Fingernails and Fast Food

I bit my fingernails from as early as I can remember, until early September 2001. I usually wasn’t conscious of it… only when I looked at my ragged nails, or spat out a “trimming,” was I aware of it at all. I tried many, many times to stop, and never could.

In 2001, just after the Labor Day weekend, I went to a Vipassana Meditation Center for a ten-day-long “intensive” (Intensive is the word for it. It was ten hours of meditation a day, for ten days, and all but part of the last day in silence.) I didn’t really enjoy the experience that much, but midway through, perhaps it was five years ago this very day, I looked at my hands, and realized that I hadn’t bit my nails since the intensive began. I also realized that I was now free forever from my nail-biting habit.

Two nights ago, while I was sitting at my computer, reading some blogs, I suddenly felt a strong rush of energy to my head, and it came with a distinct message, that I should sit zazen immediately. I obeyed, and after a period of sitting, felt I had been given a gift: specifically, that I was now free from my addiction to bad foods.

Some of you know me well enough to know what my diet is like. I’ve struggled with eating decent, healthy food (versus fried food and sweets) for more than two decades. Occasionally, I had some success that soon proved to be all too fleeting. But when I woke up yesterday, the certainty of the gift held: I was free. And my meals showed it. So did my meals today. I find I simply don’t want things that are bad for me anymore.

My teacher told me there actually is a Sanskrit word for this phenomenon (I don’t remember what it is) but it refers to the liberation of a person from negative attachments. It comes not from self-effort, though; it’s an effect of the spirit becoming more aligned with the One.

You can soon expect a leaner Frimster!

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