I just started a mindfulness based stress reduction program (MBSR). It’s a big name for what really amounts to being a class/program that teaches mindfulness meditation practices through formal meditation and yoga. Meditation is something that I’ve always been interested in and am just now beginning to practice formally on a daily basis.

I thought I’d share one of my experiences during the first class.

All of us are sitting in a large circle, on chairs, facing each other. We have just gone through formal introductions when our instructor informs us that we will begin our first mediation. We are told that we should remain quiet for the entire process and follow his guidance with an open mind.

He proceeds to walk around the room holding a small wooden bowl. As he walks around the room, he tells us to use our beginner’s mind and look at what is being put in our hand with ‘newness.’ To imagine that this is the first time we are seeing this object. To just look at it without trying to place any labels or thoughts on what it is.

As he approaches me, I open up my hand and with a small spoon he places three small, shriveled objects in my hand. Immediately, ‘raisin’ enters my head. I just observe this thought and let it pass. What is a raisin? Have I actually really looked at one and truly experienced it?

I slowly place the object between my thumb and index finger, picking it up. I look at it closely, noticing the peaks and valleys that make up its outer surface. It’s purple….or is it? I hold the object up to the light and notice that the colors change. I notice that in its thinnest areas, it is translucent. A color can’t really be assigned to it as it’s a multitude of different colors. Inspecting it closer I see the sugar granules on it, sparkling as the light hits them.

Next, we are told to bring the object to our ear. I roll it around between my thumb and index finger. It’s soft and sticky. I can hear a sort of crinkling noise as I roll it around. Bringing the object to my nose, I smell it. The fragrance goes up my nose and down to my throat. I sit with the fragrance without trying to assign a preference to it (e.g. this smells good, or this smells bad). I simply take it in.

The instructor tells us to bring the object to our mouth and place it on our lower lip. I feel the crevasses and stickiness of the object. Next, I place it on my upper lip and notice the slight variations in what it feels like. It’s at this time that I also become aware of more saliva being produced in my mouth.

I finally put the object into my mouth and slowly roll it around, noticing how it feels inside my mouth. I can sense it literally plumping up in my mouth as it mixes with my saliva. I place it between my back molars and slowly bite down, hearing the sound of my teeth going through it. I bite again, simply listening and tasting. Eventually the object starts dissolving and I swallow it, feeling it go down my throat. Being with it.

I look down at my hand. Two more to go! What will these taste like, sound like, feel like? I go through the entire process two more times with beginner’s mind, taking each one in and experiencing it as if it’s my first time experiencing it.

Lessons Learned

First, it’s amazing to discover the kind of satisfaction that one can attain from eating just one raisin.

The more basic lesson learned is one of mindfulness and how I tend to mindlessly eat in my every day life. I think about when I eat at my desk at work while I am still working. I think about eating entire meals and not truly tasting and experiencing them to their fullest extent. Think about how many times you’ve done this or ate a meal in front of the TV. It’s next to impossible to truly experience, taste and smell what we are eating when our mind is somewhere else.

On a deeper level, I felt a certain sense of connectedness, or wholeness from doing this exercise. Looking at the raisin and understanding the collective effort it took to get it in my hand, right here in this moment. The vine the grape grew on. The soil and water that fed it. The person who took care of it and picked it. The workers at the factory who took part in drying the grape to make it a raisin. The truck driver who transported the raisins. The stock person at the grocery store who put the box on the shelf and finally the instructor himself who purchased the raisins and brought them to this class and led us in this meditation.

We love to think of ourselves as completely separate from the whole…a certain duality or individualism. In reality, it is much more complex than that and much more beautiful.

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. – John Muir

Photo Credit: beta karel