fall

I am still enjoying the atmosphere of fall so much... the change in the air, the rustling leaves, the colors, the bizarre mix of cold and warm days. I completely missed this last year, so caught up in everything that was going on and trying to find my place.

We're going to DC this weekend and I'm trying to get excited about sitting in a car. It should be fun to go someplace different, I guess. I never can see what's so different, though. A city is a city. The country is the country. All places are the same, just a little bit different. I guess I go just to see, just to make sure I'm not missing anything huge, and to take any small thing that might be different back.

My peppers are still fruiting and I have to get the final data from it this week. Then, analyze it and prepare it all. What a pain! It will be nice to be out of school, with simple deadlines that don't bother you outside of the 40 hours. That's why I have no desire to be a business owner. I will go to a job I like full-time, but then I want to do something else. Doesn't matter what I'm doing.

I kind of like how my body stores stress in my body, so that when there is a release, I can really feel it, and there can be a nice releasing sound: pop pop. And when it's there, it stabs or pokes at me all day long, so I can never forget there's something I'm not letting go of. Bad in the short run, but maybe good in the long run. Lately I have been better at not fighting the painful spots so much. Once in a while, I just relax, accept that it's there, and then without anticipating it, I get a nice pop pop from doing nothing at all! Not yoga, not anything. I hate being told to "let go" because it's such useless advice that you can't do anything with (you can't "do" undoing), but I know my mind, and when I can find just the right way to distract it, I can get a small letting go. It's a nice small thing that might not happen again, but it's nice to appreciate the little things.

The overachiever

I am realizing where the stereotype of a grad student working a million hours a day, never sleeping. Some advisers do push very hard--but much more common is the type A personality, who puts ridiculous expectations on themselves. It is really amazing to watch. One person wakes up at 3 am, studies, runs, studies, hours later goes to class, studies, studies, studies, and then off to bed at 11 or 12 (midnight). Another goes to the lab on weekends from 5 am to 7 pm, with breaks only or eating.

I know for a fact their advisers don't demand this. It is all internal. I don't consider it totally admirable, though. In yoga classes, they talk about ahimsa (non-violence) applying to yourself just as much, and the importance of not going too far with yourself. If you push too hard, in the end you cause more harm than benefit to yourself.
Luckily, I physically can't sustain this type of schedule -- I would get sick in a week, and I would be grateful for it, because physical sickness is the only respected reason for rest in our society. Mental or emotional health is not considered nearly as much. Thus a slew of therapy and positive psychology programs at my school, to push back against this mentality of achieving at all costs.

I don't mean to be critical of these people. I respect their efforts highly. But I am concerned about the implications. Already I can see effects on their moods, and I feel a lot of compassion. They won't believe that doing less than 1000% is good enough.

Wow:
"I call myself a feminist. Isn't that what you call someone who fights for women's rights?" said the Dalai Lama to an audience in Memphis yesterday. "We all come from the same mother. That creates the basis for compassion."

I think these sorts of ideas are especially important coming from men, because the marginization of the feminine is ultimately just as harmful to them. The idea that having stereotypically feminine emotions (emotions at all, besides being hard) is not for men, is an idea that serves no one. Feminism as a rebalancing for both genders is very valuable.
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As for me-- we are still harvesting peppers! It is incredible. Loads and loads of peppers. I have to give my plot of land back October, and I'm sure they will keep going until then, since it isn't supposed to freeze.

The politics here is so bizarre. There is a big myth here that a Cornell education is far superior to education elsewhere, there's not enough humbleness and acknowledgment of what we don't have or know. I was exposed to a lot more diversity (people in all sorts of different life situations, and less likely to be rich) at my state school, and wasn't under the delusion that I was receiving a far superior education. Furthermore, the teaching is not better. The facilities for my department are not better. In terms of sustainability, they are not ahead at all. Schools like Iowa State and US Santa Cruz are actually far ahead. There are a lot of great things here, but perspective is sorely lacking.

And typical for academic institutions, outreach to community is undervalued. Published research is what counts. That's part of being in a university setting, and a reason I'm not interested in academia.

Yoga sutra

From http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/yogasutr.htm

1.30. Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.

1.31. Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.

1.32. For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.

1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.

1.34. Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.

1.35. Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.

1.36. Or the state of sorrowless Light.

1.37. Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.

1.38. Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.

1.39. Or by meditation as desired.

Fall!

I have been so busy bemoaning the fact that another long, gloomy Ithaca winter is coming (MN is colder but much sunnier!) that I almost forgot how much I love fall.

The evidence:

Annual % avg possible sunshine, by city
New York City, Central Park, NY: 58%
Minneapolis-St.Paul, MN: 58%
Syracuse (an hour away): 46%
Seattle, WA: 47%
Portland, OR: 48%

So the northeast gets more sun than us here!

