mind body planet

Last time o here I was talking about meditation ad particularly I was focusing on the south Asian forms of buddhist meditation as taught by people like the Dalai Lama. I finished by saying that for me as a former Yoga teacher I tend to look at the physical form of the body and the ways in which it is held to be just as important to the overall effectiveness of the practice as the inner dialogue itself. The degree of subtlety that Buddhists tend to see inwardly with their use of various meditation practices is also reflected in the body as there are countless forms and combinations of bodily postures of asanas which will greatly effect the nature of said inner dialogue and the ability for the practitioner to maintain focus on that line of thought.

For my own practice of meditation I tend to look to Yoga as well as to Zen meditation for it’s use of the pillow. In Zen the meditating person will seat themselves upon what is comply called a mediation pillow. There are plenty of web sites where you can pick up sets of the pillows as well as meditation benches to put things such as tea and literature upon while practicing. These pillows work to correct the effects of gravity upon the spine which will naturally weigh down the practitioner ad cause some discomfort after prolonged practice even in those with strong lower back muscles. Once on a pad like this there are many different seats for the practitioner to use that will all be effective to different degrees in different people. I believe that as all people have a different physical past so will each posture focus energies within the body in different ways. You have to find a combination that works. Some common seats are swastikasana, full lotus, half lotus, quarter lotus, kneeling, or on a chair if you can’t sit in any of these. 

After you have chosen leg positioning the next phase is to align the spine and to bring the upper body in to order and comfort. The buttocks should be thrusted out at the onset and remain there. The stomach should be pulled back inward but not constricted when breathing in to the belly. The spine should be straight ad I always begin by stretching up from my spine through my neck and out of the top of my head. The eyes then should be half closed. If the eyes are left open it allows the mind to wader ad if the eyes are closed then drowsiness will take over pretty quickly. After that there is the choice of the mudra, or hand position. Depending on your background this will be different for everyone. Some believe in pressure points. Others who stick to strict zen will simply settle the hands one on the other in the lap. I choose to do chin mudra mainly as I feel it works best with my body type. 

Go out and try all of this stuff. I think the best thing is to play around and have fun while dancing down the path to whatever truth it is you seek. Otherwise you are going to get pretty unhappy out there.

I wouldn’t dare to preach on here about any kind of a religious affiliation and risk losing any of you loyal readers who like the sorts of things that I discuss. Today I am going to go in to a particular idea that is often refereed to as religion, Buddhism, but I personally see this set of ideas as a philosophy where other religions could easily fit inside. The ideas of Dharma, Kharma, and faith in the Sangha all relate back to the enlightement teachings of Siddhartha Guatma thousands of years ago but since have developed to fit within, and without, our modern world. 

Buddhist meditation is a practice that when taken either as part of a Buddhist training or i conjunction with any other religious ideals, can become an effective tool in spiritual development. Meditation has always been central to Buddhism and considered a key tool in spiritual development. The historical Buddha himself, Buddha Shakyamuni, was said to have achieved enlightenment while meditating under a Bodhi tree and his reception of enlightenment is often likened to the temptation of Jesus upon the cross. There are countless Buddha’s and all of them used meditation to make spiritual progress based upon Gutama’s original teachings. Most forms of Buddhism distinguish between two classes of meditation practices, shamatha and vipassana, both of which are necessary for attaining enlightenment. Shamatha consists of practices aimed at developing the ability to focus the attention single-pointedly; the latter includes practices aimed at developing insight and wisdom through seeing the true nature of reality. The differentiation between the two types of meditation practices is not always clear cut, which is made obvious when studying practices such as anapanasati which could be said to start off as a shamatha practice but that goes through a number of stages and ends up as a vipassana practice.

Of all of the Buddhist practices I have found to be the most effective for my own development is the practice of the loving-kindness meditation. I learned this practice from a book by the Dalai Lama who is translating a much older text of a past Buddhist practitioner. In this exercise the practitioner begins with a shamatha style practice of focusing the attention inwardly on a singular point of thought or focus. Then the student tries to begin with themselves ad bring a totally neutral sense of opinion towards them self. Then they begin moving outwards until they go through all of their friends, their enemies, and then all of those who they already feel neutral about. From here then you begin back at yourself and generate a sense of loving feelings for all those in the same order as you did before. This is meant to be a very long and very vital step toward generating a sense of love and respect for all people which I view as sort of the basis of all religion. This is just the mental side of the activity. I tend to look more at the asana, or posture, for the very first steps and I will discuss asana in relation to spiritual practice a bit next time. 

