This was a hard day. I found it really difficult to stay on track and focused during this conference. I attended workshops from amazing people (Sharon Salzberg and Debbie Ford) who both did deep meditations. I kept catching myself falling asleep, which is not my usual meditation behavior. I got only about half as much sleep as I needed, and was feeling rather depleted by the combination of the cleanse and the horrible weather. I am so affected by the cold, which was made worse by driving rain. Oh yeah, they also kept the meeting rooms at the hotel insanely cold. I can't imagine when I will be able to shake this freezing feeling.

I continue to manage the hunger pangs, and have even decreased the total amount of food i've been eating (mostly due to availability really). Today I went for a lovely tomato soup from Westerly again. (Did I mention what a wonderful store it is? Totally jam packed floor to ceiling with stuff, a maze-like assortment of aisles and always crowded. I don't usually like these types of environments, but this one makes me remember the early days of health food stores, where they were still a bit 'crunchy'. Now they look like glammed-out super-centers. And of course, you need a decoder ring and sherpa to actually find the healthy food.) The flavor, texture and temperature of the soup were like nothing I can describe. As close to heaven as I've been in the past week, for sure. Bought some curried garbanzos and brown rice w/ veggies for the train ride home. Actually looking forward to it.

After making my way through the brutal storm trying to find a subway still running, I made it successfully to my train. I took my seat with a big sigh and was looking forward to completely chilling out. Across the aisle I noticed a middle-aged woman sitting on her own, holding a McDonald's bag. Of course I went into automatic judgement - "How could people be so careless with their health? Don't they understand the implications of their choices? Are they just mindless consumers?" Then I noticed that she actually had an interesting energy about her. Nice, calm, not unhealthy really.

Then the real clincher. I just started watching her eat. She would take a single french fry from the bag, hold it lovingly, maybe even admire it for a moment, then with the delicacy of an artist take just the right shmear of ketchup. She would take a small bite, chew and savor. It felt like an eternity until she would even take the second bite.

Of course I started thinking about how I eat french fries - in bunches, with globs of ketchup, with a speed approaching a feeding frenzy. No grace, no delicacy, just face-stuffing. I made myself chuckle, then was mesmerized by my train companion again. I swear it must have taken at least 30 minutes for Zen lady to finish eating her order of small fries. Each moment was beautiful, the experience somewhere between a meditation and a dance. She finished just as gracefully, and sat quietly for the remainder of the journey.

Perhaps it was my mostly dazed state, but I found this absolutely amazing. I had never seen anyone approach fast food in such a way. I started thinking if she lived her whole life with such deliveration, presence and care. Imagine what that would be like? Not only had Zen lady figured out how to make the lowliest meal grand,  she had found the key to health. In my humblest opinion (and certainly validated by this experience) I believe that the foods chosen are secondary to how the food it eaten. In the Western, scientific approach, we have spent all our time studying and learning about the composition of foods, their biochemical effects on the body. It's all about proportions of fat, carbohydrate and protein, number of calories, even the interactions of foods with other foods. Nobody ever talks about the person doing the eating, and the situation in which the food is eaten.

The human body has definite requirements for proper digestion and nutrient assimilation. Stress, speed and distraction aren't anywhere on that list. In fact, they create a situation where digestion stalls or stops. So we eat without getting the nutrition from the food, and the body asks for more food.

Welcome to the state of the western world! But here was this lovely lady, travelling from NYC on a crowded train, creating a perfect ambiance for her digestive system. I couldn't have done it better myself. In fact, when I tried to eat my dinner, I didn't do it nearly as well. The person who had received all my negative judgement had actually turned out to be a finer example of my own teachings. How do you like that?