Okay, done with complaining. Best things about fall, here or anywhere else in the north:
-changing leaves!
-crispness in the air
-perfect running weather--sunny, warm mid-day but cool morning and night
-apple picking, fresh apples, and all the spices that go with apple-flavored treats (cinnamon, nutmeg, etc)
-winter squash
-all the holidays coming up (which I'm not really into, except for my b-day in Nov, but I might as well celebrate it all)
-for those in school, we're still fresh and excited to learn, and not quite jaded yet ;)

Some interesting articles:
Primitive cultures are simple, civilization is complex (a falsehood)
What's wrong with eco-stunts

From http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=ref&q=http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattchamplin/2938153364/&usg=AFQjCNFSbOn4OpN-80yP3ekxzQOMVWrYtg


The air is crisp and nights are cold, but days are sunny and warm. Squash and apples are being harvested--I'm baking lots of cinnamon-flavored desserts. There's also a locally grown and milled whole wheat flour available, so I want to try making my own bread. I'm a bit lazy for the yeasted bread, so I'm trying quick breads--either sweet with fruit (like banana, or currents) and spiced, or savory with herbs.

My breath-watching meditation is going well. I was just thinking that it didn't seem to be doing anything, and that maybe it was a waste of time. Just my mind playing games, I realize when I step back. Before my meditation was too strong, and now that I don't see instant results I think I am wasting my time? So silly. Looking objectively, I have to say I am really happy with it. I just need to stop being lazy, meditating laying down. I am a lot more undisciplined mentally during meditation if I am laying down instead of sitting up.

There is an alternatives library here. It is really neat; it has magazines, CDs, DVDs, and lots of different kinds of books. I checked out a few Buddhist magazines. They are interesting but it just doesn't attract me the way yoga does. I really like Jack Kornfield though, a Buddhist clinical psychologist who has done a lot to bring mindfulness meditation into the mainstream in the past few decades. I really admire that-- in the beginning it was rather a rather radical act, and now it is something doctors will recommend in conjunction with other therapies (possibly medication and conventional therapy). Some feel that it loses something when it is brought into the secular realm, but I think making it accessible does far more in this case.

A quote from him: I don't think there is dharma practice on the one hand and psychology on the other. I believe that sets up a false dichotomy.

I agree.

I'm reading the Yoga Sutras. They are short and are meant to be taken in slowly, and meditated on (I suppose). There are also many commentaries available on them. There are also many translations--sadly, I think a fair amount gets lost in translation from the original Sanskrit.

They translate "yoga" as "Union" here, I notice. I think it may be British... they use "fancy" where I've seen "imagination" before.

An idea here seems to be, that until we are able to clear our minds and see what is true, we are not living in reality.

From Sacred-Texts:

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.

1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.

1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.

1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.

1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.

1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.

1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.

1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.

1.9. Fancy is following after word- knowledge empty of substance.

1.10. Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.

1.11. Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.

1.12. These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.

I've been running this week. Fall is the perfect time for running--cool, crisp air and sun at the same time. Beautiful clouds and changing trees. Nothing makes me think of change more than watching the leaves change in fall.

I love the way running makes me feel but hadn't in a long time because it hurt. All my tension goes into certain nooks and crannies in my back and it makes running painful. So I don't exercise as much, and I feel less energetic, and feel even less like running. But I have been doing some yoga kriyas lately, and they seem to dissipate the energy well, so that I feel like running. I should have tried that a long time ago, I kept thinking that would help. So funny how we know the answers, but don't listen to ourselves. 

Interesting article on cooking and human evolution (they're related!). I'm inclined to think his claims have merit, especially because of the following:

JZ: So you don’t give much credence to the health claims of present-day raw foodists?

RW: I give a lot of credence to some of the health claims of raw foodists. The fact that I don’t think raw diets are natural does not undermine their claims that they get various kinds of benefits. One benefit of course is [raw foodists] lose weight. Another benefit is that [the diet] reduces various kinds of allergies. I can well believe that some people are sensitive to some of the compounds produced by cooking. I don’t think everybody is.

I like it when people are open-minded, looking at issues from multiple sides. Raw foodists, on the other hand, tend not to. I like the restaurants, I like eating simply, but the dogma as a whole is so silly. While some seem to do better on all raw, I really think it is unbalanced for many others... I am glad I went to the Tree of Life, I saw lots of neat things and met neat people. But I like a more centered approach in the end.

Not sure why the font in this post is so strange.

Today was the second training for this peer counseling training I am in. The whole thing will take a year, and then I can actually be a peer counselor here. If you don't finish it, you still gain listening skills for your personal and professional life. 

