BMC Newsletter #44

To those who practice meditation and search for wisdom's way

We are what we eat.

Usually at weddings I snack on cheese and dips when I don’t have to elbow anyone out of the way, but at last night’s reception the only food that had no meat was crackers and some cucumbers. I don’t mind when this happens. It’s not the caterer’s fault that she didn’t know I was coming.

But here in Southside Virginia it’s a meat-eaters world, and even restaurants haven’t realized that the non-meat people are growing in number. There are many reasons: religious, health, cost, and spiritual discipline, which is the reason I left meat when I started practicing yoga in 1970. I didn’t know I was going to give up meat, but my yoga teacher said don’t eat meat for a year and then you could do what you want. Meat left without effort because I wanted yoga more than meat.

I didn’t eat meat for five years before a Big Mac sideswiped me. My love affair with meat remained for another ten years before meditation came back, and again the meat left like an ignored houseguest. But this time no teacher told me not to eat meat. The meat just couldn’t stand living in the same body with a meditator.

Explaining why I don’t eat meat is not easy because I don’t know. I loved those beautiful Costco steaks grilled on my huge stainless steel Costco grill—a nice bottle of wine to wash it down with. I was practicing Southside Virginia to the best of my ability. And then in 2005 the practice stopped without even waving goodbye. I can look at meat now, not with repugnance, mind you, but with no reaction and no desire. It just looks like a dead animal.

And here is my explanation (if I have to have one) for not eating meat. Giving up meat is giving up craving—you know, all those desires for a pleasurable sense experience that rise in our minds like my fish when I approach the edge of the pond. If you want to get the hungry fish out of your mind so that your world is still and peaceful and full of joy and light, then you have to get rid of the hungry cravings. But don’t make that a craving—that’s just another fish in your pond.

Practice meditation and the fish will eventually go somewhere else to be fed.

Om Peace. Meditate.

 

 

Thank you,
Ed
Om Peace
10/21/07
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