{"id":859,"date":"2009-10-10T18:06:03","date_gmt":"2009-10-10T18:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html"},"modified":"2009-10-10T18:06:03","modified_gmt":"2009-10-10T18:06:03","slug":"thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html","title":{"rendered":"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GDTNH.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>by Patrick Groneman<\/i><\/p>\n

I too, was lucky enough to get tickets to see a very timely talk by Zen<\/a> Monk Thich Nhat Hanh<\/a> today in New York City.  He spoke of the importance of building peaceful and compassionate communities, just a day after the surprising announcement that Barack Obama<\/a> had won the Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>…for maybe<\/i> doing that in the future,<\/p>\n

Thay (as he is called by his students) had two main messages today, both of which stem from the Buddha’s teaching on the four nutriments<\/a>. (Edible Food, Sense Impressions, Intention, and Consciousness)<\/p>\n

The first main point was that as citizens of the world, we should nourish the peaceful intentions of President Barack Obama.  In the midst of his grand visions of nuclear disarmament, a peaceful middle east, and healthcare for everyone in our country, the President has to put up with a lot of unhealthy aggression and entire organizations that are out to do him in, no matter his effectiveness.  Now more than ever the president needs us to nourish his peaceful intentions, both as a motivation and as a symbol of our being a community of peace.<\/p>\n

The second, and possibly even more radical point he made was that:<\/p>\n

 “Just the practice of mindful eating<\/a> could save the planet<\/i>“.   <\/p>\n


\nMindful eating includes first choosing the right kind of food to eat
\n(low environmental impact and no harm to other beings.)  Then in the
\nmoment of eating you should practice chewing your food 20-30 times per
\nbite and contemplate phrases like “Each morsel of Food is an ambassador
\nfrom the cosmos”, or “This food is a gift of the universe, may I be
\nnourishment to my brothers and sisters.”  Thay invited the entire
\n2,000+ people in the Beacon Theater to eat together, so we could
\npractice this as a group.<\/p>\n

His soft voice was very simple and
\ndirect: “When we put it into our mouth, we know what we are putting
\ninto our mouth” “…just enjoy the piece of carrott. This is a
\nmiracle”. From his point of view, being in intimate connection with our
\nsource of Food is as political an act as organizing a community or
\nmarching on Washington.<\/p>\n

Maybe it is Michelle Obama then who should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for planting an Organic Garden on the White House Lawn<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Patrick Groneman I too, was lucky enough to get tickets to see a very timely talk by Zen Monk Thich Nhat Hanh today in New York City.  He spoke of the importance of building peaceful and compassionate communities, just a day after the surprising announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize…for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interdependent-activism-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully - One City<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully - One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Patrick Groneman I too, was lucky enough to get tickets to see a very timely talk by Zen Monk Thich Nhat Hanh today in New York City.  He spoke of the importance of building peaceful and compassionate communities, just a day after the surprising announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize…for…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"One City\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-10T18:06:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/GDTNH-thumb-250x288-8466.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrick Groneman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully - One City","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully - One City","og_description":"by Patrick Groneman I too, was lucky enough to get tickets to see a very timely talk by Zen Monk Thich Nhat Hanh today in New York City.  He spoke of the importance of building peaceful and compassionate communities, just a day after the surprising announcement that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize…for…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html","og_site_name":"One City","article_published_time":"2009-10-10T18:06:03+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/GDTNH-thumb-250x288-8466.jpg"}],"author":"Patrick Groneman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html","name":"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully - One City","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/GDTNH-thumb-250x288-8466.jpg","datePublished":"2009-10-10T18:06:03+00:00","dateModified":"2009-10-10T18:06:03+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/136b5c274c9bd28f3d1bb2cbac9af09c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/GDTNH-thumb-250x288-8466.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/onecity\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2009\/10\/GDTNH-thumb-250x288-8466.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/2009\/10\/thich-nhat-hanh-day-2-nourish-obama-and-eat-mindfully.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Thich Nhat Hanh Day 2: Nourish Obama and Eat Mindfully"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/","name":"One City","description":"The Interdependence Project","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/136b5c274c9bd28f3d1bb2cbac9af09c","name":"Patrick Groneman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4175e349985414a2bd3d21f673f26f61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/417\/4175e349985414a2bd3d21f673f26f61x96.jpg","caption":"Patrick Groneman"},"description":"Patrick Groneman is the Assistant Director of the Interdependence Project, co-founder of the multi-media collective Wunderkrafthaus, and aspiring virtual cosmonaut. He studied Painting and Video at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and currently lives in Virtual Brooklyn, NY","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/author\/pgroneman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/onecity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}