A while back I was at a store and ran into an acquaintance from before. She did not look well and had been going through some problems. We were sitting at a table and I was about to have a meal. I noticed the items in her shopping bag. They were basically highly-processed foods that I would never eat.
She knew how I felt about the food and explained that, given her recent difficult situation, she was “allowing herself” to have the foods to make herself feel better.
None of that makes sense to me. If a person knows how to be healthy and has cultivated the skill in their life to stay healthy, how could an activity which is not healthy be something regarded as comforting?
But of course that is the crux of the problem. This person never really acquired the skill to be truly healthy. What they have been doing is only a pretense. In that state of pretense they cycle back and forth between these states of being “healthy” and needing “comfort”, between being good and bad. But being in the whole cycle means there is something wrong. That is not being healthy.
If a person has truly developed the skill in their life they would understand what being healthy is and take pleasure in it. But if they have not completely developed the skill then they don’t yet completely understand what being healthy is so, when they are doing something that is healthy, they don’t really appreciate it. Instead, while they are doing something healthy, they are longing for being unhealthy which they perceive as being more comforting, pleasurable, or happy.
I remember once not long after I became a vegetarian and I was working as a dishwasher in a kitchen at a hospital (wow, long time ago. Nowadays such a job would surely be taken by illegals.) One day I was having my break and sitting there and I overheard one person lamenting to another about how they could never enjoy all these foods again in their life. Apparently they had just been diagnosed with diabetes or something. They were then delineating the list of things to the other person.
It was funny, because none of the things on their list were things that I would have eaten. It shows how the same exact thing can be completely different based on the viewpoint, attitude, understanding, and beliefs of the person.
Without the viewpoint, the insight and wisdom into why we might undertake something which superficially seems to entail undergoing deprivation, sacrifice, or some kind of discomfort, its like suffering.
I just came across a sermon by Buddha where he is explaining this to a king who, along with his large harum of women, went out to visit him and listen to him talk. The king asked Buddha about the fruits of the homeless life. Imagine this wealthy king comes up in this large procession of luxuriously-draped elephants with all these beautiful women, attendants, etc. And he comes and sits by Buddha and Buddha starts talking to him.
Buddha explained to the king that until one understands the value of overcoming the “five hindrances” it is like being a traveller in a desert.
Because we are not seeing with our third eyes we feel deprived when we are trying to practice what we think is good. Buddha speaks a lot about the trap of the senses. As long as one only sees with the eyes, hears with the ears, etc. one is not really seeing the true nature of what is happening.
Thus there is suffering because of attachment and lack of skill.
I think this applies to more than just food. It can apply to sex, to career, to anything. We all feel driven to accomplish and attain certain things, but without seeing with our third eyes we may actually be working against that which we really seek. We may want love but our clinging and ignorance may actually be destructive. So, if we really want love, we have to be strong enough to see with our third eye and possibly endure what seems like discomfort as we hold to our highest belief.
Sadly, the culture we are in is dead wrong in so many ways because it does not impart this kind of strength to people. It does the opposite, praising selfish craving and instant gratification at the expense of developing the wisdom and strength to really bring love to the world.
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