December 1st is Giving Tuesday. Please give generously to organizations that benefit animals in need, such as mercyforanimals.org.
May all beings be well and happy!
Monday, November 30, 2015
Giving Tuesday
December 1st is Giving Tuesday. Please give generously to organizations that benefit animals in need, such as mercyforanimals.org.
May all beings be well and happy!
The Heart Is Noble
I want to again encourage you to obtain and read The Heart is Noble - Changing the World From the Inside Out by His Holiness the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje.
Consider this recommendation my holiday gift to you! This beautiful book could serve as a wonderful gift for your spiritually inclined loved ones, as well.
http://www.shambhala.com/the-heart-is-noble.html
May all beings be well and happy!
Consider this recommendation my holiday gift to you! This beautiful book could serve as a wonderful gift for your spiritually inclined loved ones, as well.
http://www.shambhala.com/the-heart-is-noble.html
May all beings be well and happy!
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Change Your Diet, Change the Climate!
[Excerpt]: "When the international climate negotiators assembling in Paris next week sit down for dinner, they might reflect on the climate impact of their meal.
May all beings be happy and well.
"Indeed, in the midst of a growing - and very encouraging - global conversation on how to address the common threat of climate change, far too little attention has been paid at the highest levels to the impact of our diets and farming practices on planet-warming emissions.
"To put it another way: if we are serious about changing the climate, we need to get serious about changing agriculture."
May all beings be happy and well.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Emotional, Mental & Spiritual Benefits
Aside from the physical benefits I have enjoyed since becoming vegan (described below under "Vegan Health"), I am discovering surprising benefits, emotional, spiritual and mental.
Emotional and spiritual, because my emotions are more centered around compassion, which is the natural orientation of the spirit. I feel greater harmony between the two. No surprise here. I expected that.
What I find surprising are the mental benefits rising in the form of greater clarity, ease and efficiency of thinking, particularly with synthesizing and connecting ideas and thoughts and following lines of reasoning.
And here's why.
While I was vegetarian, I operated in ethical denial to the extent that my motivation in being vegetarian was feeling the suffering of animals and wanting to bring relief to them. At the same time, I knew that animals producing diary products within our industrial animal operations were also experiencing great suffering from their involuntary servitude.
I was operating with some level of denial. Going vegan was the only way out of this dilemma, at least for me.
What I can see now is that thoughts and ideas were routinely short-circuited then, because those lines of thought would run up against impenetrable obstacles created and necessitated by that denial. I would be thwarted in trying to think an ethical problem through, because I would run up against my own ethical contradictions, and so that line of thought would self-destruct right then and there. There were places in my mind and conclusions I might reach that I did not want to look at. End of exploration.
By contrast, I am now discovering a surprisingly greater level of mental continuity. I am much more easily able to connect the dots and understand what used to seem like conflicting or contradictory ideas, as well as what felt like intellectual dead-ends. Finding that one thought more easily leads to another, I am more able to synthesize otherwise apparently disparate thoughts into a more cohesive whole.
The extent to which this may increase my capacity to be of benefit - which is the only important matter - may be revealed over time.
May all beings be well and happy!
Emotional and spiritual, because my emotions are more centered around compassion, which is the natural orientation of the spirit. I feel greater harmony between the two. No surprise here. I expected that.
What I find surprising are the mental benefits rising in the form of greater clarity, ease and efficiency of thinking, particularly with synthesizing and connecting ideas and thoughts and following lines of reasoning.
And here's why.
While I was vegetarian, I operated in ethical denial to the extent that my motivation in being vegetarian was feeling the suffering of animals and wanting to bring relief to them. At the same time, I knew that animals producing diary products within our industrial animal operations were also experiencing great suffering from their involuntary servitude.
I was operating with some level of denial. Going vegan was the only way out of this dilemma, at least for me.
What I can see now is that thoughts and ideas were routinely short-circuited then, because those lines of thought would run up against impenetrable obstacles created and necessitated by that denial. I would be thwarted in trying to think an ethical problem through, because I would run up against my own ethical contradictions, and so that line of thought would self-destruct right then and there. There were places in my mind and conclusions I might reach that I did not want to look at. End of exploration.
By contrast, I am now discovering a surprisingly greater level of mental continuity. I am much more easily able to connect the dots and understand what used to seem like conflicting or contradictory ideas, as well as what felt like intellectual dead-ends. Finding that one thought more easily leads to another, I am more able to synthesize otherwise apparently disparate thoughts into a more cohesive whole.
