From Monastic Bowls To Kitchen Tables: How Food Shapes Awareness

We explore mindful eating through monastic stories, simple practices with raisins, chocolate and tea, and how intention changes what food does to our minds and bodies. Listeners share how mindfulness supports storytelling, therapy and daily meditation habits.

• monastic one‑meal practice and silent chewing
• food as energy, intention and ethics
• noticing hunger, craving and resistance
• raisin and chocolate exercises for savoring
• body signals, stuck energy and comfort choices
• tea as ceremony for presence and community
• integrating mindfulness with story work
• safe intensity, regulation and journalling
• daily practice momentum and therapeutic flow

“We actually are going to be offering tea ceremonies as uh free events in our community in the future, something that's near and dear to my heart”

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Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — this podcast explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

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• Practical mindfulness and meditation teachings
• Conversations with respected meditation teachers, clinicians, authors, and researchers
• Real-world insights for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and caregivers
• Gentle reflections for anyone navigating stress, anxiety, burnout, grief, or change

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• Mindfulness meditation for everyday life
• Trauma-sensitive and compassion-based practices
• Teaching mindfulness in an authentic, non-performative way
• Deepening your own practice while supporting others

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Transcript

Monastic Eating And Misconceptions

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome. I'm just eating a piece of toast with butter right now. Reminded of my daily eating practice at the monasteries, where we ate one meal a day. Sometimes we'd have to carry our alms bowls and walk into the community or nearby villages, often in very rural settings. There's a misunderstanding that monks beg for food. Monks are not allowed to ask for food. They can walk around with a bowl, and if people want to put food in the bowl, they can, but monks are not allowed to ask or even really like hint. The only thing that monks can ask for is just water. They can always ask for water. Monasteries usually provide medicine. But anyway, my point is that we would eat one meal a day in silence. You were not allowed to use a fork or a spoon or a knife. Well, certain monasteries you could. When you would pick something up out of your bowl, you would mindfully bring it to your mouth and mindfully chew. And then set the food back down and let it go and mindfully chew and swallow. It could reflect on the elements of what you're eating, the taste, but that ultimately it's providing energy and sustenance for continued mindfulness, continued meditation. And if you felt like you needed a little bit more energy for the day, then you would go back and pick up the food out of the bowl again and repeat. But you're not like holding a piece of food the whole time, eating. Some monasteries don't allow you to pick up anything and take a bite out of it. They want you to pull it apart first before putting it in your mouth. Different monasteries have different rules around this. On retreat, the teaching is eat less, talk less, or really don't say anything because it's in silence for the most part. Sleep less and meditate more. So I wasn't planning on mentioning any of this, but just holding a piece of toast on camera in front of you kind of jog my memory of this practice. And food can be such a great reminder for us to really check in why am I eating? How am I eating? What is this for? How does this feel? I'm all for decadence and celebration food and comfort food and all that good stuff. But can we also bring mindfulness to it and enjoy it? And also kind of remember that we can bring mindfulness to this very important human act that we do? And how does the energy impact our consciousness, our peace of mind, our physical health and mental health? And what is the energy of the food I'm eating? Is there a spirit to it? Is there a wholesomeness to it? Are we honoring the plants or animals or the people at the Doritos factory? The spirit in which we buy food or exchange money for food is a part of this. I know a lot of people believe that cooking for others is an act of love, or eating food cooked by others is love. When we cook for ourselves, is that also an act of love for ourselves? So I'm not here to preach. It is an invitation for us to consider some of these things sometimes. Mindful eating is a staple, forgive the pun, of mindfulness and meditation teachings. Many people in this program are health coaches, nutritionists, counselors working with people struggling with eating disorders, body dysmorphia. Two