They have us use real-life problems for examples, since they're more realistic. They also find it's easier to be empathetic later on if you've done some of the work on yourself--recognizing your own issues. We actually had to make a list! I could make a long list... but the reassuring thing is that many of their list examples didn't resonate with me :)

It's fascinating to hear about others' problems. We're not supposed to talk about them--but basically they show the universality of the human experience. The themes you can find are so interesting to me--conflict between expected emotion and actual emotion. Disappointment in self and those who were trusted. Not meeting expectations set for self. A screenwriter could get a lot of fuel for some scripts... :)

Whole Foods is at it again, never walking the walk.

One thing I hear recommended a lot for creative expression is random dance to music, without regard to form or how it looks. People kept recommending it and I keep thinking it was a good idea--I am thinking it is good again, especially if I've been studying, to get tension out.... that's all, just a random thought.

Classes still going well. We are thinking abut doing a few more trips before the end of the year. DC, maybe Canada, maybe Boston.

Fall is in the air--I saw a perfectly formed, red maple leaf on the ground. We're still harvesting--my peppers are still producing, and some nearby fields have winter squashes and cabbage and even melon! The first frost is not for several weeks most likely, and my CSA goes through October, I believe--at any rate, several weeks longer than the CSAs in MN do. A nice benefit! Hardy greens especially, get only sweeter after a frost.

My classes are going well. I love the weeds course I am assisting with. It's so fun to sit back and absorb the material, without having to be tested on it. The test is every class, if the students have any questions. The prof is so enthusiastic, he seems hopped up on caffeine. He just loves the class.

The benefit to school, that should be inherent in any job, is the mental stimulation. I loved my job the first few years, when it was a challenge. I was figuring out the ins-and-outs, learning Spanish, and figuring out how to best counsel people. After that, it was miserable because it was so boring. But new challenges would have made all the difference. I could have done it for many more years with any sort of challenge added to it. So, you don't have to go back to school to get that stimulation. You just have to find a way to get it from your job. It was also fun to take community ed courses at night, and learn things completely different from what I needed for work.

Tomorrow I take a pesticide applicator certification exam. My adviser wanted me to because it makes me more marketable, and I found a way for someone else to pay for it. It's very amusing to me--I don't "believe in" pesticides! It is true that there are some organic sprays, but generally it's a way of solving a problem that I don't believe is very helpful in the long run. Still, whatever adds to my knowledge base is useful--better to be educated about your decisions.

I decided to make a big switch in my meditations, from the mantra I had been using, to a breath-watching meditation. It sounds ridiculous, but the mantra meditation is too powerful for me. I have to be super cautious, and it shouldn't be like that. It should be calming, centering afterwards. The proof in the pudding is the way you feel afterwards. So I will do a breath-watching meditation until I feel better otherwise. It's so crazy because after fighting and fighting with the idea, I am willing to do it. I will sit there, every day, for half an hour or an hour or whatever it takes. I know it is the key, to so much. But it's been over a year and I have to be honest about what works. I have a disposition that needs a softer form of meditation, for now.

Both yesterday and the day before I got to go on a friend's boat on the lake (Seneca Lake, I think?). This never would have happened in MN, even though there's more lakefront-- because it's urban, it's in higher demand and more costly. I miss home a lot but there is a lot I never would have gotten to do there. The idea of "home" that is in my head doesn't really exist anyway--people have moved and everything is different. There is no true home to go back to. And then I will be changed, used to the natural beauty and quiet out here. Aren't I young to be experiencing so much nostalgia? Where will home ever exist?

Of course I love visiting home--but that is vacation, and not representative of daily life.

ramble ramble on Buddhism and books

Last year, I was by myself at a used bookstore in NYC (Strand) and a guy started talking to me about some kind of Buddhism. In all honesty, I was kind of unbalanced at the time. I felt all out of sorts from the move away from MN, and had started meditating, and it was all a lot for me. But the same toughness that didn't see this (my sensitivity, and overdoing change) kept me safe walking around the city by myself. Anyway, this guy was nice, and it was interesting talking to him. He was from some sort of Buddhism where there is a stick they chant to. He gave me a sheet of paper with the info and I promised him I would look at the website, even though I wasn't really interested in chanting to a stick. I kept the paper because I didn't want to be a liar

Recently, I took the piece of paper from this man out of my purse (I am tossing out everything I can, and that means going through it all). I looked up the website. It was pretty much as he described it, chanting to a stick. Buddhism is interesting (though yoga is what appealed to me from day 1), but not my particular thing, and I may be too Western for this stick chanting. I can dig mantras (I highly recommend the Ravi/Ana kundalini yoga DVDs for a Western crowd; they explain the purpose behind various exercises as you go along). However, chanting is a little too somber for me. I know the stick thing is not as ridiculous as it sounds--but I can't figure out why I'd want to do it. I just thought the whole thing was interesting. I remember mostly wondering why he decided to talk to me. Did I look weird? Now I think he was probably enthusiastic about his practice, and saw I was open-minded. It's so funny, the people you can run into.

