Training Elephants

The astute reader may be wondering how the mindfulness stuff is going as I travel.  Last week in Australia, I was watching my hands and as it turned out, photography for a project meant I was not only able practise being mindful of my hands and their capabilities, but was also able work on accepting the very obvious imprefections of their appearance. I lived with the vulnerability of having well functioning but somewhat crap looking hands!  How evolved of me.This week I am eating mindfully.  It was very easy to do that with meals on a plane.  There is no way you can do more than one thing in those confined spaces.  I mindfully reflected on how nice it was to be flying with an airline that didn't equate no gluten with no taste.Now I am eating with 15 chatting children and I am mindful of different things.  I am mindful of the fact that so much of the delicious food I am eating has been grown right here at Sonrisa-including our rice.  The coriander tastes so wonderful and fresh.  And saag....I miss saag in Australia.  Spinach is not quite the same.  When the children get a tad overexcited at the table, they are given the opportunity to eat mindfully with Bishnu a little away from the group until they are more peaceful.  Nice way of doing things.Nepalis eat with their hands and firmly believe that you don't really taste the food using utensils.  In Birtamod I do the same and on our last tour all the trippers had at least one meal by hand I think.  They commented that it was fine.  You just had to stop thinking about your parents telling you not to play with your food!