The Compassionate Kitchen: Buddhist Practices for Eating with Mindfulness and Gratitude

Eating as a spiritual practice: wisdom from the Buddhist tradition that you can use at home.

Every aspect of our daily activities can be a part of spiritual practice if done with compassion—and this compact guide offers wisdom from the Buddhist tradition on how eating mindfully can nourish the mind as well as the body.

Thubten Chodron, abbess of  Sravasti Abbey in Washington state, shows us that eating and activities related to it—preparation of food, offering and consuming it, and cleaning up afterward—can contribute to awakening and to increased kindness and care toward others. Chodron offers traditional Buddhist teachings and specific practices used at the Abbey, along with advice for taking the principles into our own home in order to make the sharing of food a spiritual intention for anyone. By eating consciously and mindfully—and by including certain rituals—we find ourselves less obsessive about food and can enjoy our meals more.

Venerable Thubten Chodron has been a Buddhist nun since 1977. She is a close student of the Dalai Lama, with whom she has coauthored several books. She is abbess of Sravasti Abbey, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Newport, Washington, and teaches regularly throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.