I was reminded again because I went to that bookstore, Strand, when we were in NYC last weekend. I love bookstores, and my weakest point, as far as materialism goes, has to be book collecting. I try to give away books I'm not reading (I even gave away my 1984 version of the book 1984--which was my favorite book for several years! I was a somber teenager :) ) and now have the excuse that I'm going to give them away to a local prison book project. They need the books, I insist, so I need to buy them and read them. But the stack is getting to be too much, even for me. Time to start going to the library more often!

I'm listening to Adyashanti, who trained in Buddhist Zen for many years (not sure if "trained" is the right word). He says suffering is caused by misperception, not seeing things as they really are. His writing and speeches are very interesting to me right now. "How am I causing my own suffering through my own misperceptions?" "There is no such thing as a true belief... Reality itself is clear."

Class today was fun. Weed science is like "plant story time", because the instructor has tons of energy and loves to tell stories about things. He told a story about wild parsnip, commonly found on roadsides and in abandoned lots. A girl's father was brought to court for child abuse. The girl (7 or so) has severe welts on her back. It looked as if she had been whipped. The defense brought a weed scientist, who was able to confirm that her welts were from wild parsnip. Apparently there was a patch of it in her backyard that she felt into. It causes contact dermatitis (similar to poison ivy). The father was finally acquitted. Who knew!?

I wasn't looking forward to classes starting, but things have gone very well. I feel more alert, active in my own existence. I'm attempting to understand concepts and complete assignments right away, instead of delaying it. My sensory experience has always been blurred, I'm learning. In class, I don't listen, don't listen, don't listen. I read the notes and book when I feel like it and suddenly-aha!- I understand, in my own way, in my own time.

Why am I so afraid of perceiving things directly? Why can't I understand things as they are being said? I create a layer, which I replay for myself, and then I understand. What a stressful way of doing things--it requires ignoring what is front of me, and putting off comprehension (procrastination), in a matter of seconds. Even if I understand instantly upon replay to myself (and I often do, in my own way; this is the only reason I can pull off doing this), it is so detaching. And I am just beginning to realize, probably draining. Getting myself to experience things as they occur is so hard, I am resisting so much. But cracks in the pattern are beginning to form. I can see some light starting to shine through.

It started to become clear (in the smallest way), when I first heard the yogic idea of samskaras, mental and emotional patterns etched into our brains and bodies. Neuroscience backs this idea up to some degree, and new research on the plasticity of the brain goes along with idea that these can be broken down. The patterns are hard-etched, but can be changed. There are many ways to do it, but yoga is what instantly appealed to me. I wish I had known about the entire multi-facted practice when I was younger--it would have appealed to my 14 year old self and saved me a lot of lost time. But, oh well. You can never know "what might have been".

I'm reading The Wisdom of Yoga, which goes over the eight limbs of yoga with personal experiences (I believe I mentioned this earlier), and the stories speak to the truth of how yoga can overcome this conditioning. The part I'm reading right now speaks to how mild restraint is necessary for getting past the samskaras. Not huge restraint; willpower alone cannot overcome these patterns. But making small choices to reverse harmful habits always pays off. Restraint rewards.

One intriguing example is of a woman who had lived her life in a fairytale. She was pretty and talented, and imagined away anything that didn't fit with this picture-perfect life. When things began to fall apart, she started practicing yoga (not just asana/poses). She began to see how she lied, constantly. She couldn't help it. Small lies were the hardest, especially gossip (truthful speach that is unnecessary/harmful is not "right speach"). So she began working with someone once a week, tracing the samskaras/patterns back to their origins. She committed to the idea of silence--speaking only when absolutely necessary (giving money to a banker or something). It was horrible at first, because it revealed her thoughts. But then, the Witness began to come out; she saw the fruits of restraint. She extended her commitment to more fully experience it. It marked a true shift for her.

Things don't change so fast for me. But the same stubbornness that refuses to let go and continues to resist, is what I'm applying to my sadhana, my yogic practice. The same thing that causes any suffering I experience in life, now properly applied, is starting to do me some good :) I know deep inside I must continue, and that everything will be shed in due time. Over a year after starting meditation, I finally feel a shift starting to occur, lightening my load a little. I'm a tough nut to crack, but it's happening.

I signed up for a volunteer training, for a listening-intensive type of peer counseling. You spend two semesters training, go through an intensive, and then can counsel. I thought it would be good for me to focus on people besides myself, working actively on becoming more empathetic and spending energy on others.

There are some laughter yoga classes at Cornell--I may go to them if I have time. But this training will take up my Monday evenings.