of the common foods used for mindful eating are raisins and chocolate. You can use whatever you want, really. For raisins, there's so much to notice around texture, moisture, color, size. Many people discover that they don't actually like raisins. Some people discover, oh, they're actually much better than I thought. With chocolate, there's milk, different levels of dark, some with nuts and salt and things, but I think most people like chocolate, and so there's an element of savoring. Regardless, if we have food in front of us, can we notice the smells? Do we begin salivating before the food touches our taste buds? Are we looking at the food or are we thinking about memories with similar foods? Reflecting on say the culture or ethnicity of the food? Are we fantasizing about the experience of eating this food? Are we starting to check out? Some people don't stop eating until they hate themselves. So noticing the thoughts or emotions, where does the mind go? And it will be different with each kind of food, what kind of mood you're in, whether you're hungry or not, etc. But just noticing, am I even hungry? Or is there hunger? Is there an emotional void, spiritual void? How my body feel after eating this or half of this? Is there thirst instead? When I left the monastery, I was 160 pounds, which for me is very light. That's what I weighed sophomore year of high school. I will say that there were many nights at the monastery where I was fantasizing of Italian restaurants because I couldn't eat after noon. And normally I would finish my one meal by 11-ish a.m. And so by 6 or 7 p.m. of walking and doing manual labor at the monastery, which often included shovels and pickaxes, I was quite hungry, or there was a lot of hunger. And it was difficult for me to be mindful of the hunger without succumbing to suffering. So just because there's hunger doesn't necessarily mean there needs to be a level of suffering around it. And what happens to our mental suffering if the resistance is zero? When we're finished with a meal, do we start thinking about the next meal? Planning the next experience? What foods and liquids do we feel awakened by? And for each of us, it's probably very different. We all have different bodies, different constitutions, different Ayurvedic profiles. We put our energy in different places. Some of us will store or trap energy here in a pattern of disconnection. Others will kind of have their energy floating out here all the time. Noticing where energies are trapped or stuck in the body, in the head. Actually, this morning I've had a headache right here all morning. And it's fine, but there's like this dense energy here. Kind of had toast with butter as a comfort food. It's like, okay. And I put on the sweater because it's like soft. I'm like, oh, okay. What can help me feel safe and comfortable in today's session? Toast with butter, partly because it reminds me of my dad. Like he would make toast with butter when I was growing up. And the sweater is so turned up the heat a little bit. And I made a tea that's good for the nervous system. A lot of us will constrict our bellies, our genitals, our anus, our feet, a lot of stored energy in our hands. Big part of mindfulness is noticing the energies of the body and bringing gentle awareness to different parts of the body to allow these areas to just be kind of sense into, you know, am I holding on to something or can I let it go? Without judging it, allowing it to be and allowing it to do its thing and softening around the areas. And I think certain foods and liquids can help us to awaken, relax, energize, breathe. Today was kind of an impromptu exploration on mindful eating. I do encourage most mindfulness teachers to include mindful eating in your sharing and your offerings for others because mindfulness is an integrated practice. Eating is something that we all do. You can do mindful drinking of water, tea. We actually are going to be offering tea ceremonies as uh free events in our community in the future, something that's near and dear to my heart. My main first mindfulness teacher was a Taoist hermit who was sort of a tea master, and that was part of my early training was tea ceremony. It wasn't really so much a ceremony as it was an invitation for presence in making and drinking and sharing tea. There's plenty of literature and videos online around mindful eating, mindful drinking. I'm happy to explore this in more detail for anyone who has questions or wants to explore certain areas of this. But regardless, thank you for humoring me and listening. I'd like to just open it up to any questions, comments, requests about mindful eating or drinking, about your mindfulness practice, your teaching, your business side of things. Anything at all is fair game. Feel free to introduce yourself, share where you're coming from, why you're here, what you're wanting to do. Everything is welcome.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

