Dieting

This time of year in the Northern Hemisphere triggers dieting in many people. Gym memberships climb. Anticipation of light clothing and bathing suits motivates.

This is a sign of a gluttonous society.

Eating has become a hobby for many and a mindless stuffing of the gut for many others. One problem with overpopulation is the impossibility of providing fresh, healthy food at affordable prices for everyone. Price avocados and you will understand my point.

Whatever your taste, it is important to realize that diet and weight control is simply understood. Physics determine the basic equation:

Calories consumed minus calories expended equal calories used to make body weight, muscle, skin and fat.

Daily balancing of exercise and consumption of food is part of my practice. When eating in relation to activity becomes a habit, weight gain is no longer a problem. Weight loss entails increasing activity while not changing food consumption and gradually reducing it at each feeding.

NOTE: Photo courtesy Peter Petraitis.

Birthright

The evolution of human consciousness has brought a new view to the relationship between parent and child. For thousands of years, children were seen as beholding to their parents (especially fathers) for being brought into human life. Children were seen as and treated as free labor and pawns of their parents to carry on their blood line, surname, and so forth. Many societies condoned infanticide and other forms of murder/brutality by parents upon their offspring.

The new consciousness, which has been fostered by the secular segments of society, against angry protest from the religiously deluded, is based on the concept that parents are responsible for their children's wellbeing and development into independent, evolving adults. More educated parents take this responsibility more seriously. They strive to provide their children with a life which will surpass their own in positive growth and experience.

Practice for those raised in the old model, the model of child as slave, entails in part declaring a birthright to respect and independence. This practice is difficult, especially if one's parents live into old age.

Claiming one's birthright to own one's own life and to be responsible for it is a major and necessary step to personal evolution.

Aging

Aging is a process which is maligned in the neurotic media of developed countries. This has to do with products which are sold by making aging the enemy. Cosmetics, hair dyes, plastic surgery, pharmaceuticals.

This distancing of the mind and awareness from natural aging creates and propagates mental illness, an unhealthy dissonance between reality and self perception. The illusion of youth fosters a sense of agelessness and immortality. These are neurotic defenses against the fear of death.

To approach death in this state of denial is simply stupid. As a hospice nurse, I can attest to the additional agony and suffering this leads to as death inevitably approaches.

Practice is about natural life. It is about being yourself as you learn about yourself. You cannot practice by hiding yourself.

Luck

If there is a god in my universe, its name is Luck. The scientific view on Luck is based in statistics. Some call Luck 'chance' or 'probability'.

This became clear to me recently when a person who is approaching 90 years of age compared her state of relative health to mine. She triumphantly said, "Well, you don't have to tell me anything about health. I am this old and have had less medical problems than you have had." My response was simple. "Don't push your luck," I said.

People without the knowledge of how genetic heredity works tend to be superstitious/religious about life. They often attribute their fortunate health to moral or mystical factors. While healthy living can contribute to longevity, genetic resistance to disease and physical deterioration actually determine longevity. The individual has nothing to do with that genetic heritage.

Luck is fickle. Practice is a way to endure bad luck and to utilize good luck wisely. Realizing in practice that we are all equal in the gamble of life and mortality can bring compassion to practice.

Brimstone

I was watching television coverage of devastation from tornadoes in the Bible Belt today. I wondered what these hypr-religious Southerners think about their vengeful God and their status with Him when these things happened over and over to them. After all, this is the same God they believe will smite homosexuals and anyone else whom they deem unredeemable. Well, having been so smitten themselves, do they even try to put all that together? I guess, if they were that intellectually curious and mature, they wouldn't have believed in that God in the first place.

Perception

An essential element of my practice is the conscious separation of my perception from my concept of reality. Personal perception is deceptive and often unreliable. For example, if you approach a restaurant and see many people on the sidewalk outside, you may perceive the crowd as a line to get into a full restaurant. But, if you test that perception by approaching closer, you may well see beyond the crowd an empty restaurant which hasn't yet opened for business.

Reality, mine and yours, in the daily functional sense is a web of interaction, shared perceptions and activities, based on those perceptions. The better I am at constantly testing my perceptions in situations by looking from different perspectives, by reading, researching and asking questions, the clearer my understanding of what is really happening around me.

In my practice, I am learning that stupidity is based in lack of curiosity. Trusting one's perception to be 'true', without questioning it, is the road to a narrow and unhappy life.