(Minghui.org) I have noticed that some local practitioners have attachments to food. I would like to share my own experience of eliminating this attachment. The attachment I am talking about here is the personal desire to eat a favorite food, not about regular meals. In my own cultivation, I experienced several manifestations of this attachment.
Attachment to Particular Foods
At the beginning of my cultivation, I was able to let go of the attachment to a certain food as soon as I realized that I should not be attached to it. For example, my mother gave everyone a piece of special candy one day, which I found very tasty. I then thought to myself, “I am a cultivator now. Isn't my liking of the candy an attachment? I should not have this attachment.” The next day, my mother gave me another piece of the same candy, but it tasted like wax to me.
Master said in Zhuan Falun,
“When you have indeed progressed to the point where a food-attachment should go, you won’t be able to eat that food, however much you may like it. If you were to eat it, it wouldn’t taste right or how you would expect it to taste.” (The Seventh Talk, Zhuan Falun)
For a period of time, I really liked drinking butter-tea. I could drink it every day and with every meal. One day, the butter-tea suddenly tasted like soy sauce, and I naturally stopped drinking it. I also had a strong affinity to a type of jam. I had many jars of the jam, but the last jar I bought had a musty taste, so I stopped buying it. Another example is when I got lost on my way to a store to buy sesame paste which I liked very much.
I liked fried food in the past. One time, I ate a lot of fried dough and had a stomachache for the entire day. After that, my stomach felt uncomfortable when I saw fried food. My attachment to it was eliminated naturally.
I loved ice cream and cakes. I thought about stopping eating them because it is like an attachment, but I was not sure of it until I was listening to Master's lectures in Guangzhou one time. I decided to take the initiative to not eat these foods anymore, and slowly lost the desire to eat them.
Now when I am with my family, I eat these sweets with them sometimes, but because I no longer have attachments to eating these foods, I don't really find them especially tasty. Of course, this is also a process of cultivation and strengthening one's determination. I have basically let go of the attachment to all food. Even though I have had some relapses, the attachment was not nearly as strong.
The Attachment to Being Picky
I naturally do not eat meat. I have always picked the meat out of my bowl. When I was living with my mother, she didn't understand me. She always put meat in my bowl, thinking that I needed more nutrition. When I picked it out, she got upset. I said to her, “You know I don't eat meat, don't put it in my bowl.” She would say, “What's wrong with eating meat?!”
Master said,
“So they would just eat whatever people gave them and had no business being picky, since they were leading a holy life. And the food that was given to them may have included meat.” (The Seventh Talk, Zhuan Falun)
I realized that refusing to eat certain food was also an attachment. For people who don't eat meat, it is very difficult for them to eat meat, especially fatty meat. But I stopped picking the meat out. I can also now eat other foods, such as pickled vegetables, that I didn't eat before. When I decided that it was an attachment to be eliminated, the food didn't taste as bad either.
Food Attachment Related to Time of Day
Although I don't have attachments to any particular food, I still felt hungry at regular meal times. Even when I was home alone or didn't feel very hungry, I would still find something to eat. Later, I thought it was an attachment.
A fellow practitioner once told me, “When you feel you are hungry, it is not that you are really hungry. There is a hungry entity in your body. It was hungry and wanted to eat.” One day I was home alone and it was close to lunchtime, I started feeling hungry and wanted to find something to eat. When I remembered the words from this practitioner, my hunger suddenly disappeared.
I remembered that I had read about an experiment in the past. Two groups of people with similar backgrounds were put in two rooms. One group stayed in a normal room with windows and curtains that opened. They were allowed to use their cellphones. Another group stayed in a room that had dark curtains, drawn. They could not see sunlight, but there were lamps in the room. There was no clock in the room and people could not have watches or cellphones. The people in the normal room requested food at regular mealtimes. But the people in the room with dark curtains didn't know the time and didn't ask for food for a much longer time. This showed that the feeling of hunger is based on habitual thinking. My understanding is that hunger is related to attachments to food.
Not long ago, I usually felt hungry soon after I ate. I believed that this was another kind of attachment to food. I decided that I would not eat any snacks and only eat at regular mealtimes. As practitioners, we should not have any attachments to food.
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Category: Improving Oneself