The extent to which this may increase my capacity to be of benefit - which is the only important matter - may be revealed over time.
May all beings be well and happy!
Please Sign to Help Elephants
Wild elephants are disappearing right before eyes. Every single day, poachers kill 96 elephants and steal their tusks worth thousands as part of the $10 billion wildlife trafficking industry that goes into the pockets of some of the most violent terrorist militias in Africa.This translates to an elephant dying every 15 minutes. At this rate, none will be left roaming in 2025.
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Happy Thanksgiving from Best Friends!
From the staff and animals of the Best Friends Sanctuary and their adoption centers in Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, thanks for providing a lifesaving second chance to homeless pets around the country.
May all beings be happy and free!
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Vegan for Health?
My decision to go vegan had nothing to do with health. Well, not my health, but the health of my animal sisters and brothers. I continue to try to align my behavior with my prayers that all beings may be well, free and happy. The dietary change marked a natural - and somewhat overdue - extension of my 20+ years as an "ethical vegetarian." I simply reached the point where giving up all animal foods was no longer optional. Responding to clear inner guidance, it became mandatory for me to live in an ethically consistent way, at least with regard to my dietary choices.
I feel this is necessary so long as animals are mistreated and while it is not in any way necessary that I eat them. I have no judgment of others around the killing and eating of animals who are revered, respected, and where it is strictly necessary for survival.
Giving up meat in the early '90s was no sacrifice at all; I love - and increasingly revere - living animals and lost all desire to eat them. I have never once missed the taste of meat and have instead only felt grateful for the many alternatives available, especially the wide range of Asian foods.
However, I continued to feel reluctant to give up cheese, butter, ghee, ice-cream and eggs and could hardly imagine how I could, given my love for these foods and also their ubiquity in my regular diet.
I am now learning one very physical meaning of "renunciation." Giving up these delicious treats is proving a genuine practice, one that feels so good to undertake and also challenging. Just negotiating how to eat with the family at holidays requires careful attention.
But, along with this change has come some unexpected and really delightful surprises for my physical health - icing on the cake over the more important benefits of being vegan.
I regularly give blood. One of the benefits I derive from giving blood is the health reporting that follows each donation.
Several months ago - while still eating dairy - I was kicked off of the donor roles because of a low blood iron reading; I would not be able to donate for 6 months.
In the interim, I happened to give up dairy and eggs and wondered how that might affect my iron and general blood chemistry. Along with low hemoglobin, my cholesterol had plateaued at the threshold of danger, remaining there for about a year after gradual, steady increases over the past three years. Additionally, my weight had increased over the past 10 years or so, something I had never experienced at any time in my life before that period!
Two months into being vegan, with great interest I accepted the invitation to again give blood, especially looking forward to the lab results I would obtain. When the phlebotomist took my iron sample and found it over 15, he remarked, "Wow! What accounts for your excellent iron reading? Do you take supplements?" No. I'm vegan, so maybe I eat more leafy greens.
A week later, I received my cholesterol report: it had plummeted from 240 to below 215, back in the healthy range and below any previous reading! And, since then, I have returned to my normal body weight - and with no additional exercise!
Overall, I feel much stronger and healthier, with very few digestive issues and almost no headaches, where those had become almost chronic concerns.
I take these health improvements as one example of how acting for the benefit and happiness of others (in this case, animals) also brings many benefits to our own lives.
May all beings be well and happy!
I feel this is necessary so long as animals are mistreated and while it is not in any way necessary that I eat them. I have no judgment of others around the killing and eating of animals who are revered, respected, and where it is strictly necessary for survival.
Giving up meat in the early '90s was no sacrifice at all; I love - and increasingly revere - living animals and lost all desire to eat them. I have never once missed the taste of meat and have instead only felt grateful for the many alternatives available, especially the wide range of Asian foods.
However, I continued to feel reluctant to give up cheese, butter, ghee, ice-cream and eggs and could hardly imagine how I could, given my love for these foods and also their ubiquity in my regular diet.
I am now learning one very physical meaning of "renunciation." Giving up these delicious treats is proving a genuine practice, one that feels so good to undertake and also challenging. Just negotiating how to eat with the family at holidays requires careful attention.