I'm Stephanie, and I live in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, on Trade 2 Land. Within purchase 1790. I signed up for the mindfulness teacher training in 2021. And I would like to offer mindfulness meditation teaching. Right now I'm using guided meditations in the oral storytelling bookshops that I offer. And so I find that a lot of the things that I encourage people to do with their stories that they're learning, I can incorporate into a guided meditation so that I can guide them into their story world. I recognize that is not mindful meditation because it is in a different space. It's mindful of that space, but it's not the same approach as mindfulness meditation because it's not in the pregnant moment. I do want to learn more about offering mindfulness meditation for itself, for its own value, because I see the great value in it. I've been meditating for at least 10 years, maybe longer. It has been incredibly helpful for me, and I've learned a lot through it. The first at least three years that I meditated, it was really, really challenging. And every time I meditated almost, I would get anxiety. It would make my anxiety worse. I was reluctant to stick with it. I'd heard a teaching from Pema Cholna that it can make anybody worse, and that if you stick with it, it can eventually abate. I trusted that, and I think it was three to five years of meditation before it finally began to abate, but it was well worth the trust. Thank you, Quick Day, and for anything you offer.

Body Energy, Comfort, And Safety

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yeah, thank you, Stephanie. Sounds like you do fascinating work with storytellers, oral stories. Love to hear some stories. I think with integrating mindfulness into that, you have some interesting opportunities. I appreciate you wanting to offer mindfulness in and of itself. And there's also some ways to incorporate mindfulness into the story aspect. One of the things we just invite everyone to do is to notice the stories that they tell themselves about themselves or about the world. And largely these are unconscious for many of us. What's my story? What is my story of the world or how I relate to people or life? One of the techniques for emotional regulation is to recall stories from the past and relive them as much as possible. And then bring mindfulness to the experience right now in the body. What emotions are present right now after I relive this story fully? Like what's happening for me right now? So kind of transitioning from memory to present, from past to present. What's going on for me? What emotions are here? What sensations are here? There's sensations to the emotions. What is that story and bringing a gentle awareness, a carrying curiosity to the felt sense now after having relived it? Of course, we don't want to do anything too overwhelming, but if it's on a scale of one to ten, if it's like a three, then we're probably going to be okay in terms of intensity, but we don't want to explore anything above a say a seven without some support or therapist or something. But we can often learn a lot about the stories by reliving them and then bringing mindfulness to how they are now. And we can work with emotional regulation and resilience by doing that often with all sorts of stories from our past. And then maybe segueing into journaling or talking about it a little bit. But meeting the present with a gentle awareness, noticing judgments, noticing resistance, noticing ego, noticing whatever comes up. Like what is that about and finding stories that feel grounded, rooted in our values, our love, truth. Anyway. Sounds fascinating. Yeah, let us know how we can support you. Yeah, thanks, Stephanie.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

I'm Del. Greetings, everybody. I am based in South Africa and in Jersey Channel Islands. So it's not the Jersey that's in the US. It's the original, the OG jersey. I am a psychologist by training, but a meditator, probably for on and off of about 40 years. Come from a family where religious meditation was something that we were expected to do, but it wasn't always unpacked. And so you kind of learned by doing, and you just learnt it inside, but it wasn't really explored. But my training as a psychologist has helped me understand the science side of secular meditation. So I understood it from a practice non-unpacking to a science secular. And it's only in the last 10 or 15 years that I've started to understand fully and integrate things. As someone who's meditated daily, I found myself doing my one meditation and putting it in the log and then being in a competition with myself in a way to do more. And so I added a second 10 minute at lunchtime, and then I added an evening one. And it's quite a thrill to put it on the spreadsheet and to see that number tricking up closer to 40 every day. But apart from the competitive side, the gamification of it all, apart from that, I'm noticing so much of a difference within myself. I'm also noticing the way I'm pacing more authentically with my clients in session. It feels more like a flow and a dance, like a slow dance, where the person stepping forward means the other person steps back, and then one person's left means another person's right. And it feels like my therapies are becoming easier. So eight days in, I'm already feeling it. I'm hooked. I'm glad I'm here. I'm hooked. So I just wanted to introduce myself by way of that. Thank you.

Tea, Ceremony, And Teaching Mindfulness

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah. Thank you, Del. That's beautiful. Yeah, a lot of therapy is just the vibe and the feeling of safety and that dance, you know, finding that rhythm with someone and connection. I'm glad that you're finding momentum. Welcome.