Vegetarian Continued: Food Mindfulness

Well my reading friends, I have given up on being a vegetarian. I know that this is something I could do if I had a real motivating reason; however, I am not ready to give up meat. I enjoy meat; I appreciate the variety that meats and fishies bring to my diet; and I have so many other important goals to focus on that this one does not seem to be all that pressing. What I AM focused on is eating healthier in general. I do eat more veggies and fiber than anything else. I am also more aware now of when I am actually hungry and when I just have an appetite for something (ie: the ravenous chocolate craving that I get every evening). I am still working on self control when it comes to my trigger foods and appetite, yet I recognize a big change in my eating habits and food mindfulness (Yay! I’m applying Buddhism to everyday life, go me!).

Fitness Challenge: 100 Pushups and C25K

Just this week, I began the 100 Push Ups Challenge. The goal of the program is to be able to perform one hundred consecutive push ups by the end of six or seven weeks. One needs only to do a specified number of push ups (for your appropriate strength level of course) three times a week for six weeks. My three days will be Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It will be difficult for me not to try it more than three days a week, but I will try my durndest to slow down and follow the program closely.

On day one I discovered that I cannot do a single full pushup, so I have resorted to “girly” pushups (on my knees, yet with proper form maintained). Currently, I can do 13 in a row maximum, so I am following the more difficult level as perscribed by the program. In time, I hope to break away from doing wimpy pushups and begin doing full pushups. I am suspecting that this might require me to do the program a week or two longer.

I am a little psyched up about this, as I have always wanted to be able to drop and take on the guys at pushups. Yep, I am still a competitive tomboy at heart.

On the off days: Tuesday, Thursday, and one day out of the weekend; I am attempting Couch to 5K. This is a simmilar fitness program in that it will get you running five kilometers by the end of nine weeks. C25K has been a little difficult for me to get into. I have been unable to do what even week one perscribes. I am not out of shape, I just need to increase my stamina after not having done ANY running since high school tennis. I will make it. I just have to stay determined and keep running.

After an evening of belly dancing, weights, and 100 push ups challenge, my arms feel pretty sore. I love that good sore feeling after a satisfyingly sweaty workout. I am making my way to being fit. I am not fat, and I am comfortable with myself; however, I would like to be able to run again and feel strong again. Plus all of this exercise will help me be a better belly dancer. Lucky for me, ab strength has never been a problem.

Anyway, I encourage everyone to try one or both of the challenges. I guarrentee, you will feel better, and you will find satisfaction in the fact that you can do things which not many of your peers can do anymore. I will be posting tidbits about my fitness journey along the way… just so you all can keep my accountable.

Diva Cup… this one’s for all the women

… though men are certainly welcome to read!

Nine months ago, I began looking for an alternative to the usual means of feminine hygiene. I was sick of using tampons, and there is no way in hell a body could ever get me back on pads (reusable or otherwise). I began reading about all the ill effects of tampons on a woman’s body, and I found some very scary and surprising things.

Perhaps the most disturbing of all is the fact that tampons are a detriment to your health, and quite possibly, your life. Companies process tampons with chlorine bleach in order to make them so white. That bleach stays in the tampon after processing, and levels of dioxin build up while the tampon sits in its cute pink packaging. What’s dioxin? Check out this quote from the World Health Organization and click the link for more information: WHO Dioxin Page

“Dioxins are environmental pollutants. They have the dubious distinction of belonging to the “dirty dozen” – a group of dangerous chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants. Dioxins are of concern because of their highly toxic potential. Experiments have shown they affect a number of organs and systems. Once dioxins have entered the body, they endure a long time because of their chemical stability and their ability to be absorbed by fat tissue, where they are then stored in the body. Their half-life in the body is estimated to be seven to eleven years. In the environment, dioxins tend to accumulate in the food chain. The higher in the animal food chain one goes, the higher is the concentration of dioxins.”

Here is a more scientific site on Dioxins. It begins by saying that Dioxin is one of the most toxic chemicals known and that the smallest amounts are harmful and can stay with you for seven years or more. The page also cites the numerous health effects such as cancer.

Besides the overall havoc Dioxin can wreak on your body, imagine now what you are doing to your poor vagina? That tampon full of Dioxins and other foreign fibers sits in there for hours where it is replaced by a fresh one. This goes on for a week every month. Imagine all the foreign chemicals and fibers that have now been absorbed by your body. These chemicals now get stored in the tissues and fats around your vagina, uterus, and cervix. After a while the buildup of Dioxins can cause painful cists, endometriosis, cervical cancer, birth defects (your baby is sitting in a uterus full of chemicals), and infertility. This is a lot more severe than what I had originally thought to be the worst effect of using tampons: the uncomfortable effects of getting dried out and having a minor risk of toxic shock syndrome (of which tens of women DIE every year!) from the highly absorbent rayon fibers in the tampon.

