We live in a time where we feel deprived: don’t earn enough, don’t sleep enough, don’t have enough. The feeling of lack surrounds us, when at the same time, so many of us have more than ever before. Why can unhappiness coexist with levels of consumption higher than ever before? Maybe, the reason is that we are trying to solve a problem with the wrong tool.
One of the core models of our times used to explain and to try to improve human well-being is utility. That ever-increasing function in economics which depicts that the way to increase one’s satisfaction comes from the more goods a person consumes and less time a person works. The thing is, focusing on acquiring more things to feel better just doesn’t work, as many civilizations have found through time.
On the contrary, one of the core findings of Buddhism is that watering greed or attachment/clinging is one of the main causes of suffering, causes of an unsatisfactory life. Similarly, opposite to what a utility function assumes, empirical research finds that satisfying work is one of the cornerstones to happiness.
The fact that we may be surprised when finding that higher levels of consumption don’t imply happier people points to the need of an updated model to guide our understanding of the optimal way for a human to improve their well-being.
Esta historia la escuché de niña y durante varios periodos de mi vida el recordarla me ayudó a siempre sentirme acompañada. Hoy, con motivo de Navidad, se las comparto:
Una noche tuve un sueño…Soñé que estaba caminando por la playa con el Señor y a través del cielo, pasaban escenas de mi vida. Por cada escena que pasaba, percibí que quedaban dos pares de pisadas en la arena: unas eran las mías y las otras del Señor. Cuando la última escena pasó ante nosotros miré hacia atrás, hacia las pisadas en la arena y noté que muchas veces en el camino de mi vida quedaban sólo un par de pisadas en la arena.
Noté también que eso sucedía en los momentos más difíciles de mi vida. Eso realmente me perturbó y pregunté entonces al Señor: “Señor, cuando decidí seguirte tú me dijiste que andarías conmigo, a lo largo del camino, pero mirando atrás, durante los peores momentos de mi vida, encuentro sólo un par de pisadas. No comprendo porqué me abandonaste en las horas en que yo más te necesitaba”.
Entonces, el Señor, clavando en mi su mirada infinita me contestó: “Hijo mío, yo te he amado siempre y jamás te abandonaría en los momentos más difíciles. Cuando viste en la arena sólo un par de pisadas fue justamente allí donde te llevaba en mis brazos”. – Autor Desconocido
– “A key step that can help us begin to settle ourselves when we are profoundly unsettled is to come home, to ourselves, in this moment, whatever is happening…When we bring our mind back to our body we come home. We could consider this state as our true home. This home inside of us is a home no one can take away from us, and it cannot be damaged and destroyed. No matter what happens around us, if we can find this home inside of us, we are always safe.” (Kaira Jewel Lingo)
-Be aware of how negative feelings manifest themselves in our body. When I feel anger arising, my body tenses up and my heart starts racing. (Plum Village)
– Bringing mind home to body. [If my fear is not calming down], “I bring my mind home to my body. I know that whatever is in my mind it is also manifested in somewhere in my body in some way. So, I bring my mind home to my body, and I do a body scan… When I find a strong physical sensation, I think `That’s my anger’ and I breath with this physical sensation.” (Sister Jina)
– Awareness of our breathing. As you breath you can say: Breathing in, I am aware anger is present in me now. Breathing out, I smile to my anger.
