Fruit eating exercise

For this in-the-moment exercise, imagine that you’ve just arrived from another planet and have never experienced an orange before.

1. Place an orange on a plate and close your eyes.
2. Set aside all thoughts and preconceptions, open your eyes, and see the fruit as though for the first time. Notice the shape, the size, the color, the texture.
3. As you begin to peel the orange, notice how it feels in your fingers, the contrast between the flesh and the peel, the weight of the fruit in your hand.
4. Slowly raise a piece of the orange to your lips and pause a moment before eating. Notice how it smells before you begin.
5. Open your mouth, bite down, and feel the texture of its soft flesh and the first rush of juice into your mouth.
6. Continue to bite and chew the orange, remaining aware of the play of sensations from moment to moment.

Imagining that this may be the first and last orange you will ever eat, let each moment be fresh and new and complete in itself. Notice how this experience of eating an orange differs from your usual way of eating a piece of fruit.