Eating Chilli

Transcript

I was just thinking about eating chili.

Im talking about literally eating chilis. Jalapeños, habaneros Serrano, pasillo but the spicy ones. Arbol. The spicy ones.

Its kind of funny if you think about it of course in Mexico people love chili. India, Thailand, China. Schezuan Sauce, people love eating chili even though this is not one of the five flavors, its a kind of hack of the brain or taste buds.

Not a taste but in some sense a feeling of pain but combined with tastes becomes pleasureable.

The fact that we are feeling pain we associate it with this boost of serotonin or endorphins. They get released in our brain when we experience pain so we grow to like chili.

And it’s kind of funny because different people have different tolerances of chili and if you eat a bit you don’t notice, especially if you live in Mexico.

Let’s face it if it doesn’t bite it doesn’t have any flavor that’s the attitude of Mexicans.

My colleague Mr battle used to say “You know why people like chili? You bite into it sitting down at the taco stand one of those peppers, you bite into and you are sucked into the present moment, you can’t avoid it.”

That’s part of the reason its so pleasurable. It’s this kind of meditation just like when we did the Yadat at Wat Tham Krabok the cutting medicine as they called it.

We bite into the chili and maybe its not hot enough. Maybe it’s too hot and if it is, oh, that’s pain. Me enchilo, me enchilé… I chilied myself up, I took too much chili.

If it’s not spicy enough maybe its not that interesting. But maybe its the right amount of spicy. Its pleasurable

It’s funny how one thing in different amounts, the same thing and the amounts are quite similar but they produce these independent sensations dependent on the individual.

How strange that when you ride that line between indifference and pain that’s where you find pleasure.

Perhaps, just maybe but quite literally there isn’t much difference between pain and pleasure.

The other day I was meditating on some discomfort I had inside of me from insecurity, fear, doubt and I noticed at a certain point it started to feel good. The insecurity or adverse emotion hadn’t changed but I had changed.

The way I looked at it changed. And maybe so many things in our lives are like that.

We think they’re uncomfortable and they disturb us. They bother us and make us uncomfortable.

But as my monk friend said why does this seem like pain to you?

If we explore it, if we be with those sensations we might find that they transform just by taking on a different perspective just like when we eat chili.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for being observant of your own emotions and your own sensations and have a wonderful day.