– “For this, start with little cares to train yourself with slight irritations and annoyances and prepare your self to remain calm when challenges increase.” (Pema Chodron)
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor E. Frankl
Calmdown before acting:
-Go for a walk
-“Practice to honor the feelings, it means simply recognizing them, with no judgement if possible. Then I realize that they are parts of myself. I allow them to come and go while following my breath, and not to see them as `things that need to be fixed’. This helps me to cultivate compassion and understanding for myself.” (Plum Village)
-“Practice walkingmeditation in nature. I walk slowly, feeling the earth directly beneath my feet (barefoot if possible!) and feel the strength of the earth enter me.(You may like to watch a short video on how to practice walking meditation here.)” (Plum Village)
-“When the urge arises in the mind To feelings of… wrathful hate, Do not act! Be silent, do not speak! And like a log of wood be sure to stay.” (Shantideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra)
– “Try to find the roots of your anger but do not do or say anything before you do this. ‘We return to our breathing and mindful walking, acknowledge that we’re angry and then look deeply.'”(Plum Village)
Don’t water the seed of anger:
-“At this point, it’s important we don’t start thinking about the story again because it brings back the anger.” To help with this practice walking meditation or watering the seeds of happiness. (Sister Jina)
-“We need to break the contact with the source that triggered our anger. Don’t stay in contact with that incident. Don’t keep thinking, ‘Why did this person say that? What was she trying to do? So mean!’ We keep on ruminating this thought over and over. This is how we keep watering the seed of anger. I don’t know if you’ve ever done this kind of rumination, when we turn something over and over in our mind. After five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes, or half an hour of doing that, our anger has grown enormously. We’ve been watering it the whole time. It is like shooting the second arrow. We have been shot by an arrow when someone said those words that hurt us. But then we keep repeating and reliving that incident; it’s like shooting ourselves with another arrow, and maybe another and another and another. The second arrow is not twice as painful; it’s a hundred times more painful than the first. So stop watering the seed, break the contact, and turn away. Turn away from the source that brought up your anger.” (Sister Jina)
Water positive seeds:
-Make a list of the sources of joy in your life. As the seed of joy is water, joyful thoughts arise and we are happy. (Sister Jina)
-“Make a phone call to the one who I appreciate very much, because I know that being in touch or close to him or her, he or she will water the seeds of faith and beauty in me.” (Plum Village)
Which one to do?
“[T]he practice is for each of us to become aware of what is the best way for us to change the CD. Is it to bring up another thought, to think of something pleasant or beautiful? Or is it to go back to the body? Or to go for a walk, which is going back to the body, nourishing other things and getting different input through different sense organs. Change the CD.” (Sister Jina)
Look deeply:
-“After recognizing and calming our feelings, we later need to spend time to look deeply into their roots so as be able to truly understand their causes. The roots of our suffering may lie for example in our childhood, or in a bad experience we went through in the past, in addition to the recent event that triggered the difficult emotion. When we understand the roots of our suffering, the transformation and healing already beings.” (Plum Village)
-“Often, the roots of our anger can be found in ourselves. We may have wrong perceptions. Somebody said something, and we think they said it to hurt us. But maybe they were unskillful; they may not have wanted to hurt us. They may not even have known that what they were going to say would hurt us.” (Sister Jina)
-“Ask yourself, `Is there any truth in what they say?’ If your answer is maybe a little bit, ask `What is the root of my action that our friend gave some feedback about; where does it come from?'” (Sister Jina)
Mindful Communication:
-If someone says something that touches and waters our seed of anger. Say would you please support me by not watering my seed of anger? I am happy to hear what you have to tell me, but could you find another way of telling me this? Maybe one can start by saying “It’s my perception that … (Sister Jina)
-Use specific examples. Clarifying exactly what’s making you angry and using specific examples of things that upset you when in the conversation. (Martha Beck)
-Avoid moralizing saying that things like they are Wrong and you are Right. Try instead stating what you observed, how this makes you feel, which of your needs is not being met given this, and what would you like them to do differently. (Martha Beck)
Algo que comencé a notar en estos últimos meses, y me sorprendió mucho, es como características tan simples, definen monumentalmente nuestra experiencia diaria y nuestra vida. Por ejemplo, algo básico, que todo ser humano tiene, como su sexo al nacer, crea un sinfín de expectativas en los demás y en uno mismo sobre como debemos comportarnos, desear, trabajar y sentir.
De las expectativas y prejuicios que más se intensifican son los relacionados a nuestra apariencia física. Si creciste como mujer en gran parte del mundo, el ideal corporal es que te veas como un palo de delgada. Por lo cual, todo tipo de personas comienzan a tener una opinión y creer tener el derecho a compartírnosla.
Estos comentarios y creencias conlleva a despertar una relación con nuestra imagen corporal muy dañina. Como a un cachorrito que traté de educar en mi niñez con gritos y regaños para que no hiciera popó dentro de la casa, lo cual lo llevó a que comenzara a llorar cuando quería hacer popo, similar se vuelve la relación con nuestro cuerpo y con la comida bajo estas expectativas, juicios y críticas que se dan y reciben sin ton ni son. Las cuales buscan regular nuestra forma de comer y nuestra apariencia física.
