Yum! I hope I have made clear that while this is a blog about losing weight, it is also about the absolute joy of food and eating. That is part of the problem with dieting, it seems to me, that food becomes the "enemy" and we give up far more than we gain. As I have said in a prior post, I would rather die a diabetic death than put myself into an adversarial relationship to food or anything else. This was a big part of the Buddha's message, that one must find the joy in life; this joy is not even particularly well-hidden, but is part and parcel of our everyday lives, if we were but to look for it. An ancient sage named Atisha one said, "Always maintain only a joyful mind". As with so much of what are known as the lojong teachings, this is more an aspiration to be contemplated than something it is possible to live all the time, but the point here is that it is indeed possible to live in joy all the time, and that this is the state of the end of suffering. It is not my intention to add to the suffering of my life by making myself an adversary of wonderful food.
I ate with family last night at Dove Vivi, a wonderful pizza place in northeast Portland. This is the sign outside the little storefront operation, and one of their pizzas,
the sweet corn and carmelized onion. All of their pizzas are on cornmeal crust. It was some kinda wonderful. I also had a slice of the pesto and spinach pizza. Also quite a treat. I passed up on the third slice my mouth hunger was telling me I really wanted, but my stomach was quite certain was superfluous at best.
I feel so fortunate that I have family and friends I can spend time with and share these sorts of things with. Jamie's family is wonderful and, as her mother said, we have all gotten very lucky. I couldn't agree more. But I have the sense that all of us have also worked very hard to bring this sort of "luck" about. One of the things that Kathy brought to mind for me yesterday is the concept of sympathetic joy. In Pali (the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were written), this is known as mudita. This is one of the brahma viharas, a way in which we can incline our minds. Like any other thing in which we train ourselves, from riding a bicycle to another language, it is a matter of taking the time and effort to do this, but the benefits are enormous.
Sympathetic joy is the training of the mind to live in joyfulness in situations where disappointment or (in particular) envy might cause us to take a negative view of an event or person. As an example, yesterday the graduation ceremony went much more quickly than we anticipated and felt a bit chaotic all the way at the back of the seating area, so we missed the actual moment Jamie went across the stage to receive her diploma. What might we have felt? Disappointment, if that moment is what we came for. Irritation, that those around us were so loud that we couldn't hear or that the sound system was not powerful enough to allow us to hear. Anger, that we couldn't sit any closer and get a good view of her. General annoyance that there were just too damn many people in such a small space, that they couldn't shut down the farmer's market next door for just this one day to cut down on crowds and noise. And on and on and on, right? It seems like there is never a lack of locations for the placing of blame.
But because we were there merely to bear witness, to simply be present at the event and not have any specific expectations for how that event should unfold, and above all because we can practice mudita, we could see that all around us were families and friends who were celebrating this huge step that one of their own was taking, and we could bask in our sympathetic joy for them. The gift is this: all of this joy, the joy of all these thousand or so people is now our joy, too! We get a share of every moment of pleasure they are feeling.
The many faces of joy. What a pleasure. This is all by way of getting back to how very fortunate I feel to be among people who love one another, and my recognition that it is part of the work that each of us has done to this point that we can feel that love without reservation. Perhaps because of the deeply-felt sense of threat that seems to be hard-wired into us, as I spoke about in earlier posts, this does not come as naturally to us as we would like, and I give thanks to all of those around me who have worked to be the people they are, so I can bask in their love. It is an honor to be among them.
I ate with family last night at Dove Vivi, a wonderful pizza place in northeast Portland. This is the sign outside the little storefront operation, and one of their pizzas,
the sweet corn and carmelized onion. All of their pizzas are on cornmeal crust. It was some kinda wonderful. I also had a slice of the pesto and spinach pizza. Also quite a treat. I passed up on the third slice my mouth hunger was telling me I really wanted, but my stomach was quite certain was superfluous at best.I feel so fortunate that I have family and friends I can spend time with and share these sorts of things with. Jamie's family is wonderful and, as her mother said, we have all gotten very lucky. I couldn't agree more. But I have the sense that all of us have also worked very hard to bring this sort of "luck" about. One of the things that Kathy brought to mind for me yesterday is the concept of sympathetic joy. In Pali (the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were written), this is known as mudita. This is one of the brahma viharas, a way in which we can incline our minds. Like any other thing in which we train ourselves, from riding a bicycle to another language, it is a matter of taking the time and effort to do this, but the benefits are enormous.
Sympathetic joy is the training of the mind to live in joyfulness in situations where disappointment or (in particular) envy might cause us to take a negative view of an event or person. As an example, yesterday the graduation ceremony went much more quickly than we anticipated and felt a bit chaotic all the way at the back of the seating area, so we missed the actual moment Jamie went across the stage to receive her diploma. What might we have felt? Disappointment, if that moment is what we came for. Irritation, that those around us were so loud that we couldn't hear or that the sound system was not powerful enough to allow us to hear. Anger, that we couldn't sit any closer and get a good view of her. General annoyance that there were just too damn many people in such a small space, that they couldn't shut down the farmer's market next door for just this one day to cut down on crowds and noise. And on and on and on, right? It seems like there is never a lack of locations for the placing of blame.
But because we were there merely to bear witness, to simply be present at the event and not have any specific expectations for how that event should unfold, and above all because we can practice mudita, we could see that all around us were families and friends who were celebrating this huge step that one of their own was taking, and we could bask in our sympathetic joy for them. The gift is this: all of this joy, the joy of all these thousand or so people is now our joy, too! We get a share of every moment of pleasure they are feeling.
The many faces of joy. What a pleasure. This is all by way of getting back to how very fortunate I feel to be among people who love one another, and my recognition that it is part of the work that each of us has done to this point that we can feel that love without reservation. Perhaps because of the deeply-felt sense of threat that seems to be hard-wired into us, as I spoke about in earlier posts, this does not come as naturally to us as we would like, and I give thanks to all of those around me who have worked to be the people they are, so I can bask in their love. It is an honor to be among them.
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