Rice and Tea

"There are amazing healers in your world." - Kristen Allott, ND, LAc (March, 2010)

Day 30. This is a biggie. I told myself if I could get 30 blogs in a row I would let somebody know about this. Of course, I've let the blog out of the bag to a couple of good friends, but for the most part I've been in blissful anonymity. No comments means no impediments to my book deal fantasies.

My monkey mind is chattering, and I'm not even on my cushion. I was at a professional seminar all day, and then had the great joy of a tandem ride on a week day, and it's not even Daylight Savings Time yet! I may be too blissed out to construct sentences . . .

The seminar was titled "Nutritional and Complementary Treatment for Mental Health Disorders." I came out of it convinced that if Americans would meditate and cut out high fructose corn syrup, we would end all that ails us. I immediately came home, sequestered myself in the pantry, and furiously read through just about every label on the shelves. At first, "furiously" as in fast and frenzied, but the more I read, the more "furiously" turned into angrily. Clearly, American food manufacturers cannot let an item off the assembly line unless sugar, corn syrup and high fructose comprise three of the top five ingredients.

I am a dedicated food label reader from way back. My son was diagnosed with Celiac Disease soon after he turned one, so I developed an eagle eye for ingredients containing gluten. I must have become myopic for the ingredients containing sugar. Now, our highly credentialed speaker today was not recommending that all sugar and its derivatives be banned from our diets. She did, however, build a pretty convincing argument for the role excessive sugar plays in wrecking havoc with the human body and mind. I laughed aloud when she referenced the wave of "Mind-Body" literature in the past few years. While poking fun at America's fixation on a fact that was obvious to healers thousands of years ago, she said, "Oh yeah, the news is out. There is no separation between the mind and body." This just in. Thanks for the profound update.

So what does the seminar have to do with my zazen practice? Plenty. I became a vegetarian in 1997, the same year I began formal training in zen meditation. As the weeks and months went by, I found myself often craving tea and rice. Rice and tea. Before that, sugar was the food group at the bottom of my pyramid. My teacher never required or even advocated for us to give up meat. I didn't read about vegetarianism, and (being in Oklahoma and all) it wasn't like I was surrounded with other omnivores. There was no epiphany, no major precipitating event; I can't even articulate clearly my reasons for becoming vegetarian. It just felt like the right thing to do. At the time, not "right" in the moral sense, just "right" for my body and spirit. I was ultra casual about the whole thing, saying something like, "If I start wanting meat again, I'll have some." That was 13 years ago.

I believe that there are amazing healers in my world, and many routes to healing. In the still, quiet moments of breathing in and breathing out, it is much easier to find my way.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc