Every once in a while I have to circle back and remind myself of what this blog is all about, which is (more or less) how my relationship to food affects and is affected by my relationship to the dharma (in case you forgot, dharma is simply the teachings of the Buddha). I think it's important for each of us to have a central system of belief that guides us and for me that is the dharma, although the dharma itself contains the instruction to not take anything at face value, but to question it and apply it to one's own life.
So when I came to the realization that I was well into middle age and still overweight, rather than ask myself what I could do to lose the weight (I had asked that question many times before), I asked what it was that caused me to overeat. I think this is an important distinction. Previously, when I was asking what I could do to lose weight, the implication is that there was something wrong with me just as I was, which flies in the face of what the dharma has taught me. The beginning of any change is a complete acceptance of myself as perfect in this moment. This may seem paradoxical, to desire change while at the same time recognizing my essential perfection, but it really isn't. What the Buddha taught was that this moment is the only moment there is in which to live our lives; therefore, I am perfect in this moment because I could not have been otherwise than as I am. As I believe I have shared here before, the Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once said to his students, "You are all perfect just as you are...and you could all use a little work." To project ahead and desire change in a future moment is not inconsistent with the recognition of my essential perfection in this one.
The reason I emphasize this point is because when we begin something like weight loss, it is far too easy to do so from a place of self-loathing. We can also get caught up in the "if only" syndrome; if only I lose weight, then I can finally be happy, if only they behave in a way that is in accord with how I think they should then I will finally be happy, if only my boss treats me better, I will finally be happy. You know how this works; we all live much of our lives in this state of mind. The problem with this way of thinking is that one can easily live an entire life in this mode and never realize that the moment in which one was thinking of the next moment as being potentially perfect is the only moment one actually had to live in. If one is always leaning forward into the next moment and the next and the next, life can appear to be a wasteland of squandered opportunities rather than the rich field of beauty that it is.
When I live my life in the "if only" mode, I am creating the karma that will lead me to experience life as a travail. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one; if we think of life as an effort to improve upon what this moment has to offer, then the world in this moment is by definition unsatisfactory, and we will experience it as such. When I eat to make such feelings go away or try to shame myself into not doing so, I am attempting to unscrew a light bulb with a hammer; I am further burying myself in feelings of shame and remorse but getting no closer to being truly happy. Only by escaping this self-destructive cycle can I ever hope to have a taste of what it is to be free. Even if I never lose a pound, when I examine my relationship to food as a source of suffering, I am on the road to Nirvana.
So when I came to the realization that I was well into middle age and still overweight, rather than ask myself what I could do to lose the weight (I had asked that question many times before), I asked what it was that caused me to overeat. I think this is an important distinction. Previously, when I was asking what I could do to lose weight, the implication is that there was something wrong with me just as I was, which flies in the face of what the dharma has taught me. The beginning of any change is a complete acceptance of myself as perfect in this moment. This may seem paradoxical, to desire change while at the same time recognizing my essential perfection, but it really isn't. What the Buddha taught was that this moment is the only moment there is in which to live our lives; therefore, I am perfect in this moment because I could not have been otherwise than as I am. As I believe I have shared here before, the Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once said to his students, "You are all perfect just as you are...and you could all use a little work." To project ahead and desire change in a future moment is not inconsistent with the recognition of my essential perfection in this one.
The reason I emphasize this point is because when we begin something like weight loss, it is far too easy to do so from a place of self-loathing. We can also get caught up in the "if only" syndrome; if only I lose weight, then I can finally be happy, if only they behave in a way that is in accord with how I think they should then I will finally be happy, if only my boss treats me better, I will finally be happy. You know how this works; we all live much of our lives in this state of mind. The problem with this way of thinking is that one can easily live an entire life in this mode and never realize that the moment in which one was thinking of the next moment as being potentially perfect is the only moment one actually had to live in. If one is always leaning forward into the next moment and the next and the next, life can appear to be a wasteland of squandered opportunities rather than the rich field of beauty that it is.
When I live my life in the "if only" mode, I am creating the karma that will lead me to experience life as a travail. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one; if we think of life as an effort to improve upon what this moment has to offer, then the world in this moment is by definition unsatisfactory, and we will experience it as such. When I eat to make such feelings go away or try to shame myself into not doing so, I am attempting to unscrew a light bulb with a hammer; I am further burying myself in feelings of shame and remorse but getting no closer to being truly happy. Only by escaping this self-destructive cycle can I ever hope to have a taste of what it is to be free. Even if I never lose a pound, when I examine my relationship to food as a source of suffering, I am on the road to Nirvana.
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