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Eating with thankfulness has its benefits
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DEAR Wang Yong,
I very much enjoyed reading your column (August 15), and discussed it with my wife, Karen. While I easily concurred with the injunction to “please don’t take more than you can eat at once” (wisdom that could profit many American restaurants where overly abundant portions are more likely), I had been unaware of the Confucian and Buddhist counsel to refrain from talking while eating.
Karen said she was familiar with it, for once she had been at a Buddhist retreat and this was the meal custom they followed. She explained that observing silence was a sign of respect and also allowed for appropriately focusing on the gift of the food and on honoring those who had provided it.
I appreciate the simple, good beauty of this observance. I have been to places where the offensively loud voices of others have substantially detracted from both the pleasure of the meal and the enjoyment of the company of companions.
Stories from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible offer another perspective. This passage from Isaiah is but one example: “Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty, though you have no money, come!”
And in the New Testament, we not only have many stories about Jesus dining with those others shunned, but even when he was in the house of a Pharisee (pious, extremely rigorous in maintaining rituals) he turned such occasions into teaching moments about inviting and feeding those “who cannot repay you.”
As a boy I was taught that, before beginning any meal, we were to pray over our food, giving thanks for it and for all who provided it (including the plants and creatures from which it was derived).
Although a brief period in the overall meal, it helped orient one’s self to what really mattered about the meal. Then, together with good conversation — filled with humor, stories of the day’s adventures (or misfortunes) — bonds of family or of fellowship were enriched.
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