Think also of the environment. Tampons are, after all, a disposable product. After you have finished using the bloody rayon, Dioxin filled waste; you throw it out. Think of all the women using tampons. Can you guess the weight of yearly feminine hygiene waste? It is about 580 million pounds of bloody garbage per YEAR.

Well, during my search for something that would not dry my out, I discovered all of this information. Suddenly, having a dry vag became the least of my worries. So, I found out about reusable pads and sponges and was not very crazy about having to wash out some flannel pads or stick a once live sponge between my thighs. Instead, I began reading up on menstrual cups. They are small, flexible cups made of rubber or medical grade silicon. Basically, you fold a menstrual cup and stick it up there where the cup will catch all of your blood. At the beginning and end of every day, you simply empty the cup in the toilet or shower, rinse it out/wash it/use toilet paper to quick clean it, and shove the cup back in there. At the end of a cycle, it can be boiled or thoroughly scrubbed and put away. A cup will generally last TEN YEARS before it needs to be replaced.

I thought that dealing with all the blood would be really messy and disgusting. It was messy the first few times that I tried to use it, but after a few months I got the hang of it… no more mess. The first two months I used my menstrual cup were a little painful. So, before my third month using the cup, I decided to cut the stem. I no longer feel it up there. Honestly, I sometimes even forget that I am on the rag anymore, because my Diva cup is soooo comfortable. If you make sure that you put the thing in there correctly, it won’t leak either. I am NEVER going back to pads and tampons ever again.

There are many manufacturers of menstrual cups including the Keeper, the Diva cup, and the Lunnette. I personally prefer the ones made of medical grade silicon as they are non-porous, making the risk of little bacterial colonies forming in holes nearly nil. I think they hold up better than the rubber ones personally. For more information on menstrual cups, here is a link to a support page: Menstrual Cups.

Anyway, I really wanted to share all this information with the women of the world. I hope this shortish article can help you make an informed decision about your health, your cycle, and your world.

For more detailed health information and links, visit these pages: 1 2.

I highly recommend reading this article about the feminine hygiene industry and how it has manipulated women for profit for the last eighty years: Pulling the Plug on the Sanitary Protection Agency. The mention of making you ashamed of the lovely blood that comes out every month is really interesting to think about, and at the same time, enraging.

Part-time Vegetarian

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about trying the vegetarian thing again. I like and enjoy meat and seafood on occasion, but I feel so much better, more energized, after eating a lighter, all veggie meal. I think that I am going to begin the transition soon. Maybe next week? I should set a goal. I will strictly eliminate all meat except on very few occasions (at dad’s where meat is the ONLY option, and perhaps as a special occasion treat, or where there might be a decision between starving all day and eating meat). Also, I will try to avoid consumption of large amounts of milk and cheese. I’m lactose intolerant anyway.

I am mostly doing this for health and wellbeing reasons; though, I suppose cutting down on meat helps the environment and the animals. Which is why I will allow myself a little meat on occasion. In addition to meat, I mostly want to stay away from an overabundance of processed foods, high fructose corn syrup, soda pop, and empty carbohydrates.

I do not think that I want to completely eliminate meat anyway as I do enjoy it, and in moderation, meat isn’t terribly bad for a body. I am just going to give this part-time vegetarian thing a try and see what happens… see how I feel. So, starting next week, I am going to try more vegetarian recipes, abstain from meat, and continue to read more about vegetarians and the benefits of being one. Any tips, help, links, books, ideas, or thoughts from any of you out there?

Optical Theremin

The hauntingly smooth moaning sounds of the Theremin create a dreadfully mysterious atmosphere. Though its tones are strange and eerie, the inner workings of this electronic instrument are neither strange nor mysterious. The circuitry within a Theremin induces an electromagnetic field in a vertical metal rod and a horizontal metal loop. The player moves his hand closer to the rod in order to increase the pitch and moves the other hand closer to the loop in order to increase the volume of the note. The hand within the field acts like one plate in a variable capacitor. The rod acts like the second plate in the capacitor system.