But, along with this change has come some unexpected and really delightful surprises for my physical health - icing on the cake over the more important benefits of being vegan.
I regularly give blood. One of the benefits I derive from giving blood is the health reporting that follows each donation.
Several months ago - while still eating dairy - I was kicked off of the donor roles because of a low blood iron reading; I would not be able to donate for 6 months.
In the interim, I happened to give up dairy and eggs and wondered how that might affect my iron and general blood chemistry. Along with low hemoglobin, my cholesterol had plateaued at the threshold of danger, remaining there for about a year after gradual, steady increases over the past three years. Additionally, my weight had increased over the past 10 years or so, something I had never experienced at any time in my life before that period!
Two months into being vegan, with great interest I accepted the invitation to again give blood, especially looking forward to the lab results I would obtain. When the phlebotomist took my iron sample and found it over 15, he remarked, "Wow! What accounts for your excellent iron reading? Do you take supplements?" No. I'm vegan, so maybe I eat more leafy greens.
A week later, I received my cholesterol report: it had plummeted from 240 to below 215, back in the healthy range and below any previous reading! And, since then, I have returned to my normal body weight - and with no additional exercise!
Overall, I feel much stronger and healthier, with very few digestive issues and almost no headaches, where those had become almost chronic concerns.
I take these health improvements as one example of how acting for the benefit and happiness of others (in this case, animals) also brings many benefits to our own lives.
May all beings be well and happy!
News Report: Pigeons Spot Cancer
From the BBC: Pigeons identify breast cancer 'as well as humans'
Pigeons, with training, did just as well as humans in a study testing their ability to distinguish cancerous from healthy breast tissue samples. The pigeons were able to generalize what they learned, correctly spotting tumors in unseen microscope images.
"Pigeons can distinguish identities and emotional expressions on human faces, letters of the alphabet, misshapen pharmaceutical capsules, and even paintings by Monet vs Picasso."
Read more....
May all beings be well and happy!
Pigeons, with training, did just as well as humans in a study testing their ability to distinguish cancerous from healthy breast tissue samples. The pigeons were able to generalize what they learned, correctly spotting tumors in unseen microscope images.
"Pigeons can distinguish identities and emotional expressions on human faces, letters of the alphabet, misshapen pharmaceutical capsules, and even paintings by Monet vs Picasso."
Read more....
May all beings be well and happy!
Saturday, November 21, 2015
More Vegan Humor and Our Vegan Agenda
Today, I told my brother we had gone vegan, and he told me this joke:
Q: How can you tell if someone is vegan?
A: You don't have to. They will tell you.
It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves! My life partner and I regularly and unashamedly joke about our "vegan agenda."
One way it plays is revealed in how we now approach dining out: rather than simply going to restaurants we know have lots of vegan options already, we stop in to other dining establishments, explain that we are vegan and ask what they can serve us.
Most restaurateurs kindly try to help by taking us on a tour of their menus, suggesting variations to the non-vegan or vegetarian selections. As the vegan diet is becoming more popular, we delight to discover more and more options are available to us.
When we found an online list of vegan fast food, I was happy to see that Taco Bell - for all of its many other shortcomings - does not use lard in their beans or tortillas, and many of their menu items can be made vegan.
That is, if the one taking the order understands what "vegan" means.
At my latest visit to the drive-through, I explained I wanted a "vegetarian Cantina Burrito made vegan" and began to list the things they would hold. "So, that means, no sour cream..."
The cashier interjected: "Do you want cheese?"
We have a long way to go as a culture at so many levels.
Q: How can you tell if someone is vegan?
A: You don't have to. They will tell you.
It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves! My life partner and I regularly and unashamedly joke about our "vegan agenda."
One way it plays is revealed in how we now approach dining out: rather than simply going to restaurants we know have lots of vegan options already, we stop in to other dining establishments, explain that we are vegan and ask what they can serve us.
Most restaurateurs kindly try to help by taking us on a tour of their menus, suggesting variations to the non-vegan or vegetarian selections. As the vegan diet is becoming more popular, we delight to discover more and more options are available to us.
When we found an online list of vegan fast food, I was happy to see that Taco Bell - for all of its many other shortcomings - does not use lard in their beans or tortillas, and many of their menu items can be made vegan.
That is, if the one taking the order understands what "vegan" means.