I don’t know if you have noticed much from me if you have read, but I am typically not much of a girlie type of girl. My whole life doesn’t necessarily function around those stereotypical “girl” things. THat said I want to talk about fashion today because one company that I frequently buy from is not only about style, but they are also very strongly political and environmentally concerned. As with all of my choices, the choice to buy this particular clothing is based on my own willingness to spend more for better and to use my money to represent what I think is important in the world. 

Patagonia is a clothing company specializing in outdoor gear, but they also sell yoga and casual items. Their entire company model is set up around maintaining sustainable production practices with a very limited environmental footprint while at the same time donating and remaining active as members of the conservationist movements around the world. Within the company they actively participate in wiring projects as well as environmental projects such as their big long term project called Free to Roam. This program is essentially and effort to preserve and help areas that are essential to wildlife migration. Through their help and the help of the other groups involved they protect these areas and allow the normal cycles of wildlife to go on as best as possible with the current level of human development in consideration. 

One of their other big projects is the protection and conservation of an area of the world that bears their namesake. The Patagonia region of Chile is a hugely important area of biodiversity within the South American as well s the world context. It has been the longtime plan of the Chilean government to build dams for power across two of the major rivers here. What Patagonia is trying to do in effect is to turn the entire region, which is pretty large, in to a Yellowstone style reserve and park. So far their work has been fruitful in at least keeping the dams from development in any way. But their work continues.

This is just one brad that works to use the money you spend one their products to create a better world for all of us. It’s a big example of how you dollar drives the politics of the world around you. Look for my next post when I will look at another company that is striving to use your dollar to create a better world.

It’s a bit late in the season to be talking about this now but I was wondering what I wanted to talk about today and for inspiration I looked at the fire going in our fireplace here at home. We bought a cord of wood about a month ago and we have been heating our house in this way for the season thus far. Though we have an oil heating system in the basement that kicks on when the temperature gets too low, we have been pretty steady in our efforts to keep our waste down and our house warm and comfortable. Though we have been pretty good about our heating situation, it could be much better than it is for relatively cheap. The only problem is the time it would take to create such a piping system for our house knowing that we will be moving out in the next few years. 

When it comes to heating your place when you are in college this is the common dilemma if you are concerned with keeping bills and waste low. For us the next step would not be to create such a piping system for our house but it would be to find a wood stove that would fit in to our fireplace. The efficiency of regular fireplaces like we have is pretty low. Most of the radiant heat. which is exactly what fireplaces are used for, is released right up the chimney with the smoke and embers. With a wood burning stove you get all of the surface area of the fire right in the house and then you can pipe that around the house if you know how to do it. For people out there with electric or only oil heat, the best thing I would have to say for you is that you really just need to look at your priorities because you may not need to walk around in your underwear all winter if you want to keep the bills low. It may just be sweater weather inside and out. 

If I had it my way though I probably wouldn’t use anything like this if it were my ow house that I have built i the future. I would most predominantly use something like geothermal heat, which is collected from underground pockets of heat like those that fuel hot springs. I would also utilize solar energy for the pumps and if needed, and probably for cathartic reasons, I would have a wood stove just because I love them. Even with sustainability in mind I still have to think of my sanity and there is very few things that stick out in my mind as better for the soul in the winter than sitting by a hot fire. 

Alright so last time I talked a little bit about tofurky and the prospects of everyone eating nothing but vegetarian meals at every holiday from now on, just kidding. I talked about tofurky and the alternatives to the traditional turkey holiday. I did have the feast I was talking about yesterday and it was amazing. We did have our own favorite dishes, all vegetarian, and I made my own homemade tofurkey. When we were eating the dinner we were all talking about various things and somehow the subject fell on the lovely centerpiece that I had made. The question came up as to what seitan is and then it morphed in a discussion over soy. I think that the things we talked about may have just been questions that everyone would like to know the answers to before eating something like this. 

Everyone who is reading this post has surely eaten something with soy in it within the last month. In this society it is impossible to get away from soy oils or lecithin. For my tofurkey I didn’t used soy I simply used seitan which is a form or wheat gluten. That is all it is even though it sounds like it comes from another planet, I know. Though I made mine this way, the commercial loafs will typically use soy instead because it is much cheaper for them to produce with soy on a large scale. Though this may not be true for every brand out there, I think that most brands I have eaten are all soy based and much different than  Seitan based loaves. I personally don’t use soy that much in my diet because of some possible health issues caused by the bean, as well as by the need for diversity in our diets.

