Jealousy and self-pity
A question that I begin with in my daily meditation practice is, “To what am I attached?”
Attachments come in many forms, some physical, some psychological, and others emotional. In all three categories there are some that can be harmful.
One of the most harmful attachments is that of jealousy, as well as its companion, self-pity. Steeped in the traditional Western view of self-worth and personal value, which rests in one’s accomplishments and notoriety, one’s spiritual growth is left to struggle against disappointments (emotional), destructive socialization (psychological), and harmful indulgences in the material, such as alcohol, food, tobacco, clothes, and style (physical).
Destruction is triggered by an assessment of ourselves as we measure it against the status of others. In the workplace it may be seen in “territorial disputes” among departments and managers. In social circles it is seen in the collection of superior status symbols.
Jealousy’s side effect, self-pity, is a wallowing place, one that gives momentary comfort, though it is short-lived. To arise from the stinky bog of self-pity requires concentration on the shame inducements that put us there. One asks: why did he get the promotion and not I (there must be something wrong with me)?; how can they afford that new Lexus (if I were smart enough with my money, I could have one, too)?; how come everyone laughs at everything he says when he’s such a jerk (if I was more likable, I could have more friends)?
Attachments are notorious destroyers of spiritual growth and practice. They always endanger the spiritual journey. Jesus called them “treasures.” Buddhism speaks of them as “cravings.”
Until the attachments are given their proper attention, not denying them entry into our spiritual journey, but confronting them lucidly and with sustained commitment, the path to spiritual fulfillment is very difficult to traverse. Cleansing the mind through honesty in self-evaluation releases the energy to embrace the present as precious, even though we may have less, fewer, and more bland “whatevers” than anyone else.
Butternut squash soup
I need to hurry and write this down before I forget it.
Tonight, I had this beautiful butternut squash that I wanted to eat, so I did the usual thing and cut it lengthwise, scooped out the seeds and pulp, placed one half face down in a pan with a little water in it, and baked it for 45 minutes.
But, then I had the other half, and I wanted to do something a little creative. I peeled the hard skin off of it and chunked it into about half-inch pieces and tossed it in the blender. 
I added two cups (approximately) of my homemade soy milk, about 1/4 cup of tahini paste, some garlic powder, sea salt, and one teaspoon of hatch chili powder. I blended it into a thin puree and poured it into a pot to make a creamy soup. I had some red bell pepper I needed to use, so I sliced about a quarter of it and tossed it into the mix.
I brought the soup to a simmer, stirring almost constantly to keep it from sticking to the pan, for about 20 minutes. I poured it into a bowl and sprinkled a tiny bit of black pepper on top. At the market today, I had picked up some freshly baked whole wheat pita that was still warm from the oven, so I ate my soup with some very fresh pita.
No pictures, unfortunately, but it was a recipe I’ll try again. It was at least as good as I had hoped it would be when I started imagining it.
And, I still have the baked half squash to eat tomorrow.
Meditative congestion
The path to clarity in meditation practice is congested. Thoughts, emotions, anxieties, they all rush in at once. It is as if the simple act of sitting down to meditate is the starter’s pistol for all those distractions that have been waiting at the starting line for someone to say “go.”
It would be discouraging if it were not for the insight.
Making a “practice” of meditation is habit forming, just like wrestling with self-doubt and worry. But, there is a difference, and this is the significance of doing it, even when it may feel like a waste of time to fight the same old demons day after day.
When sitting down to meditate, you change the controlling mechanism for those demons. You are decisive; you know they are coming, and you put yourself in charge of sorting them out consciously, rather than allowing them to speak for you in your thoughts, words, and actions of the day.
Does it mean, then, that meditation is a time in which you selectively sort through the demons? No, not really. This would be like a child interrupting his father by tugging on his father’s coat when he is trying to read a book. The child eventually wins because he controls his father’s attention.
In meditation, the practitioner takes his seat, begins the conscious exercise of breathing and exhaling, emptying his thoughts without force or focus. As the “child” tugs on the coat, the practitioner acknowledges its presence but focuses no attention on it except to recognize he has company with it.
At the beginning of meditation practice, you may have lots of company. As you separate yourself from them by becoming their observer, rather than their victim, the controlling mechanism changes. This is empowerment.
There is no rush to get there. It is a long, long road. This is called “living.”
Seeking superiority
The path to superiority does not wind through equality to get there.
A person who desires to be superior in mind and health does not concern himself with his rights and deserts; these are marks of men who seek to be like everyone else, just as good, just as bad, just as ignorant, just as wise.
Neither does the seeker of superiority concern himself with his status among others, that is, his superiority. He is not concerned with the final achievement, the recognition of his superiority by others. This is merely a level of equality in which he believes he stands above others.
