DIGESTION: SUSTENANCE AND ABSORPTION

The body, like the soul, needs its sustenance. The inner processing of food into energy is the physical equivalent of taking thoughts into the mind and converting them to virtuous actions.

Our digestive systems in Western cultures can all too often be a source of embarrassment: we love food but are ambivalent about the way it is processed into nutrition and waste. Such anxieties can have the effect of amplifying our stress when things go wrong with our digestion. And it’s in our digestive systems – “butterflies” in the stomach – that stress of all kinds often manifests itself. Our digestion reflects our state of mind, and reminds us of the vital connections between ourselves and the world around us.

The process by which food and drink are transformed into the energy needed for life, alongside all the benefits our bodies need for efficient functioning, is a natural miracle. By meditating on that process with grateful, unembarrassed acceptance, we can prepare a solid foundation for health and well-being. By combining this with a healthy lifestyle, we enlarge our potential as human beings. At the same time, we equip ourselves, when we think about our digestion, with a resonant image of transformation: one that has endless implications for our thinking, our life projects, our problem-solving and our relationships.

In all our creative work, there will be goodness that we will need to separate from waste. We will need to be carefully selective in the first place – choosing what to consume and what to leave aside as surplus to requirements. And we will need to be patient – allowing plenty of time for adequate digestion before we gain any benefits from our efforts.

The mandala here visualizes two aspects of sustenance: the outer world of food and the inner world of digestion. The goblet and grapes stand in for the nutrients we ingest – and, of course, there is process here too, since grapes are juiced to make grape juice or transformed by fermentation into wine. The core of the image, however, is the inner maze of the gut. Two sets of symbolic associations – of digestion (transformation, filtering, enrichment) and of the labyrinth (wandering, risk, discovery) – combine to make this a resonant mandala.

“The purpose of miracles is to teach us to see the miraculous everywhere.”

St Augustine of Hippo

Sit comfortably and focus on your breathing / Enter a relaxed awareness / Make acquaintance with the mandala / Gaze at the figure amidst nourishing plenty / Relish the sources of food in air, water and earth / Trace food’s journey inside yourself / Visualize digestion and absorption / Attend to the mandala as a mysterious whole / Enter the portal of pure being

DIGESTION MEDITATION

TRACING THE INNER FLOW

In this mandala meditation, we start by imagining the abundance of life-giving ingredients, including water and sunlight, and partaking of a banquet of healing food and drink; then we progress to digestive function itself, tracing it both in the mandala and in our own bodies; and finally we locate a centre of truth in the labyrinth of our intestines.

Sit comfortably with the Digestion Mandala (shown on the previous page) in front of you.

Let all concerns and anxieties drift out of your consciousness. Be aware of the rise and fall of your breathing. Inhale and exhale slowly, becoming more relaxed with each in-breath and going deeper into awareness with each out-breath.

Now turn your relaxed attention to the mandala. Contemplate the grapes and the wine goblet, and the wheat sheaves and fishes – examples of the world’s abundance. Beyond the mandala, as far as the imagination can stretch, bare the world’s farms, fields, gardens, orchards, seas – the rich sources of food around us. Imagine life-giving sunlight and water – gifts from the universe.

Gaze at the figure with arms and legs out-stretched. Imagine this is you in all your potential for health and well-being. Think of yourself participating in a banquet – one of grace and moderation.

Trace the journey of food both inside yourself and inside the simplified image of the mandala – it can help if you picture the mandala as a kind of scan, representing the simultaneous digestive process happening in the real world within your body. Let your thoughts flit between your real body and its graphic representation.

Visualize a range of healthy foods being broken down in the stomach and then the nutrients passing into you. Bacteria in your gut are helping with the process. The nervous and circulatory systems are also playing their part. Together, a combination of nerves, hormones, bacteria, blood and the organs of the digestive system is completing the complex task of digestion.

Take your eye over the whole mandala – the process of digestion and excretion – and relish this powerful image of life-giving transformations, enigmatic to you, understood by the doctors who heal you, but still mysterious at the very deepest level.

Turn your gaze to the labyrinth of the small and large intestine, all coiled up in complexity. At the heart of this is the symbolic centre of the mandala: the beneficent black hole of unknowing. Pass into this and lose any sense of dualities. Within the depths of your own self you are passing into a realm of profound truth.

After a few minutes of deep thought take your awareness back to the level of everyday perception. Imagine your body as a unity in which every part of the digestive process has a purpose, the whole making a complex interactive walking miracle that enables you to find and pursue your life’s purpose.

“Gluttony is not a secret vice.”

Orson Welles