OUTTAKE #7, MIndful Food

In 1936 The New Yorker published Janet Flanner’s three-part profile of a prominent European. Her subject was a celibate, vegetarian, teetotalling nonsmoker, and a very moderate eater who liked vegetables, greens, salads, and apples, was fond of oatmeal, milk, and onion soup, eschewed meat, never touched fish, and renounced macaroni because it was too fattening. He was very modest in his habits, never wore jewelry, and no one ever saw him before he was fully dressed. He was extremely neat, clean, and tidy. In his younger days, before he came to prominence, he shared his modest living quarters with some mice, whose company he enjoyed and whom he used to feed. He was not acquisitive and his two favorite possessions were a couple of police dogs, which he adored. Who was this paragon of moderate habits? His name was Adolph Hitler. According to Flanner her subject “...accepts violence as a detail of state...mercy is not his affair with men, yet he is kind to dumb animals.” In its June 1, 1998 issue, The New Yorker published an article about the Dalai Lama, which was written by Lynda Liu. His Holiness was in New York to lead a teaching for about a hundred Buddhist monks, and Ms. Liu was interested in His Eating Habits. A very upscale vegetarian restaurant had been engaged to cater three luncheons during the Dalai Lama’s visit, and Ms. Liu reported that the restaurant’s staff was very excited about the opportunity. Unfortunately, whoever made the decisions about the type of food to order for the meals neglected to find out what kind of food His Holiness actually eats. During a lunch break, Ms. Liu interviewed two of the Tibetan monks who live at the Dalai Lama’s monastery in Dharamsala, India. Tenzin Thokme told her: “We are not vegetarian. We are flexible.” Fellow monk Salden Kunga was resigned as he contemplated his rice fettucini and brown rice lunch: “If somebody offers you food with good faith, and you don’t take it, how will he feel?” Tenzin said, “This food tastes very good, but I would prefer a little more salt.” Selden then added:”It’s not to my taste, but since somebody offered it to me with honor, I try to like it. I make myself enjoy it. I use my mind to enjoy the food.” The attitude of these monks mirrored the attitude of the Buddha, who begged for his food and ate what was offered to him. Though a vegetarian diet is common in the East Asian Buddhist tradition, vegetarianism never caught on in Tibet where the mountains are very steep and easily eroded, the frigid climate is not conducive to growing much of anything, and there is an almost total shortage of supermarkets and grocery stores. Consequently, most Tibetans live on a diet of barley, the meat and milk from yaks, and a few hardy vegetables. Apparently the Dalai Lama attempted to live on a vegetarian diet for several years, but his health began to suffer and his doctor insisted that he return to eating meat. The Dalai Lama did not eat his box lunch. When he returned to his room at the Waldorf Towers, he ordered a steak, well-done, from room service.