Eating for the sake of eating?

I was reading blog of Thich Nhat Hanh – a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk. It is an irony that I’m an Indian, however this Vietnamese monk introduced me to the Buddha in true sense. I read his book Old Path White Clouds and I came to know the Buddha I know now.

In his blog – The Value of Being Together when I read the point of Happiness, I remembered an incident of my life, sharing here.

Once, I went to a restaurant – Annapoorna Bhojanalya – in Indore with one of my friends Vijay Sharma. It is a rajasthani/Gujrati thali style joint at Jail road in Indore. Its quality of food is very good.

We sat and ordered our thali. I was eating very slowly, not noticing anything. I was enjoying the food. I was completely into the process of eating. Well, may be that is called meditation. After some time (usually time in which a sane person should complete eating his meal) almost every second person was looking at me. I was still eating, slowly and in all likelihood mindfully. On a lighter note, I did not over eat! 🙂

I remember, while going out after the dinner Vijay told me “…what was happening?” I didn’t understand the question. He said everyone was looking at you the way you were eating. I had no idea what that meant. Well, he completed the sentence by saying – “…that was not in any derogatory terms. Something was different than usual while you were there.” This was what was happening there “…we eat as slow as we can so we can enjoy our freedom. . We can listen to the taste in our mouth.” (from Thay’s blog)

Do we eating for the sake of it or we’d do this also completely, in meditation?

Disclaimer– Author is neither Buddhist, nor a seasoned practitioner, just an explorer of the path; not authority on meditation either.