Applying Buddhist Ideas to Your Diet
Buddhist teachings, like yoga, are getting more and more attention in the last decade.
People are becoming aware that Buddhist teaching has ideas to contribute even to us westerners.
The problem is: it takes a long time to get familiar with these concepts, and one thing most of us don’t have is time.
So I’d like to introduce three concepts that might interest you and have a lot of relevance to your diet.
#1 Desire
According to Buddhist teachings - desire is the greatest cause for our suffering.
We desire material and sensual pleasures under the pretence that they will give us lasting happiness or well-being.
Such pleasures can take many forms – one of these forms is food, especially sweet or fatty foods that are consumed for pleasure or sedation of negative emotions.
The catch is that after we acquire our object of desire we do not achieve happiness – we only desire more.
The nature of such objects of desire is imperfect – and so it cannot make us truly happy.
Think of the things the food that your desire or crave.
Are they making you happy? Truly happy? Maybe they satisfy you for a short while but they might also make you feel guilty, and they disrupt your dieting efforts.
When we define ourselves through our desires, we throw ourselves into a circle of pain.
Instead, Buddhism teaches that a person should aspire to higher purposes: steady changes for the better.
Realize that these things are not really important, and get yourself out of the Circle.
#2 Suffering
An old Buddhist tale goes: a woman that had lost her husband came to the Buddha and asked him to help her vanquish suffering. The Buddha told her, go to all the families in your village and bring me a grain of salt from each family that never knew pain.
In short, the woman went, and came back empty handedly.
The meaning is this: life involves pain, and it can’t be avoided.
We suffer because we deny that truism and try to ignore it.
I’ve talked on other eBooks and articles why suffering should never be a part of your diet. In these articles I stressed that you should pick a diet that does not include starvation or any unpleasant experiences.
I haven’t changed my mind – a balanced diet should not make you suffer.
But changing your life for the better is obviously not an easy process, especially when you’re trying to change basic habits like eating and working out.
So, each time your diet becomes hard,
And every time you feel like you can’t handle it,
Just accept it as a form of pain that you can’t avoid in the way to change.
If you won’t dwell on it, and if you raise your head and continue on,
You will see that you can put your energies to better use.
#3 Sacrifice
One last thing I would like to share,
In the Buddhist tradition, it is conceived wise to make small sacrifices in order to achieve the greater good.
The greater good is a changed life style, and a higher feeling of self worth and well being.
The small sacrifices to make are the snacks that are tasty, the fast food that is available and resting in front of the TV which is easier then working out or making a healthy dinner.
If you regard these things as nothing then small sacrifices – you’ll see that it’s much easier to give them up.
I hope I showed you how Buddhist teaching can be relevant to your diet,
Please take these old old pearls of wisdom and put them to good use.
Click Here to find out what’s wrong with your diet
Click Here to use your mind and make your diet easier
Good luck,
David H. Mason
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Tags: diet, Spirituality