True superiority is empty of egocentric status; it is a destination whose end is quiet, yet firm, wisdom. It does not depend upon the frailties nor the concerns of others. It is independent.
To walk on the path of equality is thought to be noble. To rule others under the pretense of superiority is thought to be arrogant, even tyrannical.
To concern oneself with walking the path of wisdom, without regard to comparisons to others, while thought to be lacking in social good, leads to what everyone seeks. Few find it because they walk the wrong paths.
Collards
Last year was my first year as a strictly organic gardener. I used only compost from my own collection spots, only dry molasses for leaf feeding, and only hand tools to clear the spot and to keep it free of weeds.
As I start up my spring gardening, as the picture shows, I have some weeds and some trimming to do around the edges, but the soil is healthy after recent rains. I had some collards and lettuce that survived the very mild winter. I have enjoyed several meals of both, and now the collards are about five feet tall and blooming. Seed will be collected soon.
Last weekend, I poked some eggplant seed into the ground, and this morning, I saw one shoot just barely coming out. This morning I used some of the seed I got last year from Seedsaver’s Exchange, some Hutterite beans, and poked them about an inch deep, two inches apart, and I should get a half dozen bean plants started soon.
With the cool days, around 72 degrees, high humidity, and occasional very light rains, the seeds should get an excellent start before the monster thunderstorms hit as we get closer to summer and the expected drought.
Indoors, I have decided to try my hand at sprouting. It’s so easy, very tasty, and the nutrition benefits are exciting. My first batch of mung bean sprouts have created a new addiction. I love the taste, the crunch, the outstanding nutritional value they provide. I’ve been wrapping them in large collard leaves, with fresh tomatoes (market provided), onions, steamed quinoa, and fresh eggplant bits. After all the ingredients are on the leaf, I sprinkle some red pepper sauce, add garlic powder, and some red wine vinegar, and place the wrapped contents inside a whole wheat tortilla. The ingredients vary.
Thunder is rolling in the distance this morning, and we may see some light showers later today. I think I’ll go out on the back porch with a bowl of unshelled peanuts, prop my feet up with a Guinness at my side, and shell a few. The dogs get the ones that drop to the ground, along with a few moments of grace when I am paying attention closely enough to toss them one.
Food solitude
My time in the kitchen has been changing over the past month as I have been experimenting with a variety of new foods. With animal flesh no longer on my menu, plant foods are now the center of attention.
In Erik Marcus’ book I mentioned in yesterday’s post, The Ultimate Vegan Guide, he recommends that vegans set a goal of eating ten different fruits and vegetables per week, at least. This is easy.
Enjoying the paradise of a well-stocked produce market has always been one of the most pleasurable experiences of my life. Walking through the stacks and rows of freshness and color takes me back in time to a place when gardening and raising crops was not just a hobby or a passing interest. It was life-giving.
Last night I went to Central Market and bought two Chinese eggplants, some gorgeous dark green kale, some Russian banana potatoes, one stalk of baby bok choy, some Texas-grown grapefruit the size of bowling balls, and in the bulk section of the store, two pounds of organic quinoa.
For about $25, I loaded up my refrigerator for the rest of the week, having previously made up some brown rice and a huge amount of garbanzo beans for my lunches.
For dinner last night, I cut my fresh eggplant into bite-sized chunks and stir-fried it with kale and baby bok choy. I served it in a bowl with a cup of quinoa, using a fresh garlic dressing/marinade for flavoring. It was incredibly easy to make, quite enjoyable in preparation, and a delicious use of plant foods for a full, and filling, meal. I served it with with a glass of unflavored soy milk.
One of the best things about it is that I was not hungry for a snack later on that evening. Just before bedtime, I had my one drink of the day, my favorite brew, Guinness Draught.
I read to the dogs for about an hour, turned out the lights, and slept an incredible four hours without waking up, a rarity. After reading for about thirty minutes again, I turned off my Kindle and slept another three without waking. At 57 years old, I’ll take that kind of sleep any time.
Vegan conversion
Seldom do I disappear for as long as I did this time. It has been a few weeks of complete immersion in a subject that only two months ago was of no special interest to me: veganism.
So, what was the motivation behind my obsession in the past few weeks?
A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the Food Safety Modernization Act, and I became interested in food production and the security of the world’s food supply. The FSMA doesn’t cover most animal foods — it is the jurisdiction of the USDA — it established some basic measures to ensure food safety in the United States.