The research that has been done on soy is still too young to conclude to effects of the product on humans, but there are some big issues that could be a risk factor. The biggest issue that has been raised over soy is the amount of the isoflavaoids in the beans which are a source of phytoestrogens. These phytoestrogens are just naturally occurring forms of estrogen that can cause some issues when ingested on a large scale. For women especially the chemicals can cause increased risk of breast cancer, though the research is still relatively young. The issues for men seem to be less severe but they still exist. Though I am cautious about my intake of the popular bean, I don’t think we need to be afraid of it, just eat it in moderation like everything else. With soy especially though, we have to check labels because if you look now it is really in most packaged foods out there. 

I am well aware that this holiday is all about the giving of thanks and sharing of good feelings for all. At least that is what I think that it is supposed to be all about. For most though I think when we really think about Thanksgiving as the holiday that it is our first thoughts will fall on food. The food of the Thanksgiving holiday is essential to what we all think the holiday to be about. For most this is the traditional items like Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and warm breads. All of these things surely resonate within the minds of many of us as being essential to the holiday itself. As with all of the seemingly aggregate images of the holiday in this country, there are always exceptions. 

In my family I was raised as a vegetarian and thus our thanksgiving holiday is a little bit different than that traditional image of the holiday that we all know and love. For us the holiday was all about the root vegetables that are typical but our centerpiece was something like a veggie loaf. When I was in high school I suggested that we try something a little bit different and so we went out and bought ourselves a Tofurkey. For any of you that don’t have any idea about what that is, let me give you a little background. A tofurkey is a loaf of seitan, or vegetable protein, that is roasted and served up with bread filling like stuffing. When we got ours we bought it from the store originally from the main brand www.tofurky.com.  Since then though I have been slowly perfecting my ow way of making the alternative dish and this year I actually will be making a feast with some friends since we can’t afford to go home right now i the semester. This dish in particular is something that is quite unique to vegetarians because most of you have probably only ever eaten turkey as the main dish. The recipes aren’t hard to find ad for the most part they are pretty simple. The cool thing about making tofurkey though is that you can still make your traditional stuffing and all but you can switch up the recipe for the outside of the loaf as much as you like or depending on what veggies you have to mix with the Seitan. 

I wouldn’t think that anyone is going to change their tradition over this post but since we still have a couple of days until the holiday, maybe some of us could try something new as a side dish. It’s just a thought.

I know that my last few articles have sort of jumped around a little bit and missed oe big thing that is sort of the key to my love of Organic foods. Organic farming is all based on the ideas of sustainability and on keeping the surrounding soil and ecosystem clean and preserved. For me my experience with it has been fun and interesting, though I prefer biodynamically raised foods, and I think everyone should know where their food comes from. 

The background about the real facts of pesticides is something that sheds a great deal of light on the importance of eating an organic diet.  Pesticides have been documented ad shown to cause some serious issues among the farmers who work with them.  Even when the techniques are done properly and precautions take, issues can arise from even a slight amount of simple exposure. Many phosphate pesticides are known to cause abdominal pains, dizziness, headaches, nausea, vomiting, as well as various skin and eye conditions. Then there are also other studies which have show much more serious problems like respiratory issues, memory loss, cancer, depression, and birth defects. I have never actually been a witness to any of these but the research doesn’t lie. 

One difficult point about pesticides in fruits and vegetables is when it comes to buying things from abroad. I have worked on Organic farms before in this country and the regulations you have to follow are pretty strict and you have to be quite rigid in every step you take ad what equipment is used every day. Each year the farms have to get checked and things have to be cleared by the certification organization so they maintain a very well ru operation. It was also my experience that these farmers were much more passionate about  their final product than just about their business. The issue for the health of the consumer arises because the organic standards in other nations is not the same as they are here. Other nations don’t place as much value on the same scientific research and thus some food enters the U.S. with levels of pesticides that are unacceptable here. 

I don’t want everyone going out now ad running for the hills because that’s not what I am saying is the solution. What I do what you to do though is read ad get yourselves informed because that is the only way anything is going to change. With your knowledge of what isn’t good for you then you can place your dollar and your power where it belongs.

I left off last time talking to you a little bit more in depth about the particulars of the Organic foods we see cropping up, pun intended, all over the grocery store. I’d like to keep that conversation going today ad get back in to in once again. I think that for now what deserves a little bit of attention are some of the particulars that I have experienced that you may not know much about.

