Where does the foundation of a person’s health truly lie?
It lies in eating, sleeping, waking, and elimination — these must be clearly observed. One should eat at proper times, not indiscriminately. What is wholesome, one should consume; what is not, one should refrain from. Eating at regular intervals is the first principle to be firmly established.
On this matter, the Blessed One further advised: “When you are four or five bites away from being full — stop.”
Why stop four or five bites before fullness? Because at that point, in truth, one is already full. Those four or five remaining bites are still making their way from the throat, not yet having fully reached the stomach — they are gradually descending. Therefore, if one drinks half a glass of water, the water will carry the food down to the stomach, and one will then know that one has eaten to just the right measure. That is sufficiency.
However, if one continues eating until one feel completely full, then upon drinking water afterward, one will realize that those four or five extra bites were in excess. That excess becomes a burden upon the intestines and stomach, which must then labor far harder than they ought. Therefore, stopping four or five bites before fullness is a practice that genuinely serves one’s digestive health.
Furthermore, eating at regular times has been a principle of medicine since ancient times. Buddhist monastics have observed this discipline for over two thousand five hundred years — eating at proper times and stopping four or five bites before fullness. This is the general principle.
March 17th, 2020