Mi relación con la comida surge dentro de esta visión social, en donde el comer o no comer se asocia a sentimientos de vergüenza, al aborrecimiento a ciertas versiones de nuestro cuerpo y a la recriminación y culpa con uno mismo. Todos esto relacionado con algo tan esencial como comer e intensificado debido a algo tan elemental, como ser mujer.
Conforme cultivo mi jardín y aprendo más sobre la relación entre las plantas que cultivamos para comer y el impacto que tienen en ellas los minerales, pesticidas, luz y agua que les damos como alimento, mi entendimiento sobre mi cuerpo y lo que como, se transforma, haciendo emerger una nueva posibilidad de ser.
En esta visión, lo que elijo comer no es en base a lo que juicios y prejuicios corporales, sino se convierte en un regalo, un ofrecimiento de la tierra a lo que mi cuerpo necesita para ser feliz. El alimento que decido elegir se vuelve un acto de amor a uno mismo, aunque la nutrición de este amor no llegase a ir acompañada al cuerpo del modelo de revista o de televisión.
Al igual como una planta requiere nitrógeno, potasio y otros minerales, mi cuerpo también necesita un poco de agua, de azúcares, de grasas. Cuando le comienzo a poner atención, me doy cuenta de que así como no todas las plantas son iguales, no todos los cuerpos necesitan lo mismo para estar bien. Por ejemplo, comparado con otras personas que conozco, a los granos refinados los digiero muy rápido, lo que conduce a que almacene más energía en mi cuerpo de la que puedo consumir. En base a este aprendizaje, veo que con tan sólo cambiar el arroz blanco (que por cierto, aumenta el riesgo de diabetes) por un grano entero (como la quínoa o el arroz silvestre), mi grasa corporal regresa a mi nivel natural.
Arroz Blanco y Quinoa
Enfocándome en descubrir cual es el nitrógeno necesario para mi jardín, en lugar de tratar de encajar mi grasa corporal a las expectativas de lo que una mujer debe o no debe ser, es una relación en la cual el amor de este entendimiento hace florecer mi cuerpo como la flor que realmente soy y no el intento de flor que otros creen nací para ser.
“In order to be loved, we have to love, which means we have to understand.” “If you offer your beloved something she does not need, that is not maitri. You have to see her real situation.” “If you were to say to me, `Thây, I love you so much I would like you to eat some of this durian [which Thây doesn’t like],’ I would suffer. You love me, you want me to be happy, but you force me to eat durian. That is an example of love without understanding. Your intention is good but you don’t have the correct understanding.” “Without understanding, your love is not true love. You must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations and suffering of the ones you love. Love brings us joy and well-being. It is as natural as the air. We are loved by the air; we need fresh air to be happy and well.”
Mi viaje a Nuevo México estuvo lleno de aprendizajes. Fue impresionante verme reflejada en la historia de esa parte de América. Otra parte del Virreinato de la Nueva España que tuvo una historia paralela y similar a la de lo que hoy es México, sólo que y fundamentalmente con otros pueblos indígenas.
¿Qué nos define como mexicanos y que nos diferencia de Nuevo México? Nuestras raíces indígenas. Los pueblos indígenas específicos que son sometidos durante la colonia.
Nunca me había puesto a reflexionar sobre lo que me enseñaron en la escuela. A diferencia de lo que los libros de la SEP predican para cimentar el patriotismo mexicano, resaltando que la mitad del territorio de lo que es hoy Estados Unidos era de México, esta parte del continente americano no tiene que ver con la República Mexicana, sino más bien, fue otra parte de la colonia española. Muy diferente de lo que hoy es México.
La ciudad de Santa Fe, la capital del estado de Nuevo México, tiene la típica estructura de una ciudad colonial. Una plaza central con bancas y árboles rodeada por el palacio de gobierno (el edificio público más antiguo de lo que hoy es Estados Unidos), la catedral, restaurantes y cafés. En los portales de esta plaza, indígenas Jemez, Taos, Pojoaques, entre muchos otros, que aquí se agrupan con el termino “Pueblos” venden sus artesanías.
