Abandon Poisonous Food | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

Namaste and a very warm welcome to this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyansa.

My greetings to those who have been regularly tuning into these 30 minutes of spiritual and meditative moments together with me and also greetings to those who are just discovering this stream,

Who are still discovering whether they want to be a part of meditation,

Spirituality,

Bring this into their life or not.

What I'm saying here,

What we are going through,

It does not matter if you are discussing Buddhism or Tantra or Zen or Yoga,

The essence of it is the same and not only the essence of it's the same in these sessions but also it has been the same across centuries,

Across different people who came in and spoke about these topics.

They chose different contexts,

They chose different words,

They chose different methods but the effort was all converging to one point which is to bring you to peace,

To bring you to your true nature and along the way all that is available in a peace,

Silence,

Happiness,

Love,

Compassion,

Along the way take all these valuables and bring this into our life.

Currently we are going through 7 point mind training by Atisha which is a part of Tibetan Buddhist practice called Lojong.

It does not matter whether you are joining this session and you have not seen previous sessions,

Just dive in into the stream which has no beginning,

No end,

It does not matter when you dive in,

When you tune in,

You will have the same flavour,

Different contexts but have the same flavour of silence,

Of awareness.

The sutra for today which Atisha brings in these 7 point mind training,

On point number 6 building a discipline of mind training is abandon poisonous food.

Abandon poisonous food.

Three words,

So simple that you can even overlook them when you hear them,

Nothing insightful appears to be contained in these three words but if you open them up,

If you unfold them,

If you enter into them,

They are life changing.

Not only in the context of meditation but in the context of entire life,

Abandon poisonous food.

When we are discussing food,

It is a very very broad term,

It is a very vast subject.

So we will try to stay as close to the context of meditation but it does have implications on rest of our life but here whenever we will evaluate,

Whenever we will analyse,

We will see that in the light,

In the context of meditation.

Because food can also be evaluated in the context of survival.

Here we are not talking about survival,

We are talking about above survival,

We are talking about growth,

We are talking about spiritual growth,

We are talking about self knowledge.

So what is it that is food when it comes to these different layers of our experiences,

Our survival,

Our growth,

Our spiritual growth,

Our self realisation and what is poison to it?

Whatever I am going to say is very subjective,

So judge this for yourself on your own.

What I am talking about is my view on what is food,

What is poison and for you it may apply,

It may not apply.

But take the inspiration to open this topic up for yourself,

Do not leave this topic of what is food,

What is poisonous food,

What is nourishing food for your own life,

Take this matter in your hands,

Take this matter in your own wisdom because if you leave this on the outside,

On the external,

It will be put into the market place and then you will be told whatever has to be told to sell you this or sell you that in the name of food,

In the name of nutrition,

For physical growth,

Spiritual,

Self realisation,

Any aspect of your life.

If we very broadly classify food into four different types of contents,

The first content is the physical content,

The matter that we ingest,

That we put in our system.

In yoga or in other traditions,

In other concepts,

There have been so many ways of dissecting this topic of food and seeing what is really food,

Is it nourishing,

Is it not nourishing.

I for today's session will very briefly tell you about the yogic version of it which is to classify that physical food into three different categories,

Rajasic,

Tamsic and sattvic.

Rajasic is what gives you momentum,

Gives you this motivation,

Gives you this drive,

Gets this sense of motion in you.

Tamsic on the other hand is creating the inertia,

Is slowing you down,

It's creating a weight in you and somewhere in the middle,

Sattvic,

Which is allowing you to rise above your physicality,

Rise above your psychology,

Rise above whatever is gross and take you from gross to subtle.

This is one very nice concept to explore when it comes to food.

Take a deeper look at it on your own.

The physical food classified by yogic sciences in Ayurveda as rajasic,

Tamsic and sattvic.

In this session,

In the limited time that we have,

We will not go much into detail,

But what I would like to encourage you to feel,

To think,

Is that you always have this knowledge in you as well.

It's not in the yogic sciences,

It's not in the modern sciences,

It's in you.

All this knowledge of what is food is in you.

If it would not be in you,

We will not be here today.

We will not be able to not only survive,

But grow and to rise above our physical and mental nature to our spiritual nature.

We will not be able to do that.

None of us will be able to do that.

Why?

Because this is not coming from outside.

This is all this knowledge is within us.

