MOST OF US have some attachment to food or at least to certain kinds of food. With the exception of people who have eating disorders, this is not the most harmful type of attachment — attachment to money or to people usually gets us involved in more destructive actions. Nevertheless, it is beneficial for us to learn how to moderate and eventually release our attachment to food.
Attachment is based on exaggerating the good qualities of an object. The food on our plate looks so delicious and we crave to taste it. But if we leave it on the plate for just a little while so that it grows cold and flies land on it, it is no longer so appetizing. Along the same line, imagine what the food looks like traveling through our digestive system. We already know what it looks like when it comes out the other end. If the food were inherently tasty and desirable, it should continue to be so as it passes through our stomach and intestines. But that is not the case at all!
In addition, most of what we eat comes from dirt in one way or another. We certainly wouldn’t eat a handful of dirt from the garden, yet that’s where vegetables, fruits, and grains come from. Both the cause of food — the earth — and the result of food — our excrement — are not appetizing, but in the middle between the cause of the food and the effect of the food, it appears to be inherently delicious and pure. Certainly something that is caused by dirt and becomes filth is nothing to be attached to. Thinking in this way helps to reduce our exaggeration of food’s desirability and our fallacious assumption that food has happiness in it, such that when we eat it, we receive that happiness.
Reciting and contemplating the verses for offering our food to the Three Jewels also helps to decrease our attachment. Since we have offered the food to the Three Jewels, it isn’t very appropriate to crave what belongs to them. Accruing the karma of coveting the Buddha’s possessions would not be at all advantageous for our well-being. When we offer a gift to someone, it no longer belongs to us.
The question then arises: since we offered the food to the Three Jewels, how can we eat it when it now belongs to them? There are different ways to respond to this. If we visualize the Buddha at our hearts and offer each mouthful of food to the Buddha, there is no problem. Tantric practitioners visualize themselves as the deity and offer the food to that deity. That is also fine. When we offer food on the altar, it is removed after a day or two and distributed to people to eat. Here we think that the Buddha gives us the food, and we consume it respectfully, eat it without craving, and then use the energy we receive from eating to cultivate virtuous mental states and interact with others with kindness, as the Buddha would wish.
People who are new to the Dharma easily see their attachment to food and sometimes get upset with themselves for having this attachment. They adopt an attitude of extreme asceticism, thinking they should not eat anything because they have so much attachment to food. Such an attitude is not healthy. We need to relax. Our attachment to food is mild compared to attachment to money, social status, sex, reputation, romantic relationships, praise, and approval. Also, in a place where food is easy to obtain, attachment to food doesn’t inspire the intensity and type of destructive behavior that these other forms of attachment do.
At one of our annual Western Buddhist Monastic Gatherings, we were discussing how to train our mind and reduce strong afflictions. A Theravada monk explained that when he lived in Thailand, people offered beautiful meals to the Sangha, and he took a special liking to mangoes. Strong attachment to having his daily mango erupted, and he worked very hard applying all the antidotes he could think of to overcome this craving.
I gave the next presentation: “If working on my attachment to mangoes was the biggest thing I had to do in my early years of training, I would have been delighted. Instead, my teacher sent me to a Dharma center to be the disciplinarian of a group of macho Italian monks.” In my work as their disciplinarian, my attachment to praise, approval, and kind words became evident because I was continuously faced with the men’s blame, disapproval, and ridicule. Due to my attachment to praise and my anger at blame, I created a great deal of destructive karma, and the disharmony between a few of the monks and me adversely affected others at the Dharma center.
It’s much more productive to focus on applying antidotes to afflictions that motivate highly destructive actions than to fret when attachment arises to a piece of cheese or chocolate. This doesn’t mean it’s fine to always give in to that attachment. Rather, it is wiser to first emphasize cultivation of the remedies for the afflictions that cause the most harm in our lives, and slowly, gently work on attachment to food. Not eating because we hate ourselves for being attached to food does not counteract attachment to it. It is more effective to eat moderate amounts and cultivate self-acceptance.