Auto Transcribe/ Please Excuse ErrorsOne day I offered a number of children, a basket filled with tangerines. The basket was passed around and each child took one tangerine and put it in his or her palm. We each looked at our tangerine, and the children were invited to meditate on its origins. They saw that not only their tangerine, but also its mother, the tangerine tree, with some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. They saw petals falling down and the tiny fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued, and the tiny tangerine. Now someone has picked it and the tangerine is here. After seeing this, each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly noticing the mist and the fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or her mouth and have a mindful bite in full awareness of the texture and taste of the fruit and the juice coming out. We ate slowly like that. Tick not. Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss present moment awareness and incorporating Zen principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney, and today's episode is titled buddhism and food soothing. My wife and I. Just got back yesterday evening from a trip up to Nashville, Tennessee and Asheville, North Carolina. We spent a couple days in Tennessee with her sister and we did the tourist stuff. Rode one of those buses around and saw the different music history site. So we went to the Pathon, which is a replica of the Pathon in Greece.  I got to see some really historic locations for country music. We went down Music Row, which is interesting because it's like these houses that pretty much like their original studio. There was a house that someone had bought and then used to start recording music, and then someone else came along and bought a house next door so on, so forth. And you ended up with all. Residential houses starting to be used as studios, so it's interesting. You drive down through there, you're going through a neighborhood, but it's where nationally, worldwide release music is being written and recorded. Asheville, North Carolina. Right now it's October 17th and the trees are at their peak. Most of the trees, desiduous trees, leaves are changing, so there's orange yellow and browns mountains of these trees. It's just so beautiful  Something else that comes along with vacation is I'm out of my normal. Routines and it's like, Oh, do you want to go eat Taco Bell or, Where do you wanna eat today? It's, it's very food centric because you're traveling around and there's all these exciting foods to eat and try. And so we got home yesterday and I'm noticing my heart is feeling like my literal heart and not, some, not in the spiritual sense. My heart, no, my, my literal heart there's a tightness and then like a little bit of a pinching feeling and it's got me a little bit concerned. Starting to think about my diet choices on the trip and also leading up to the trip.   Really got me thinking about diet and food and my relationship to food. My wife and I have been talking about doing Whole 30, so it's been on my mind a bit. I've been reflecting on my relationship to food from a young age , my dad would, sit downstairs on his leather chair with the 49ers game on and he'd have chips and salsa. He'd be dipping a chip in the salsa and popping in his mouth and going, going, going maybe a bag of night. Of course we would sit with him and watch shows and eat chips and salsa. And then my mom, same thing, she would have the TV on and she'd be putting some type of food in her mouth or drinking something. That's, where we were raised , we'd be watching a movie or something and mom, Oh, you want some ice cream? And so you have some ice cream and you're watching tv and being raised that way. And then all through my teenage years pop in the pizza rolls and the microwave and sit down in front of the TV and eat. It was TV and food reflecting on it, it's a  dreamlik