It has kept us surviving,

Growing and moving forward across ages.

So access that knowledge that is there in you,

That instinct that is there in you,

That intuition that is there in you,

That knowledge,

That awareness,

What is food?

Is it nourishing me or is it something that is pulling me down?

Am I after eating?

Am I feeling joyful?

Or am I feeling dull?

Am I feeling rested?

Or am I feeling restless?

Judge for yourself.

It doesn't take much of experimentation to come to this analysis of what is good for you.

The second is the thought.

Not all things we consume in the name of thought,

Concepts,

Ideas,

Imaginations,

Thoughts from outside world.

We are just consuming day in and day out as if this is nourishing us,

As if this is not impacting us.

So if we talk about the thought and also the third which is the sensory content,

Which is what you see,

What you hear,

What you smell,

What you taste,

What you feel on your skin.

So if you put these three together,

What you see,

What you hear and what you think,

If you put these three together and see how much of that we are consuming completely blindly,

All the information from media,

From different sources,

We are consuming as if it does not impact us.

We are consuming as if we are completely untouched by all this consumption.

When it comes to food,

Physical food,

At least we are seeing that we are putting that food into our mouth with our own hands.

But when it comes to this sensory food,

This thought food,

We have reached to a point where not even choosing this ourselves.

We have as if we have our mouth open and somebody else is just keep on pouring that food inside us,

The thoughts,

The sensory,

The visual,

The audio content in us non-stop.

Not even to your liking,

Not even to what's good for you,

Not even made for you,

But rather what you should be consuming and you are completely blindly consuming all this assuming it has no impact on you.

It is changing your entire psychology.

It is not only having an impact on your psychology,

But also on your physicality,

On your spirituality,

On your entire system.

So much big access we have given to the external world,

Especially to the world of information technology and open our mental mouth to them to let everything pour in all garbage,

Good stuff,

Bad stuff,

Everything pour in without any filter of our own.

Change that if you want any spirituality in life,

If you want any growth,

Any inner peace,

Any happiness,

Joy,

Love in life.

And the last,

Very briefly,

The last type of food which we consume from the outside is the vibrations of people,

The people that we have around us.

You may have noticed when you come across people,

Sometimes you very immediately you sense that there is something very dark about those people.

Even if it is not their fault,

Even if it is not that you are consciously interacting with them,

But just the fact that there are vibrations which are negative,

It can be also positive.

So there are both types of vibrations out there in people,

In environment,

In situations.

So this fourth type of food that we ingest from outside is the vibrational food from people,

From situations,

From environment,

From the context and try to judge whether where you are,

What you are experiencing right now in the time and space where you are,

Is there positive vibration that you are ingesting or there is something that is negative that is a poison for you,

That is taking you off the equilibrium of the rest of your natural state.

What is poison?

Poison is anything,

All these four foods that I described that is taking you off the equilibrium,

Taking your body off the equilibrium,

Taking your mind off the equilibrium,

Taking your emotions off the balance,

Taking your spirit away from your center,

Away from your experience.

All that is poison and Atisha is saying to remain aware so that we can be in judgment of what is poison and not ingest consciously all that poison as food in our system.

What is the antidote?

Emptiness.

Let go.

Surrender.

And in today's meditation session we are going to get into emptiness which is our formless,

Our shapeless,

Our all encompassing space which is completely filled with emptiness,

With nothingness and we will experience that,

We will let go in it and let all what we have consumed,

All the physical,

Mental,

Spiritual,

Vibrational,

Everything that we have ingested in us,

We let that out in this emptiness,

In this pure awareness,

Pure consciousness and rejuvenate all these layers of our existence with emptiness.

Emptiness is healing,

Emptiness is the antidote to poison.

Let us close our eyes.

And as we sit in a restful posture,

Shift awareness inwards towards your inner space.

Let us close our eyes.

In your inner space,

There is no separation between the body and the mind.

There is one inner space.

As your awareness settles,

Rests in your inner space,

Let's close our eyes.

In this inner space,

Choose emptiness over matter.

Become aware of inner emptiness.

Let us close our eyes.

Let go of the body.

Be one with emptiness.

Let us close our eyes.

With every breath,

With every exhalation,

Let go of all contents.

Let go of all the elements of your body,

Of your mind,

And shift awareness to the emptiness.

Let us close our eyes.

Let us close our eyes.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.

Let go of all the elements of your body.