México y Nuevo México, edificados en culturas milenarias con historias paralelas y un período compartido, el Virreinato de la Nueva España. La población indígena o nativos americanos, como se les denomina a personas indígenas en el país norteamericano, representan el 10.6% de la población de este estado. Estos Pueblos, como nuestros Mexicas, aprendieron a latigazos y catecismos español.
Edificio Público más antiguo de Estados Unidos
Plaza central de Santa Fe, Nuevo México
Sin embargo, la historia de este lugar no comienza con la colonia, sino milenios antes.
En el Centro Cultural Poeh, dentro del territorio del Pueblo Pojoaque, los habitantes de los Pueblos relatan la historia de esta zona de América. Con la exhibición permanente de este centro relatan su pasado y presente desplegando en 6 habitaciones la historia de sus pueblos, desde su llegada al valle hasta el día de hoy. Nuestro período compartido, es sólo la quinta habitación.
En este centro, también se puede apreciar el arte de la gente de lengua Tewa, con sus cántaros y arquitectura. Edificios de adobe con un acabado circular que al día de hoy caracterizan a las construcciones de Nuevo México.
Centro Cultural Poeh
Además de esa quinta habitación, la otra parte que nos une con esta parte del continente es el río Bravo (río Grande en Estados Unidos). Uno de los ríos más largos del mundo, que hoy separa lo que es Texas con Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas. Río por el cual muchos mexicanos han nadando, persiguiendo el sueño Americano.
Río Grande, Nuevo México
Nuevo México, un estado muy hermoso, con ciudades con estilo muy colonial.
“The time has come to reclaim the stolen harvest and celebrate the growing and giving of good food as the highest gift and the most revolutionary act.”
I have been very fortunate that the patch of soil in the Tomato Garden is so rich in nutrients that there is no need to work on improving the soil-food available to plants. However, I didn’t know this at the beginning. New to gardening, I just went and bought a bag of organic soil and one of plant food with added fertilizer, assuming that is what one does to grow healthy plants.
Until one day, a friend with much more gardening experience told me that this shouldn’t be necessary. Many leaves and branches of the oldest tree in the backyard, at some point, were heavily trimmed and left to decompose in the patch that is now “The Tomato Garden”. Hence, he said, the soil should be very rich for plants.
Plants eat mostly Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Potassium. Except for Carbon, plants absorb these foods through their roots after these nutrients are decomposed into ions by soil microorganisms. For example, plants eat Nitrogen, but they can’t consume this Nitrogen in its atmospheric form. To eat it, it first needs to be transformed by microorganisms, such as the bacteria Azotobacter, who transform it into ammonia (NH4+) and, in this new state, plants’ roots can then absorb it.
My inexperience feeding plants is, unfortunately, quite common amongst home gardeners. Buying food for the garden, without understanding if the plants are already able to find all the food they need in the soil, leads to the excessive fertilizer not absorbed by plants to flow to lakes, rivers and the ocean, contributing this way to Algal blooms. [2]
The Nitrogen and Phosphorus found in fertilizers, it is not only a delicious food for land plants, but also for algae and other plants in the water. When algae are overfed, they grow excessively. This growth can cause oxygen depletion in the water, killing, besides the algae, other plants and animals that also need oxygen to survive. [3]
Algal Bloom in a Park near my house after a rainy day
But, as I discovered, chemical fertilizers are not necessary to nurture garden plants. For example, when planting legumes, such as peas, clovers and beans, one wouldn’t need additional Nitrogen (one of the most important nutrients for plants and generally the most limiting). On the contrary, legumes form a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia, a soil-dwelling bacteria, that creates a natural Nitrogen fertilizer for the plant, soil and neighboring plants. [4] Because of this, planting legumes is considered a cleaner alternative to using chemical fertilizers when Nitrogen is missing in the soil.
There are many other natural ways of helping plants get the food they need, like growing multiple crops at the same time, leaving crop residues as cover or adding organic matter. However, as my first experience feeding the soil suggests, before trying to nurture, one needs to understand.
