Being Nobody, Going Nowhere (Book Report)

Just finished this book by Ayya Khema.

I love the title of this book. Don't know when I first purchased and read it, but cracked it open again here just recently. I've often been told I'm a nobody, and that I'm going nowhere! Seems like my kinda book. Ayya is a Buddhist Nun of the first degree. She brings Buddhism 101 to this book in a thorough, direct way. She seems strict to me, I kinda like that! I like returning to the basics now and again, always helpful. She's like, eat your vegetables, they're good for you! It's always a good thing, talking about the teachings directly. In her chapters on meditation she does a wonderful job of reminding us why we meditate. And from it I get that it's the best way to train and calm your mind, which is the source of suffering, dukka. It's practice. Getting to know yourself. Getting to know how your mind works, so that you can use it skillfully. I meditate on my easy chair, kind of a cheater. Here's a couple of excerpts I found interesting: Survival is a lost cause, it doesn't need our effort. There is a lot to learn in this realm and that is its purpose. It is a continual adult education class; that is what this whole human realm is designed for. There is a strong feeling in each one of us that this body is mine. Yet there's very little one can do with it, except constantly comply with its demands. Put it to bed when it's tired, get it to the dinner table when it's hungry, give it something to drink when it's thirsty, make it move when it's uncomfortable. Desire is always suffering. Again, this is a great primer on some of the fundamentals of Buddhist Dharma (she spells it Dhamma). Here's some of the Table of Contents: Meditation Calm and Insight Four Friends (Loving-Kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy) Equanimity Five Hindrances (Sensual Desire, Ill Will, Sloth and Torpor, Restlessness and Worry, Skeptical Doubt) Four Kinds of Happiness The Five Aggregates (The Body, Feeling, Perceptions, Mental Formations, Sense Consciousness) Ten Virtues The four Nobel Truths The Noble Eightfold Path She treats them all very thoroughly and firmly. Reminds me of the idea of No Time to Loose. I really enjoyed the meditation theme that ran throughout the book. Something I can always use a bit more help with. It's sinking in, cumulatively, as I sit more. One of the things I just can't help but find funny about Buddhism, is that pretty much everything is numbered. You see that table of contents! It got me to thinking how much everything is numbered. For example: 1 is the loneliest number 2's Company 2 Wheel Drive 2 Men and a Truck 3rd Time's a Charm 3 Kings (Wise men) 3 Stooges 4 Noble Truths 4 Seasons 4 Directions The 4 Agreements The 5 Precepts 5 senses 5 Hindrances 6 foot under 6 Flags over Texas Motel 6 7 Factors of Enlightenment 7 Habits Snow White & The 7 Dwarfs 7-11 The 7 Wonders Super 8 Motel The Whole 9 Yards Nix Nine Frankenstein (OK, that's a cheat) The 10th Insight The Big 10 The 10 Commandments Top 10 September 11th, 12 Steps 12 Days of Christmas 12 Disciples 12 Steps to Curing eMail Addiction 38 Blessing 100th Monkey 10,000 Things

oops, somebody stop me!

Usery Mountain - Take 2

Beautiful Arizona.

We went back over to Usery Mountain today. A bit stronger, a bit further. A bit younger. We had our friend Carey with us. We were hoping to do the full 7 miles, but since it seemed like it might be too far, Cathy suggested that we go half way and then come back. It seemed to work!

Friday Nite Dinner

Been mostly under the weather for more than a week now. Tonite felt good enough to put together some food, at home. Another chance to get after those foods that are on the list of 100% power for a vegetarian!

The Beans:

Cooked down the middle. Add 1 whole chopped onion, 4 clove of garlic, honey, cumin, can of herdez salsa, salt. These are peruano beans, something my Mom and Dad turned me onto while they were living in Mexico.

The quinoa:

Quiona, a super-crop because of its protein content. Here, I cooked one cup, in two cups of vegetable broth. Added diced carrots, celery, juice of one lemon, and some diced peanuts. Quinoa needs love, like other grains and rice.

The Swiss Chard:

Swiss Chard, one of the world's most healthiest foods. Here I used my cast iron skillet to get some extra iron. Olive oil to saute onion, celery, carrot, and the stems of the chard. Then, about 1/4 cup of water with the "choppped" chard to cook. I throw some tamari on this too, for some extra love. Chard is one of those foods you gotta throw some love at. I wash first, in a "bath" like I do other greens, with a little salt in the water. This is just one bunch, and we ate all of it tonite. My favorite part. Oh my goodness. We're on track tonite. One day I'll get good at presentation, and photos to boot!

Feelings, who knew?

