Dealing with Despair in a Troubled World, Part 4: Mindful Ingestion, and Meditation on Emotions

 

 

 

What Is Mindful Ingestion? 

            Mindful Ingestion is the fifth of the Five Mindfulness Trainings that make up Right Action in the Eight-fold Path.  It is also sometimes called Mindful Consumption.  To ingest something means to take it into yourself.  So eating and drinking are forms of “taking in” and so is the consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs.  This is ingesting things at the level of our bodies, and it has a profound impact on our well being.  The practice here is to first notice that these things have become part of our life, and then to notice the very real effects they cause.  We can then begin the practice of actively removing more and more of the toxic influences from our lives and finding health enhancing things to replace them.

            For each thing that we are considering ingesting, we ask ourselves:  “Does this promote health, well being, and peace in my body, my consciousness, and in the world at large?”  If the answer is yes, then ingestion is appropriate.  We also need to keep in mind that there are many other forms of ingestion besides bodily ingestion—we also take things into our consciousness through what we see and hear. This would include friendships, families, neighbors, books, movies, television programs, music, conversations, our job environment, news programs and newspapers, magazines, video games, card and board games, various recreational activities, and much more.

            Taking in a lot of news—television news or newspapers—can be very damaging because of the emphasis on conflict, violence, possible future threats, and tragedies.  If I pay close attention, I notice that a large dose of news almost always leaves me discouraged and feeling pessimistic about the state of the world. Yes, we do need to know what is going on in the world.  But we can be selective.  For me, my main source of news is from newspapers that I read online.  My practice here is to scan the stories that are available, but before clicking on a story to open it and read it, I ask myself:  “Do I really need to know this?”  Probably at least ninety percent of the time the answer is “No.”  I also look for stories that have a positive slant to them—so much of what is shown is quite negative.  When I practice in this way, I can have a much healthier relationship with reading news and opinion pieces.

            I have learned that some friendships and other relationships can be highly toxic for me—full of negativity, complaining, and arguing.  When we notice the toxic effect a relationship has on us, we can then notice the things that we ourselves are doing that contribute to the toxicity, and then stop doing them.  If things still don’t change, we can talk about what isn’t working in the relationship with the other person. After that, if the friendship is still unhealthy for us to be in, we may decide to begin to minimize our contact with this person, or even conclude that we do not want any contact whatsoever.  The same is true of movies, work places, music and all the rest of it.  When we practice mindful ingestion in this way, we are helping to curb despair before it can get started.  It all begins with paying careful attention to the effects that the things we ingest have on us. 

            And lastly, even if I am making wise choices about what I am ingesting, there can still be too much of it for it to be healthy. If I’m gorging myself on healthy food, this will not bring me well being and peace.  The same is true of overworking or over exercising.  In addition, being involved with one activity after another with no quiet time in between can be destructive of our sense of well being.  We need to build quiet time into our lives regularly each day so that we are not ingesting too much activity and becoming over-stimulated.        

Making Peace with the Emotions of Despair

            Another good practice is using meditation to make peace with the emotions of despair.  This involves making the emotions of despair—sadness, grief, hopelessness, anxiety, exhaustion—the primary object of attention during sitting meditation.

            We begin meditating by centering the attention on the feeling of the breath for a minute or two, and then turning our attention to the emotions present. I doing this, I want to relax and lean into the emotion present and get curious about it.  Where do I feel despair in the body?  What does it feel like?  What is the thought stream that is present?  Is my mind saying “Climate change is going to destroy everything we have,” or “I hate the heat and it’s going to get a lot worse.”  Just note these kinds of thoughts as mental stories and continue focusing on feeling the emotion in the body.  Remind yourself that “It’s ok, whatever it is, it’s ok for it to be there.  I can feel this without pushing it away or getting caught up in it.”  Just stay with the awareness in the body, accept what is there, and gently be there with the sensations.  And remind yourself that there is nothing wrong with feeling despair.  There is no need to intellectually analyze the causes of your despair—just experience the emotions that are there.

            Remember also that our intention is not to get rid of the emotions being felt, but to make peace with the emotions of despair so that they can just be there and not be some sort of a problem.  All emotions are just sensations in the body, usually accompanied by a particular thought stream that energizes them.  This meditation can also be done as a-ten-seconds-to-one-minute micro-meditation at odd times during the day.

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Our Actions Effect Other People

            The despair I feel will inevitably ripple out and have an effect on the external world. My despair doesn’t just kill my own joy and paralyze myself. Other people will notice my emotions and behavior, and what they see can make it either harder or easier for them to not fall into despair.  In a sense, what I am doing gives others my permission to act similarly: “If Dale has allowed himself to fall into despair and not take positive action, then maybe it’s ok for me to do that, too.” If I fall into despair, the world loses the contribution I might have made and, additionally, the contribution of all the people who I have negatively influenced. 

            The reverse of this is also true—my way of being in the world may inspire and/encourage other people to do something positive: “Dale is taking positive action so he must think it matters—so maybe I should, too.”  Perhaps my action never even occurred to others as being a possible choice for them. But now that they have seen someone behaving this way, making the same choice for themselves becomes a real possibility that they simply were not seeing before. Observers may also notice that people taking positive actions seem happier than people who don’t.  This creates additional incentive to give taking action a try.  

 

End of four part series on despair.  Next topic:“The Deeper Purpose of Buddhist Meditation.”

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