I have worked as a farmer in the past at a few different locations. Several of these were Organic farms, some were not certified but could have been if they had the high cost of being certified. Then some of these places were not Organic at all and that was fine at the time for me. So I really have got to see a lot of differing practices when it comes to farming and the biggest issue for me at this point in my life is sustainability. I feel like the issue of whether or not we are poisoning ourselves slowly with pesticides is not nearly as pressing an issue as that of the complete degradation of the planet. If we have no planet then we have no species thus agricultural techniques are a moot point. Of course when we look at from that perspective the Organic farms are protecting the chemical balance of soil because there is no pesticides used. They are also much better at sustaining lots of biodiversity. This is something that conventional farms don’t really even consider. Organic farms are much more about nurturing rather than simply industrializing the growth of life on this planet. The only problem that some say arises from this is that Organic farms require much more land to grow the same amount as the factory farms. This means for some people that if we were to try and sustain the current world population on Organics we would in turn be leading to more destruction of rainforest to grow food. That would, if it actually was the case, would again negate the point of sustainability. 

I’m going to turn to one of my best resources for food information right now and finish today with a quick word about Michael Pollan. He is a world renowned author and scholar who has written a great deal on things like this. He has studied the primary documents ad the facts on the yields ad his view is simply that we could actually increase the world’s food supply by almost one half if we were to switch everything over to Organics. He claims that where the problem lies ow is in the diversity of types of farming. If we were to switch over today then things would have to change in every single ecosystem to accommodate and that would ot be reflexive of the simple industrial growth estimates that every is looking at.

Once again the class time is a callig and I must be gettin on. We’ll keep on with this discussion next time.

I know that in the past I have discussed organic foods and all of the broad topics that fall under that category but I would like to come back around to this idea again. We have once again reached the time of the year when the leaves fall and the temperature makes most agriculture impossible. Farmer’s markets will be closing up shop soon and leaving only winter markets which sell mostly meets and dairy products. This is an especially important time to know what kinds of things there are out there for you to buy when you go to the shelves at the supermarket. Knowing is half the battle and for those of you on a small student’s budget, then knowing where to compromise because of costs is also very important. 

What do we mean when we say Organic food? Organic foods are produced according to certain production standards, meaning they are grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.  Livestock are reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified.  In the U.S. this is something you must watch out for though because there are still modified products out there. Personally I feel that free range meat is better than just organic. If you buy locally then I bet you could find organic and free range from the same producer without having to compromise on that piece of your diet. 

Organic food production is legally regulated. Currently, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan and many other countries require producers to obtain organic certification in order to market food as organic.

Historically, organic farms have been relatively small family-run farms — which is why organic food was once only available in small stores or farmers’ markets. However, since the early 1990s organic food production has had growth rates of around 20% a year, far ahead of the rest of the food industry, in both developed and developing nations. As of April 2008, organic food accounts for 1-2% of food sales worldwide. Future growth is expected to range from 10-50% annually depending on the country.

The benefits to organic farming are not simply for personal health reasons, but these purchases effect the biodiversity of the area and the sustainability of the farmland. The last two are things that traditional factory farms do not consider when laying out their production line. 

I have to go to class for now but we will keep talking about this next time. Stay tuned.

Today I bet that almost everyone reading this had some form of caffeine. Weather it was through consumption of chocolate, coffee, or an energy drink 90% of people in America consumer it every single day. I for one will not deny it because it is the most widely used drug in the world that had absolutely no regulation as to its use in our daily lives. Though the dosages of this chemical compound would have to be quite high to hurt you or even kill you, there are plenty of things to think about when it comes to consumption of the compound. For me the form of it comes daily through my coffee which I make sure is always organic and fair trade, but that does not negate ay problem that may be incurred by its consumption on a daily basis.

Wikipedia:

“Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the beans, leaves, and fruit of some plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants. It is most commonly consumed by humans in infusions extracted from the beans of the coffee plant and the leaves of the tea bush, as well as from various foods and drinks containing products derived from the kola nut. Other sources include yerba mate, guarana berries, and the Yaupon Holly.

In humans, caffeine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant, having the effect of temporarily warding off drowsiness and restoring alertness. Beverages containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, soft drinks and energy drinks enjoy great popularity. Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance, but unlike most others, it is legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions. In North America, 90% of adults consume caffeine daily.”

Most people consume caffeine every day without considering what the effects of it may be. Every study I have found points in on direction on its health risks or benefits and then there is always another study that shows exactly the opposite as fact. Caffeinism is something of a problem for people who consume too much of this helpful energy aid. This condition is similar to any kind of chemical addiction which can result in a strong dependency and various nervous issues from its withdrawal from the body. One big condition that can result from over consumption is sleep disorder which is simply like insomnia but is aided by the dependency on the substance which actually causes the condition. 

There is also the issues of the effects of caffeine on memory. For college students who drink a lot of caffeine you may want to reconsider since much research has shown that lots of jolt can lead to loss of some ability to do broad thinking and that it really only enhances momentary task thought function. In other words, you drink too much you completely destroy the part of you brain that you’re trying to enhance while in school.