Last nite in class, we were discussing how to build a helping relationship. It was a great topic, laying down more and more information about how to be there for folks in meaningful, caring ways. In the handout is a picture of a Feeling Wheel. Now this little chart has a total of 78 feelings identified! Imagine my surprise. For years I've felt (there's that word again) that I have a pretty broad, full range of feelings, but my number is more like 4. Namely tired, thirsty, hungry and horny. And I guess you could add like and dislike to these. For example, I don't like being thirsty, and I do like drinking when I'm thirsty. Well, you don't need me to go on with the other 3. Once again, it all starts to make sense, this hole education thing! Talk about learning something new every day! I feel really good about this. Sorry this image is too small for you to see all 78 feelings, but you can kind of get the point. I stole this image from a Psychotherapist's website. Hope you don't mind Josephine.

Vegetable Soup!

The market sells organic, fat-free vegetable broths. I'm home free! For about the past 2 months I've been making a vegetable soup a couple nites a week. Part of my thinner next year program. I used to make this huge batch and some of it would go to waste. Now, I'm onto smaller, easier fixins.... I just get some fresh veggies (e.g. green beans, cabbage, shallot, greens), in small amounts. Add them to the mix based upon their softness and we're into zero-point love a couple times a day! It's great, every batch is different and lovely! I'm thinking about whole-grain pasta in this soon! Tonite's recipe: Tbsp+ of Olive Oil 1 onion chopped 5 cloves garlic diced. Probably about 5 carrots sliced thin. Probably about 5 celery stocks sliced thin. Salt/Pepper 1.5 boxes of broth (each are 32 ounces). Plus about .5 more box of water. 1/2 can Pato Sauce (hot sauce). 1/4 c. Whole Grain Rice 1/2 butternut squash chopped 1 beet chopped 5 very small potatoes chopped 3 leeks sliced 1 c. sliced fresh sliced mushrooms I always start with oil, then the carrots, onions, celery and garlic. Get the carrots almost tender. I do the salt/pepper now. Then add the broth and get to a boil, or very close. I taste the broth now and add more salt if I want it. Next up, add the "hard" veggies. Tonite that's potatoes, beets, squash. This is my first nite for rice, since it's whole/long grain, I add it now. Here's a shot of it in the Pot: Then, I'm gonna let this go a while and add the soft stuff. Tonite that's the leeks and mushrooms. Here's how they look in my colandar: Zero fat, 100% vitamins, 100% taste! And not a single animal had to die!

Save the Planet

In the latest issue of Vegetarian Times there are two interesting bits of information I thought I would pass along: 28 billion gallons of water used yearly when making all the paper for junk mail. Recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water. I went to this site and registered in an attempt to minimize the amount of junk mail I get. I can't recommend it, since I don't know if it's really gonna work or not, but thought I would try. It's official: Eating beef is even worse for the environment than the greenhouse gases emitted from cars, buses and trucks. According to a 2006 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal farms around the globe generate 18 percent more greenhouse emissions than all of these transportation methods combined. In addition, livestock operations occupy 30 percent of the earth's land surface and the areas used for grazing are a huge source of deforestation, particularly in Latin America, where 70 percent of former forestland is now used as grazing fields. The report warned that the impact of livestock production must be cut in half to avoid increasing the current level of environmental damage. I couldn't find the report on the website, but there is some extensive information there. Forget an electric car, have a veggie burger!

Book Report - Stephen King - On Writing

I suppose many of you will be happy to know that I'm studying the art of writing. And most of you I'm sure will be even happier if I learned a little grammar too! You'll be proud of me some day. Last nite I finished Stephen King's On Writing A memoir of the craft. I've never read any of his work. I did enjoy this, his only work of non-fiction. Stephen writes funny stuff. And for each point or topic he covers, he does so with very personal anectodes. He brought along a couple of his demons for show-and-tell. I often find that a genius has their fair share of them, and it's encouraging to me since I have more than mine! The book is divided into three major parts. The first is an auto-biography, the second deals with writing specifically, and the third is sub-titled On Living, where he describes the story of his run-in with a van on a highway that damn near killed him in the summer of 1999. Although the broader points he makes are related to writing fiction, he addresses plenty of the basics that apply to any wannabe writer. Vocabulary, grammar, active versus passive verbs and oh so much more. Microsoft Word is always telling me I'm using passive verbs, wonder why? I just click-ignore-all that stuff anyway! The story is the boss for Stephen, and all of his other recommendations regarding style, etc., take a secondary and supporting role to the boss. He describes a process where after he gets a story-idea and some characters started he lets them tell the rest of the story. It's zen-like (my description, not his) in that you have to pay attention and let things be. I like that idea. It's all in there, just be quiet and dig it up. Of course to become good at the art he says, you have to read and write a lot. He provides a list of about 100 books he says he's read in the last 3 or 4 years. I came away from the book inspired and thankful that Stephen shared so much of himself with me. It's the sharing that gets me back to my own writing practice every time.