There is still so much more for me to learn about plants’ nutritional needs, but, why wouldn’t a revolutionary act of growing your own good food, take some time.
I don’t know. I don’t know what each one will do, but I desire to take the trickster’s approach:
“Martyr says: I will sacrifice everything to fight this unwinnable war, even if it means being crushed to death under the wheel of torment.
Trickster says: Okay, you enjoy that! As for me, I’ll be over here in this corner, running a successful little black market operation on the side of your unwinnable war.” – Big Magic
What will my successful little black market on the side be?
In response, these landowners (and other powerful white people) came up with a divide-and-conquer strategy. […]
Whether we’re rich or poor, we’re all white, so there is no need for us to fight each other. Instead, we need to band together to fight the villains among us: Black Bodies.
p. 70
“In the late 1600s and early 1700s, these white and Black immigrants worked and lived together on plantations that were owned by powerful white male bodies…in several early worker revolts, Black and white people rose up together against plantation owners. These revolts posed serious threats to the power and supremacy of white landowners.
In response, these landowners (and other powerful white people) came up with a divide-and-conquer strategy. They gave white workers small parcels of land to work…”You’re just like us: you’re white and you have land to work.”…. At the same time, they forbade Blacks from owning land, and told them, “You’re Black, and you’re completely unlike us.”
“What had been white-on-white (or, usually, powerful-white-on-less-powerful white) trauma was transformed, in carefully calculated fashion, into white-on-Black trauma, which was then institutionally enforced… Political leaders in Virginia legislated whiteness… The first such law appears to have been enacted in 1691.”
“Over the years, all of this proved effective in shifting the power [tension] divide from landowners versus workers to white people versus Black people… It undermined poor white folks’ sense of identity and convinced them to fight against their own interests. It created a false settling in the bodies of many poor, white Americans. And it soothed some of the antipathy poor white people felt toward far more powerful and wealthy white landowners. To this day, many white Americans continue to live under the thumb of these delusions.” – Resnaa Menakem. My Grandmother’s Hands. Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. pp. 69-70
The deadliest manifestation of white fragility is its reflexive confusion of fear with danger and comfort with safety.
pp.99
“In some cases, when a white body simply experiences discomfort, its lizard brain may interpret this as a lack of safety and react with violence. Thus white fragility grants permission to white and police bodies to regularly kill Black ones – even unarmed, unresistant ones- in ostensible self-defense (“I feared for my life,” “I thought his wallet was a gun,” and so on).”
“What happens when a police officer’s body interprets the mere presence of a Black body – or the presence of a Black body and an object that could possible a gun – as a high-stress situation? … “By some accounts, Yanez was an exemplary patrolman who had graduated at the top of his class. Until he shot Castile, he had a spotless record…
Yanez, a trained police officer, was terrified of Castile, a calm, compliant young man whom he’d pulled over for a broken taillight. Castile was in a car with an equally compliant young woman and her small child. Castile, politely explained [His words were: “Sir, I have to tell you…] – presumably in an effort to attempt to settle Yanez’s nervous system – that he had a gun, which was legally registered in his name. Yanez then shot him dead.”
“Officer Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter.”
“Some questions to consider: if Castile had been white, would Yanez have shot him dead? And another: Can you recall an incident in which a police officer pulled over a white driver who was calm and compliant and had a child in the car- and then shot that driver dead because the officer `thought I was going to die’? And another question: if such a thing were to actually happen, do you think a jury would agree that the officer’s fear justified the killing of the white driver?”
“What if, some time before his encounter with Castile, Officer Yanez had addressed any racialized trauma that was stored and stuck in his body? Or, what if his employer had recognized the need to provide some healing infrastructure to help its officers address this ancient trauma? Might either one have prevented Castile’s death?”
“As we have seen, thinking that `I am going to die’ when encountering a Black body is baked into the bodies – and the lizard brains- of many Americans.”
“Robin DiAngelo describes this reaction well:
White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation... This insulated environment of racial privilege builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress.
These defensive moves include forms of fighting, fleeing, or freezing and, occasionally, verbally annihilating.”