At my latest visit to the drive-through, I explained I wanted a "vegetarian Cantina Burrito made vegan" and began to list the things they would hold. "So, that means, no sour cream..."
The cashier interjected: "Do you want cheese?"
We have a long way to go as a culture at so many levels.
Some Really Good News!
On Nov. 16, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that the agency will end the last vestiges of federally supported chimpanzee experimentation.
May all beings be happy and free!
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Looking Down at Animals
Any who carefully look can see that it is our anthropocentric tendency that allows us to regard humans as fully "superior" to other lifeforms on Earth, especially despite the fact that it is only we who are now threatening all living beings on our planet in addition to the many whole species our activities are already wiping out each day.
If we do want to see ourselves as positively different, then we might look toward our humanity - our capacity for genuinely humane behavior - to distinguish us from the rest of our animal sisters and brothers, whether or not that behavior is actually exclusive to human consciousness.
If we feel that our humanity is what makes us better, then along with this capacity, we are responsible for actualizing humane behavior, having the opportunity to express our humanity as compassion toward other living beings.
Whether or not a lioness may feel compassion, she must - in following the laws of her own body and ecosystem - kill and eat other living beings.
But, we do not. We might also distinguish ourselves in our ability to give birth to technologies and means by which we no longer need to kill animals to live healthy lives.
Modern, affluent humans have not only the technology to provide for bodily sustenance with an increasingly vast array of food choices, we also have the responsibility to make ethical decisions about what we eat, based upon our humane compassion.
If we wish to shore up our sense of place and purpose on Earth by placing ourselves at the top of some hierarchy of lifeforms, then might we do better by demonstrating that superiority, acting from that position, by behaving more ethically and refraining from any unnecessary enslavement and death of animals to satisfy our baser desires?
The actuality of our own humanity may depend upon it.
May all beings be happy and well.
If we do want to see ourselves as positively different, then we might look toward our humanity - our capacity for genuinely humane behavior - to distinguish us from the rest of our animal sisters and brothers, whether or not that behavior is actually exclusive to human consciousness.
If we feel that our humanity is what makes us better, then along with this capacity, we are responsible for actualizing humane behavior, having the opportunity to express our humanity as compassion toward other living beings.
Whether or not a lioness may feel compassion, she must - in following the laws of her own body and ecosystem - kill and eat other living beings.
But, we do not. We might also distinguish ourselves in our ability to give birth to technologies and means by which we no longer need to kill animals to live healthy lives.
Modern, affluent humans have not only the technology to provide for bodily sustenance with an increasingly vast array of food choices, we also have the responsibility to make ethical decisions about what we eat, based upon our humane compassion.
If we wish to shore up our sense of place and purpose on Earth by placing ourselves at the top of some hierarchy of lifeforms, then might we do better by demonstrating that superiority, acting from that position, by behaving more ethically and refraining from any unnecessary enslavement and death of animals to satisfy our baser desires?
The actuality of our own humanity may depend upon it.
May all beings be happy and well.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Got Milk? No Thanks!
A growing body of research has found that, for grown-ups, consuming too much dairy can actually be harmful. Read more...
May all beings be well, happy and free.
May all beings be well, happy and free.
Do You Know the Biggest Global Challenge?
Please watch this quick, 1.5 minute video to learn what the most pressing challenges our bio-sphere (that's you and me and all living beings) faces today.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be well.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Honoring Dogs as Sacred - Kukur Tihar
In Nepal at Tihar (equivalent of Hindu Diwali "festival of Light"), the second of three days is devoted to honoring dogs as the sacred beings and friends they are. Dogs are given sweet treats and decorated with kum-kum and flower garlands. (Day one honors crows, and day three, cows.) This amusing video explains!
Fortunately, many of us honor our dogs everyday of the year!
May all beings be happy!
All good blessings for Kukur Tihar ("Dog Diwali")!
Fortunately, many of us honor our dogs everyday of the year!
May all beings be happy!
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Your Support
Recognizing the sacredness, the preciousness and the importance of each and every being, taking action following our aspirations and prayers that all beings may be happy and free, please do what you can to help our animal friends, such as contributing to the Humane Society as part of their endcrueltynow.org campaign, or to the very effective bestfriends.org, founded by "spiritual seekers" who saw that their dharma was to help alleviate the suffering of animals and raise awareness of their awareness.
Thank you.
May all beings be happy and free.
Thank you.
May all beings be happy and free.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)