Guided Meditation: Mindful Toast

The overarching objective of all mindfulness meditation is to learn the skill of paying attention to what is happening right here and now, to be fully present during everyday experiences and extract yourself from the dream-like stream of cogitation.


When the toast is ready to eat, look at it as if you had never seen a piece of toast before. Notice the fine structure of the bread still visible around the edges where the spread hasn’t reached, the difference in coloring and texture compared with the crust, the smoothness or runniness of the butter, the glossiness of the marmalade, its contours on the bread, its coloration and constituents. Maybe there are fine strips or chunks of orange rind, tiny air bubbles, flecks of darker color. None of this is beneath your attention.


Try all the fully automated movements of the tongue, jaws, and lips as you chew and finally swallow. Notice the unfolding of all these behaviors as they happen, the almost unstoppable motivation to take another bite, and then another. All your impressions are valid, both the positive and negative. You may discover that you are enjoying the toast a whole lot more than if you’d just wolfed it down without thinking. Or perhaps you find the whole experience slightly disappointing. Maybe the toast is cold and chewy, the marmalade too sweet? There may be bitter, burned bits.


(excerpt from Siddhārtha’s Brain, by James Kingsland, pg 272)