In an optical Theremin, the rod and loop are replaced by two phototransistors. One phototransistor controls the volume, and the other phototransistor controls the pitch of the output sound. Unlike the standard Theremin, an optical Theremin relies on photons completing the circuit, rather than variable capacitance. A phototransistor acts just like a normal transistor, but the base current is provided by the incoming photons. Now that photons are inducing a current flow through the phototransistors, there is now current flowing through the circuit. As the intensity of the light hitting the phototransistors increases, the current through the system also increases. This results in increased volume and pitch from the speaker. If no light hits the phototransistors, then there is no current flow, and the speaker will not produce any sound.

I used a circuit diagram which a Theremin enthusiast posted online. Based on his schematics, I purchased the resistors, capacitors, phototransistors, and timing chip necessary to build this circuit from scratch. Below is the circuit diagram for my optical Theremin courtesy of www.oldtemecula.com.

Fig. 1

The circuit uses a 555 8-pin timing chip. An IC timer chip is an operational amplifier which has a different function than the standard 741 op-amp. Figure 3 is the pin-out diagram for a 555 timing chip (courtesy of RadioShack packaging).

Each phototransistor is linked with its own resistor and capacitor. The phototransistor/resistor/capacitor combination, in conjunction with the timing chip, acts like an amplifier. Since the values for the capacitors and resistors vary between the two phototransistors, each phototransistor has a different range and controls a different function of the optical Theremin. One phototransistor controls the volume, and the other phototransistor controls the pitch. The base current of each phototransistor is provided by the light input. The phototransistors I used are more sensitive to wavelengths of light in the infrared region, which is why this optical Theremin is much louder and higher pitched under an incandescent light bulb (which produces lots of infrared light) than under fluorescent light or sunlight.

I began building this circuit by laying it out on a bred board. I had difficulty getting the device to do little more than squeal one soft, high-pitched noise that did not vary. Later, I found the problem was one missing jumper.

Once bred board testing was complete, I soldered the circuit together on a small pc board and succeeded in scaring the living daylights out of everyone in the lab. This optical Theremin works very well and is very loud; considering it is only powered by four double A batteries and hooks up to a cheap, paper speaker. A photo of my completed circuit is here: Optical Theremin Circuit.

Fig.3

After days of work and silly errors, I was able to build a working optical Theremin. This device is not performance worthy; however, it shall prove to be a fun toy, and will be very useful in practical joking fellow students and siblings. I had fun building it anyway. Here is a link to my video post with this Theremin: Optical Theremin in Action.

Buddhism: An Existential Worldview

For my first post, I am going to dive deep into the Buddha-mind. This is a paper I just wrote for a class, but I like it; it helps dispel some misconceptions about Buddhism. I hope you all enjoy!

Now that the popularity of Asian religious traditions, such as Buddhism, has begun to grow in the West, there has been an increase in the propagation of knowledge about these traditions; though, not all of this information may be correct. For Buddhism, this is especially the case. There are so many misconceptions about this deceptively simple religion, namely the incorrect view of Buddhism as a pessimistic or nihilist worldview.

The Buddha’s teachings center on suffering (dukkha). Buddha says that suffering is a fact of life. Because everything is in a constant state of flux or change, including one’s own body and mind, everything will die, everything will come and go, and everything is subject to samsara (the cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth). This statement by Greek philosopher Heraclitus reflects this idea in an appropriate metaphor, “You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” So logically, a person cannot depend on anything. A person cannot hold tight to anything. A person cannot base his happiness on anything, because when that thing held dear changes or dies, the person’s happiness will be extinguished with the object of its affection.

This fact is made clear with the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth (Dukkha) is that there is suffering. The Second Noble Truth (Samudaya) proclaims how suffering arises, which I just explained. The Third Noble Truth (Nirodha) says that there is a way out of suffering. The final and Fourth Noble Truth (Magga) gives the way out of suffering by following the “Path” which includes the Eightfold Path, meditation, and other activities that lead to Nirvana, extinction, or freedom from the cycle.

A religion which is centered around the idea of suffering seems very pessimistic and even nihilistic; in other words, one should not care about life, because it just does not matter in the end anyway. This is not at all what Buddhists believe. Buddhism is perhaps one of the most existential of the religious worldviews; that is, a Buddhist believes that life DOES matter, even if everything about life involves suffering.

The heart of this existential understanding comes from a deep understanding of the Buddhist doctrine. Since all life is flux, one never knows what will happen from instant to instant. A body could be alive one second, and dead the next… one can never know for certain what the future holds. Buddhism thus offers a release from the future. Likewise, one cannot look nostalgically to the past and also avoid suffering. The past is gone. All things in the past have become extinguished. Buddhism is a release from the past as well.

