached for the light switch, I did so consciously, not as I normally did, which was automatically. Most mornings as I prepare for the day, I go through the motions of getting ready, and many of my behaviors are now automatic and thoughtless. What does my mind do during this time? It worries, it plans, it frets, it evaluates. That is why I decided to continue my morning preparations while being mindful.

Generally, I try to get ready quickly so I can get to Kerby's and start my plans for the day. I wanted to do that this morning as well, but I found that hurrying takes away from mindfulness. So, I tried to find a balance. What I found was that being mindful of what I was doing caused me to slow down a bit, but it also made me more efficient and less stressed.  My mind was not multi-tasking, so it was organized and calm.  I decided to continue this experience while driving in to work. The radio was off and I just attended to the road. A couple of times, I got behind slow drivers, and I felt a little tension come up, as it always does when I get stuck behind people who drive too slowly (to me, obviously not to them). Instead of getting upset or even a little anxious, I just attended to the feeling in my gut and let it pass without notice.

The practical benefits of all of this were that I was more efficient, more relaxed, and I enjoyed my work more.

First meditation

I had never meditated by using a candle in the dark before, and I have to say it was interesting to see the results.

Initially, I sat back in my comfortable love-seat, and I knew after only a minute or so that that was not going to "work." I do not find meditation to be as effective if I am lying down or sitting back in a comfortable chair.  So, I sat forward without any support for my back. I did, however, allow my forearms to rest on my thighs. It did not take long to realize that I felt both comfortable and alert in this position.

The flame was glaring for a while, and that may have been because my eyes had not adjusted to it at first. I noticed that it almost hurt my eyes to stare at the flame, but I think that all I did in response was perhaps sit back a bit.  After some time, the flame no longer hurt my eyes, but I had some sort of nervous tick going on with my eyes, and I found it distracting because it was diverting my visual focus. This continued for a couple of minutes, and it gave me the opportunity to take my focus off of the frustration with my eyes and put it back onto the flame. Eventually, the lizard-flick of my eyes stopped, and I was able to concentrate on the flame.

One of the more interesting parts of this meditation for me was that I eventually got to the point where I was fully focused on the flame, and I found it remarkable that it almost seemed I was looking at a picture of a burning candle. I would not have imagined an unmoving flame beforehand, but what I was seeing was exactly that. My intellect kicked in an noted that that was such a cool symbol: the flame was still and burning brightly just as my spirit, at that moment, was still.  By the way, spirit, to me, has a very broad meaning. It does not necessarily equal the word soul, but it could. For me, spirit is a great word for describing one's overall essence at a given moment. It is not a scientific word, and it is not meant to be. The still flame, for me at that moment, was emblematic of my still spirit.

I felt an intense peacefulness during this meditation, and it came when I had the experience I will call "the great release," until I come up with a better name. At some point during my meditations, my core muscles relax to the point that my lungs stretch far beyond their normal range, I a take a breath that seems to stretch my entire torso. When I get to this point, I know I have achieved some key biological benefits. I also, though, feel these benefits in my mind, because, generally, when I have the great release, I also am in a state of "no mind." I borrow the phrase "no mind" from a film called The Last Samurai. No mind is an amazing feeling, because it is almost like sweeping out the debris that was cluttering my thinking mind.

After this meditation, I went to bed very relaxed, and I am pretty certain that it made my sleep better.  I also woke up relaxed and focused. I was surprised that the feeling lasted throughout my sleep.

Goals for meditation

I have number of goals that I hope to accomplish as a result of my meditation practice, and I will elaborate on those goals here:

• First, I want to become more conscious of my thoughts and behaviors so that I can cut down on the inertia that creeps into my daily life.  Much of who I am is chosen, but I would say that too much of who I am or how I live is unconscious and counterproductive. By "counterproductive" I do not mean that I am not achieving societally approved levels of success. I mean that my own goals, behaviors in which I wish to engage or accomplishments I desire, are often put aside by minutiae. 
• In a related sense, I wish to cut down on times during which nothing is accomplished. Again, this is not about working constantly or becoming rich and famous; it is disconcerting to know that there are too many times during which I am neither producing nor recharging. If I am going to have "down time," I at least want that experience to refresh me or engage me in enjoyable ways. When these down periods lead to worse feelings, then they are purposeless. I believe that such "nothing" moments occur because of mindlessness. 
• I hope to improve my understandings of stress and how it impacts my body, mind, and relationships, not just with people but with life. I want to be more mindful of the autonomic responses of my nervous system, and I want to learn more about keeping those unconscious reactions of body distinct from my cognitive evaluations of them. This can be achieved by recognizing where one begins, the other ends, and the ways they overlap.
• I want to develop a deeper appreciation of the blessings that surround me by truly recognizing all that went into making my world what it is. Too often I am blinded to these truths because my mind becomes habituated to these blessings and only chooses to focus on what I do not have.  This inattentional blindness causes me to cling to what is wrong in my world and ignore what is right. As a result of this lack of mindful attention, my emotions only react to what I am attending to, which leads to more anxiety than is necessary.
• I want to become more objective about my feelings only because they often interfere with my day to day perceptions regarding life. There are days that I cannot as readily appreciate my students, my colleagues, my job, my family, etc. because my mind narrows its focus onto problems and/or responsibilities.
• Since I believe that my mind has learned to shield itself from adversity with protective mechanisms, I want to enhance my awareness of these functions so that I can consciously determine when they are "protecting" me into uncomfortable or unhealthy mental states. I believe that becoming mindful about these cognitive functions may lessen their detrimental impacts.
• I hope to develop more loving-kindness, not just for others, but also for myself. When I falter into mindlessness, I do not want to compound that situation by feeling guilty about my missteps. Being mindful can help me to stop the habit of negatively evaluating the most innocuous thoughts or behaviors. Just as I need not chastise my students for their missteps in order to educate them, I also do not need to belittle myself in order to improve mindful attention to my life.

To summarize, I want to practice mindfulness so that I can:

• Become more conscious of my thoughts and behaviors.
• Decrease unproductive "down time."
• Increase my understandings of stress and how its signals can be utilized constructively.
• Increase my appreciation for blessings that surround me.
• Objectify my feelings so that they work for me and my goals, not vice versa.
• Identify, analyze and evaluate my defense mechanisms to improve self-efficacy.
• Develop true loving kindness that accepts weakness without expecting it.