Being a lifelong meat-eater, and an on-again and off-again believer in the high protein diets that emphasize weight loss and muscle building, I was aware of a dark veil that hid disgusting information from the public about how animals are raised for food, and how these animals eventually face the horrors of a slaughterhouse. I was perfectly satisfied to leave the veil in place and live out my life in luxurious, meat-eating bliss.
In my decision to study the food safety issue further, I built a book list to get me started. I took it to a local used book store and searched for the titles. Of the five, only one was found: Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I got lucky; it’s probably one of the most important books on the subject of animal cruelty and the food business that I could have found. (Side note: it was in the Cooking section…say, what?)
My reading list suddenly became very long. I plowed through Foer and then Gail A. Eisnitz’s landmark book, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry.
The black veil had been ripped asunder, and while I sat on my brand new over-sized, over-stuffed leather chair, with my two dogs and one cat taking turns in my lap, I was on a speed trip through a horror-ridden valley of cruelty and suffering. More than once, I stopped reading and fought back tears, holding my dear companion animals as close as they would allow me to. I haven’t eaten one bite of animal flesh since.
Let me be clear: I was not making a decision to become a vegetarian, but the pretense under which I had enjoyed all my years of overeating, the black veil, was jerked away like one would see from a prosecution attorney, revealing a piece of evidence while examining a defendant in front of a jury. I was stunned. It was time to deal with the uncomfortable topic of ethics once again, but this time it would be the ethics of one of my most treasured “rights,” one which was previously untouchable.
Knowing my personal history of compulsiveness, I made no declarations, and I made no obvious points in public, or among friends and family, about the cruelty I had read about. Nothing marginalizes an idea more than a zealot whose commitment hasn’t even seen a full month yet, especially when the audience consists of people who know me well.
Asking the questions of how? and why? we could have ever stooped so low as a nation and culture, I found another dozen or so books to read. One particular book, The Protein Myth, by David Gerow Irving, provided much of the content for the how? and why? questions. If killing animals for our pleasure was not enough, add to it the deceit of the medical organizations and government, and you have the elixir for a full conversion to veganism.
It’s too early yet, in light of my compulsiveness in the past, to make a public declaration of my commitment. I have since cut out all dairy and eggs from my diet, and I am quite comfortable with the decision to move further with my growing knowledge of vegan eating and lifestyle. No announcement, which presumes others would even care, but simply a relatively quiet decision to get my feet on solid ground. I have no impulse to turn back; the veil is gone.
Meanwhile, spring is knocking at the door in Texas, and the garden I started last year is lively and jumping for some attention. If ever there was a time to enjoy it and work it, it is now.
(One of the excellent resources I’ve used in the past few weeks is the website vegan.com. Published by Erik Marcus, the website provides new vegans with excellent resources, including a cheap digital version of his book, The Ultimate Vegan Guide.)
Organic gardening is an experience of the spiritual
In the past year I have learned more about gardening than I had ever anticipated. The more I have read and practiced organic gardening, the more I have become interested in a number of other things besides the simple matter of planting, growing, and harvesting vegetables for my kitchen.
It has also become a more essential part of my worldview. I can explain.
Agrarian authors and experts
The best literature and most prolific authorities on organic gardening are also people who espouse greater protection of the environment, the elimination of petroleum-based additives to the earth’s soil, the benefits of healthy eating, and the humane treatment of animals.
While they do not agree across the board on all issues, the ones from whom I’ve learned, generally speaking, have a deeper sense of belonging to the earth and to all her inhabitants.
Fertility of the spirit
Gardening is an experience of the spiritual life. It has an empowering effect on my basic complacency and the casual mindset of my suburban life.
Early last year, when I first started my conversion, I came to love the poetry and writing of Wendell Berry. Here is one of many poems that pushed the new paradigm in my thinking:
LOOK IT OVER
I leave behind even
my walking stick. My knife
is in my pocket, but that
I have forgot. I bring
no car, no cell phone,
no computer, no camera,
no CD player, no fax, no
TV, not even a book. I go
into the woods. I sit on
a log provided at no cost.
It is the earth I’ve come to,
the earth itself, sadly
abused by the stupidity
only humans are capable of
but, as ever, itself. Free.
A bargain! Get it while it lasts.
FDA food safety and FSMA anniversary
There are few things in the United States that are more taken for granted by consumers than the safety of the nation’s food supply. Adults at mid-life and beyond grew up in an era that assumed certain things to be true, one of which was that if a product made it to the grocery shelf, it would not harm the person who eats it.
Over the past several decades this assumption has been challenged often, and it has led to government regulations that are distasteful to some people, but which have been made necessary by recent salmonella and e. coli outbreaks, and by the plausible threat of food terrorism by political enemies of the United States.
FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)
January 4th marked the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s signing of the Food Safety Modernization Act which has a two-fold purpose:
- To prevent food-borne disease from all sources, whether unintentional or intentional;
- To improve detection and response when an outbreak occurs.
(Source: ADT FAQ)
Interview with Don Hsieh
Mr. Don Hsieh, who is the director of commercial and industrial marketing for the food defense service of ADT, says that the FSMA was prompted by the fact that about 1 in 6 Americans get sick with food-borne illnesses annually. Of this number 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die each year from food-borne diseases in the U.S.
Hsieh’s work with ADT encompasses the security of the nation’s food supply. He says that there is an enormous interest among big brand companies to protect their reputations for their investors because the collateral damage from a relatively small incident affects all companies.
It is a common concept that when a particular food item is broadly publicized through the media as being adulterated or compromised there is great hesitancy by consumers to purchase the commodity regardless of who produced and sold it.
The effects of recalls can be economically devastating to large companies that are dependent on safe production and distribution of a relative handful of products.
Hsieh says that it is incumbent upon food producers and distributors to be able to prove their brand is not affected. Surveillance of the chain-of-control from field to table is known to have had positive effects upon the food industry. Hsieh cites an example:
A remote video auditing solution showed one customer that whereas their own in-plant audits showed 100% compliance with their food safety procedures across all their plants, some plants were actually underperforming by over 50%, and over a 3 month period, through employee training using the video clips where they fell short of compliance, they increased average compliance across all of their plants from 85% compliance to over 99.5% compliance on all of their procedures.
The key benefit is the assurance of compliance across all of their plants through remote video auditing versus a false sense of compliance through periodic audits with a plant inspector and a clipboard checklist where the employees know exactly what to do only when they know they are being audited.
FSMA One-Year Progress Report Highlights
The FDA published a one-year progress report in January in which are listed some highlights from the first year of implementation of the FSMA.
Implementation
Among the initial implementation steps, according to the report, the FDA has launched a consumer-friendly search engine for consumers who are interested in keeping tabs on what foods have been subjected to recall. The website also contains links for email notifications about recalls and the status of them.
The FDA also issued guidance to the seafood industry on the hazards of fish production and distribution.
One of the more assertive moves of the first year of implementation is the FDA’s authority to subject foods to detainment if there is reason to believe the food has been adulterated or misbranded. The food is held for up to 30 days. The FDA has begun using this authority.
Working with the Department of Homeland Security, a joint anti-smuggling strategy has been issued. It is believed that such a move will protect the nation from products that could threaten national security.
Training
According to the FDA report, during the first year of implementation, the FDA has participated in more than 350 meetings with the food industry. The groups represented in these meetings came from the entire spectrum of farmers, consumers, public officials, academics, and industry distribution leaders.
Internationally, the FDA’s deputy commissioner traveled to China, Mexico, Canada, and the European Union to talk about the FSMA impact on global food safety.
Education has also been conducted through the extension services of 49 land-grant colleges, and through the FDA’s assistance in establishing the Produce Safety Alliance and the Food Safety Preventive Controls Alliance to aid the small and very small firms work within the confines of the FSMA requirements.
Hsieh explains that the starting point for the FDA’s inspection regime was to establish criteria for the high-risk operations first. When asked about the FDA requirement that facilities be inspected every five years, which is a span that is much too long to retain the confidence of the public, Hsieh said, “Funding is an issue that FDA contends with like everyone else.”
The Four A’s for Brand Protection
Hsieh’s expertise in the industrial sector of the food supply sheds light on the troubling dilemma faced by big brand producers. Brand protection is critical to economics as well as to consumers who depend on the large producers for their food.
Hsieh explains what he calls the “the Four A’s” of protecting the physical supply chain:
- Assessment – determining the level of risk a company is subject to, and recognizing the critical control points along the path from harvest to table;
- Access – security badge technology with advanced integration capabilities to alert companies to compromises in plant security, such as mixing areas, and packaging;
- Alerts – device-triggered technology, incorporating GPS, temperature sensors, vibration sensors, capable of sending alerts when unplanned or unintended events divert a transport;
- Audit – advanced remote video monitoring along the critical path of production and packaging.
What Is Not Covered?
The coverage of the FSMA extends to produce, fish, and the production and dissemination of these products. It does not incorporate the beef, pork, and poultry supply, which fall under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture.
(Author note: I express my gratitude to Mr. Don Hsieh and ADT for the time and follow-up from our phone interview.)
I’ll always love you
One of the most passionate and believable expressions of music was performed by Whitney Houston in this song written by Dolly Parton, “I’ll Always Love You.”
She was a beautiful lady with one of the purest and most powerful voices I’ve ever heard. May she finally rest in peace.