So what is a person left with after the future and past are taken away? The present moment is all that remains. The present is all that a person has. This is the existential perspective in a Buddhist’s mind. People are free to live in the now. People are free of the future, free of the past, and free of all attachments. A person can live in the now and do things now. If a person does not live in the past or in the future, he can be present (as Buddhists call living in the now) and not worry about anything. Why worry about future situations that one cannot completely predict in this chaotic universe? Freedom from worry and suffering is where true joy comes from.

So, one may think that this is a nihilist worldview, “I do not care about the future, so why should I care about now?” Yet there is a second part to this deepest of Buddhist philosophies. The Zen Buddhists call it the Buddha-Mind. The Mahayana Buddhists and Theravada Buddhists call it Anatta. The name of the doctrine is insignificant; the meaning and implications, though, are very deep.

To a Buddhist, a person does not have an everlasting soul. This is called Anatta (or Anatman) which means “No self.” One does not have an everlasting soul in part, because the self changes from moment to moment. A person is not the same person now that he was ten minutes ago. This is true both physically and mentally. The mental consciousness, or ego, is in a constant state of flux. It is not the same. It will never be the same. As thoughts arise and die, so too the mind, the ego arises and dies each instant. How can Buddhists believe in reincarnation and such if there is no lasting soul?

The hidden meaning behind Anatta is non-inherent existence. Buddhists know that no thing in the universe (including the universe itself) can survive or arise on its own. A flower cannot survive without the rain, the wind, the sun, the Earth. Likewise, the sun cannot survive without that flower. A galaxy is held together by the combination of all the matter within the galaxy. This mass creates the gravity which holds the galaxy together. Without even the smallest flower, the galaxy could not exist, so the sun could not continue to exist. In the study of mathematical chaos theory, a simulation of this would show that removing even small pieces of mass from a galaxy will drastically affect it over time. So, without the existence of that little dandelion in the grass, humans do not exist either. This is Anatta. Nothing inherently exists, or exists on its own.

This fact makes EVERYTHING important. There is a connection between every thing which Zen Buddhists call the Buddha-Mind. The things that appear in the universe (including the universe) are really just manifestations of one thing. Everything grows out of and dies into this Entity… Nirvana. Escaping the cycle, means escaping one’s manifested form, including the ego, and returning to Nirvana or the Buddha-Mind. In Zen Buddhist philosopher Wei Wu Wei’s book, Why Lazarus Laughed, he emphasizes these points over and over:

“The Buddha-mind is whole mind. It is not split. It is that which we are. It is that aspect of the Absolute which is accessible to cognition. But it can only be apprehended subjectively, never as an object. To apprehend subjectively means to know that we are it… By a state of pure awareness we may know by direct cognition that the Buddha-mind is us.”

Wei Wu Wei further explains what the Buddha-mind is… much better than this author can describe:

“Where is this Impersonal Consciousness? No, it is not up there! Nor in my head, nor even in my heart or solar-plexus. Regarded spatially and personally, it is distributed in every cell of my anatomy. Regarded psychically it might appear as a radionic aura. Regarded impersonally it is immanent throughout space. Regarded non-spatially it is infinity. Regarded intemporally it is the eternal present. Regarded temporally it is that which sees, hears, feels, tastes and smells. But ‘it’ is never that which interprets perceptions. My psyche-soma is the means whereby ‘it’ manifests, and its manifestation is the justification of my psychesoma. I am it, and it is I.”

The entire idea behind this is similar to the African term Ubuntu, which means, “I am, because we are.” I exist, because you all exist. This is the most positive worldview one can have. The recognition that one needs others in order to survive and thrive (and the deeper realization that everything, including the self are all manifestations of one thing), gives rise to acts of charity, protests for freedom and rights, neighbors helping neighbors, strong communities, and brotherly love. Ubuntu or Buddha-Mind, in the author’s opinion, is the deepest form of love and the deepest source of happiness that exist.
Buddhism says that there is something to live for, there is a purpose! It is for the sake of others that people exist, as scientist Albert Einstein aptly put it, “Strange is our situation on the earth. However, there is one thing that we know, we are here for the sake of others. Above all, for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends. And, also, for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy.” This is Buddha-mind.

In conclusion, Buddhism gives people the freedom to live in the present moment and not dwell in the past or the future, because one does not know anything beyond the present, nor can one go back to the past. Enlightenment is living this freedom and cultivating right view (part of the Eightfold Path) which leads to understanding the true reality of the universe: that everyone and everything are really a part of the whole, the Buddha-mind. This positive outlook is at the heart of a Buddhist’s worldview.