Sounds True

One of the things i look forward to every Tuesday is the weekly SoundsTrue podcast. This week’s interview with Vidyamala Burch was especially interesting to me as it relates to the *core* aspects of Buddha’s teaching on Mindfulness, and how Mindfulness is being applied in some intense real life situations.

A small milestone

Sometime around May 2006, I came across an ad from one “Staffordshire university” in UK, offering long distance course in “sustainable development” (leading to an MA). I felt it would provide a good learning opportunity, and enrolled. So now, after three years and a whopping four classes, i earned a “university post graduate certificate with merit”. I opted to terminate at the certificate level rather than doing the full MA level, as the course content dint fully cater to my current interest which has “environmental philosophy” , eco-spirituality kind of slant. That said, for anyone in India (i don’t know if the program is offered elsewhere) interested in sustainable development issues from mainstream activism point of view, i would recommend the program. It provides some good conceptual foundations. (Be forewarned .. one has to be self-directed and self-motivated .. don’t expect too much mentoring from the instructors).

Towards suryaharam

Following up on previous post, time for some status check on shift to suryaharam. Modern food system involves staggering amounts of intervention between the time food is produced (suryaharam stage) and when it ultimately reaches the mouth.  Yesterday, i made a list of the intervening steps.

Stage-1: Food production process itself

• Application of pesticides, herbicides etc, traces of which enter our bodies ultimately.
• Genetically modified foods.
• Treat cows with antibiotics, growth hormones etc, to boost up production.

Stage-2: post-production processing steps

• “Polish”. Remove almost all of nutrient rich husk from rice, wheat etc.
• Add preservatives, colors and other agents
• Pasteurize/homogenize milk
• Treat some foods with radiation
• Long term refrigeration for storage
• Apply wax for shine

Stage-3: Post-purchase processing at home

• Heat, pressure cook, oil fry etc
• Add salts, oils, refined sugar etc
• refrigerate

These are just off the top of my head. Iam sure there are many many more steps involved. We can imagine how much potency of the food is lost, during these steps. My goal is to consume foods which have gone through least number of intervening steps. There’s a limit on how many steps can be eliminated when one lives in an urban environment (for example, difficult to get fully organic food), but there’s a lot i can work on even within those limitations.

So far, following are the specific steps i have taken:

• Increased water intake. I’ve also been conscious of when to take that water (preferably on empty stomach, Atleast 2 hrs gap after meal etc)
• Breakfast is 100% suryaharam. hurray !! Mainly consisting of sprouts, based on MSR’s recommendation.
• Trying to avoid coffee. I used to drink coffee first thing in the morning, but now i almost got rid of that habit. May have small shot sometime mid-morning if needed. The goal is to make it very very occasional, if at all.
• No changes to lunch. Standard indian vegetarian food.
• Have early dinner, say around 7pm. The trick is to make it light and rest the system at night. Some days i just had fruits for dinner, some days fruits + curd rice. Still experimenting..

This is just the very beginning. Over the next few months, I plan to shift to a predominantly suryaharam diet. Lets see how it plays out ….

Listening to the body — two years later

In November 2007, i put up a post titled “listening to the body“. In that post, i referred to one Dr. Manthena Satyanarayana Raju (MSR) and his natural life style ideas. Since then, even though i came across his programs on TV once in a while, i did not follow up and look into his ideas deeply. Big mistake !

Only recently, i happened to visit a store that promotes his ideas, and picked up couple of books written by him. He writes exclusively in Telugu, although some English translations are available. ( I picked up the Telugu versions, and it was great to read Telugu after long time ! Ancient wisdom is best read in a native language ! ).

What i now realize (two years late) is that his works are filled with great wisdom and common sense, and well grounded in science. As i read his works, iam stunned at how unnatural and messed up our modern eating practices are. Even normal Indian vegetarian diet (which i take, and which is normally considered “healthy”), does not appear healthy or natural anymore.

The core of MSR’s thesis is that cooked food is unnatural form of food for human body. He makes a fundamental distinction between “suryaharam” (food cooked by Sun), and food cooked on Fire. Suryaharam (Solar food) is grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts etc. This food is already “cooked” by Sun’s energy from elements of the Earth (water, air, minerals etc). MSR’s thesis is that this Solar food, taken directly, is the most natural food for a human body, and cooking this Solar food in fire makes it unnatural for consumption by human body. He says that most diseases have origin in this consumption of unnatural foods, and other unhealthy eating practices.

MSR gives a convincing defense of his thesis in his books, so i won’t reproduce it here. What he says makes great sense to me even from simple common sense point of view. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years, surviving directly on uncooked natural food. Fire is a relatively recent discovery compared to the evolutionary history of our bodies, and having a large percentage of our diet as cooked food is an even more recent phenomenon. So, it makes great sense to me that food cooked by Sun is the most appropriate and natural for our bodies. Also, Human being is the only species that cooks food on fire ! Another clear hint !

In food debates, we often hear about inorganic vs organic food, and GM vs non-GM food etc. We rarely hear about the impact of cooking foods. It now seems to me that this parameter is important too.

To start natural food life style, MSR recommends slowly adding more “solar food” in one’s diet. Solar food is nothing fancy. Just more sprouts, more fruits and more raw vegetables. Ofcourse, not just randomly adding, but there is a specific routine he recommends based on his observation of bodies needs and cycles. The eventual goal is to have say 75% solar food and rest cooked food. If one is totally in, one can shift to 100% solar food. Cooked vs Uncooked, is just one aspect of the debate. MSR’s system includes other aspects like avoiding salt, having more water, avoiding oils, time of eating, role of fasting etc etc. Iam just starting to incorporate each habit into my routine. I’ll blog every two weeks on the specific steps i’ve taken and how it’s going.

I feel that taking care of the environment of the body is an essential component of environmentally sustainable living. Activism starts at home.

Environmentalism as religion

Shiva's Cosmic dance at CERN

In his review of two books about global warming,  Freeman Dyson writes:

” There is a worldwide secular religion which we may call environmentalism, holding that we are stewards of the earth, that despoiling the planet with waste products of our luxurious living is a sin, and that the path of righteousness is to live as frugally as possible. The ethics of environmentalism are being taught to children in kindergartens, schools, and colleges all over the world. Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful.”

The quote has led me to ponder to what extent, if any, is environmentalism a religion, and what its implications are.

In any typical Econ-101 text book, one is introduced to two “branches” of Economics. (1) Positive economics: The branch which focuses on “facts, and cause-effect relationships”. A better phrase perhaps is “value-free” economics. (2) Normative economics: “The branch that incorporates value judgments about what the economy ought to be like, or what particular policy action ought to be recommended to achieve a desirable goal”.  Simply put, positive economics deals with “what is”, and the normative flavor deals with “what ought to be”.

Along the same lines, we can say, positive aspects of environmentalism deal with pure facts about the state of environment and how the humans are affecting it. Normative aspects deal with what our response should be.

Fact: Humans have eliminated much (more than 90%) of the old growth forest, taking with it a number of species. Human activities continue to extend into more and more natural spaces of the planet, resulting in further decrease in biological diversity.

Fact: Humans continue to pump enormous amounts of co2 into atmosphere, altering the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, thus mucking with heat regulating mechanisms of the planet.

Fact: Humans are starting to muck with nature at “operating system” level, through genetic, bio and nano technologies.

Now, coming to the normative aspects, there is a vast spectrum of opinion on what we should actually be doing about the situation. From primitivists / deep-ecologists who reject almost any use of technology, to techno-salvationists who propose extreme technological solutions to handle issues. Between the ultra-conservative deep-ecologist and  the ultra-liberal technologist, there is a vast spectrum of opinion on what is the best approach to handle environmental problems.

Much of the opinion is not based on blind belief / authority, but informed by a combination of instinct/emotions/intellect/intuition. Why opinions differ at all when everyone is looking at the same facts, is in itself an interesting question. Perhaps one’s life experience, education, psychological makeup etc, contribute to the widely differing opinions. A person who has spent major part of one’s life in Amazon forest is likely to have an opinion different from a person who has spent life in a megacity.

Anyway, we digress from the main point, which is — opinions vastly differ. But when does a particular opinion become a “religion”. Only when one holds onto one’s own opinion as the final truth, even in the absence of absolute evidence.

Although I personally have an opinion, based on my current understanding of the world, I do recognize that it could possibly be far from the ultimate correct view (if there is such a beast at all).  In fact, I wonder if any single person can really have a claim on the ultimate correct view (unless one is Enlightened). What all of us have are muddled opinions based on limited understanding of reality. And none of the opinions are objectively verifiable as the final truth. If that were the case, they would be called a “fact”, not an opinion. Suppose i take a view against using “genetically modified carbon eating trees” as a solution to global warming, because i somehow perceive it to be too much mucking with nature, and some scientist advocates it, is there a way to objectively judge which view is “right” ? I think not.

All that said, i guess we have no option but to continue to work with tools at our disposal, and try to hone our opinions to be as close as possible to the “ultimately right” views, through a right understanding of reality. That is why iam attracted now a days to Buddhist philosophy and practice of Meditation. Given sufficient practice, it appears there is a reasonable possibility of getting deep insights into nature of reality, which the physical sciences have been very very slow in delivering.

Buddhism 101

I recently finished listening to this series of lectures:

The Buddha’s teaching as it is, by Bhikkhu Bodhi

Its good to know the lingo and some important foundational concepts in Buddhism.

(Total running time about 13 hours).

Note on July 1st, 2009: There is no E=M*C-squared ‘ ism

I now regret using the word “Buddhism” above. Attaching a tag “ism” to Buddha’s teaching, i think, does great disservice to the teaching. Because, there is a danger that it is painted with the same brush as other ism’s — environmentalism, feminism, communism, capitalism, primitivism, hedonism,agnosticism etc etc.

One website defined “ism” as “representing a philosophical, political or moral doctrine or a belief system”. Agreed, many ism’s may have their validity in some relative sense, and Buddha’s teaching also may be considered a “philosophical system”, hence an “ism” too. However, it seems to me that Buddha’s teaching deserves to be referred as and elevated to the level of “scientific doctrine”.

In my novice intellectual understanding, following is the experiment that is central to the doctrine :

Tool: Observation. Sharp and focused observation.

Field of observation: Every aspect of body-mind complex. Every sensation that we normally regard as our own. That means, eventually, every physical sensation, every feeling, every thought, and every state of mind.

Method: Using laser beam like observation, observe each sensation and know it really really well.

Result: Well, the Buddha has apparently seen some result which he told everyone. One can see for oneself.

What beauty and simplicity ! Perhaps the most fruitful experiment a human will ever perform ?

All this brings up an interesting question — For a hypothesis to be regarded as “scientific” and “correct”, it should be verifiable by anyone through an experiment. But what if, as it is the case here, the verification is entirely subjective and personal. Who will verify the verifier ? . Wait .. that difficult process of bringing Buddhist ideas into ambit of science is perhaps underway through the likes of “Mind and Life Institute“.