Wisdom for Global Peace and Happiness

A transformative life experience

Yesterday 

after struggling with a time conflict that almost prevented my attending, I queued up with thousands of others at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan to see and hear Thich Nhat Hanh, the 87-year-old Zen Buddhist monk teach on peace, mindful breathing and mindful walking, compassion, insight, suffering, healing, joy and happiness with 80 monastics from his Plum Village monastery in France. The peace and beauty of this event cannot be adequately described here by me, nor the celestial music of the monastics' chanting that stays with me still.

I have been a. follower for some time but seeing Thay (Vietnamese for teacher, as he is called by his followers) in person and hearing his voice and watching his graceful movements touched me deeply. There was such wisdom in his words and not the least of these that has impressed me deeply was the notion of suffering as something to be embraced rather than avoided. He said something like, "When we embrace our suffering and hold it close as a mother does her child, our suffering is better, it is less." He held up a sheet of paper, indicating that suffering and joy are inextricably connected. If suffering is on one side of the paper and joy on the other, we must take them together, for neither can be separated away. He also said that the beautiful lotus flower has its roots in the mud. Without mud the seeds of the lotus cannot grow and bear their exquisite flowers. No mud, no lotus.

This and other calligraphy of Thich Nhat Hanh
is on exhibit through 12/31/13 at ABC Home
located at 888 Broadway, New York, NY

The view from the back row

My seat in the theater was a couple of rows from the very back, but I felt able to see Thay flanked by nuns on his right and monks on his left as well as I needed to in order to feel fully present and included. There was also a video screen that also showed Thay in close-up at times. I held up my iPhone, zoomed in, and with the flash in the off mode took the following photo which I later edited with my iPad. Although the resolution isn't good I feel it manages to capture the beauty of the moment:

The monastics chanted 

to the accompaniment of a monastic quartet of violin, cello, drum and guitar, punctuated by a high bell and the deep resonating bowl struck at intervals by Thay himself. As the monks and nuns chanted with hands in the mudra of prayerful adoration, Thay seated by the great bowl moved slowly through mudras with his right hand as he meditated with closed eyes. I am overjoyed to have found the following recording, because during the teaching I was unable to take my eyes from him to close them in meditation. Here is a recording of the same chanting as presented in Vancouver in 2011 (If the video doesn't appear below, you may access it via YouTube here: Awakening the Heart):

What more can be said? 

Peace to you in all things, 

and may your journey be as blessed as is mine today.

The Powerful Nature of Visualization

When we imagine something

we activate the same portion of the brain, the occipital lobe, that we activate in the act of seeing with the eye. 

Because seeing something in our "mind's eye" is so much like seeing with our actual vision, we can form memories based on what we visualize. I learned this in my training as a psychologist and have seen it play out countless times in my life as well as in the lives of my clients. What we retrieve as a memory can be that image we have "seen" in the mind, and this can work for or against us, as I'm sure you can understand.

Obsession is one way that visualization can harm us. If we ruminate again and again on a slight or perceived deficit in our capacity for happiness, we can sink deeper and deeper into misery or inaction. If we obsess about a person with whom we believe we would be happy, regardless of their indifference or aversion to us, we don't bring them closer, but we may bring ourselves closer to greater heartache, boundary intrusion, or legal problems for ourselves.

So it helps us to be aware of the potential negative effects of visualizing that which we do not wish to see manifest on real life, speaking of the end result. 

Now let us shift to focusing on the positive and how visualization can help us accomplish worthy goals. You need to capture images of your positive goals in order to make them reality.

A method I employ to help clients fine-tune goals and objectives is the collage. There are many ways we can make a collage illustrating  the goals we seek to achieve. The most familiar way is getting a sheet of poster board and tearing or cutting out images of things we want to do, be or acquire for ourselves. Then we glue or tape them on. Or even just place on the poster board and take a photo. Easy!

Make your own collage online
from one of many collage makers
such as Picture2Life.com

Are you geeky? Here's a collage I made from photos I took myself or found online. My "Mindfulness Collage" reminds me to meditate, both seated and walking; to listen to wisdom such as that from zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh; to get out in nature for its beauty; to show compassion for all sentient beings by not harming them; and to keep doing my creative activities. 

Here's a really easy way to set up a visual array of your goals, and it's totally low tech:

Get an inexpensive cork board from an office supply store or a yard sale. 

Get some pushpins. Select some magazines or newspapers and start flipping through the pages choosing words and images that fit your goals. Tear or cut them out. Arrange the words and images on your cork board, pin them in place, and display it where you will see it daily. If privacy is an issue, you can hang this on the inside of your closet door.

Want a really cool way of assembling those images and ideas that represent your goals? Try Pinterest. You can easily set up an

account, and it's free. Then when you're browsing your favorite websites, you can "pin" images you like to virtual "boards." 

For example, if you are trying to get back into yoga, or try it for the first time, you can pin images of people doing yoga to your board, pictures of yoga clothing you've seen, yoga accessories such as mats, mat bags, blocks and bolsters, and inspiring quotes about yoga and its benefits. Find a studio you'd like to visit for a class? Pin their website to your yoga board.

Remember, whatever you visualize imprints on your brain just as do things you see with your natural eyes. So visualizing what you wish to be or do or have will help you get there.

You Call That a Recipe?

Sometimes something that sounds delicious is really a flop.

I tried something this morning that sounded amazing: Candy Bar Smoothie. The recipe came in an email from VegNews magazine, a normally very reliable recipe source for all things vegan and wonderful. Well, I changed it a little. Could that have been the trouble? It called for flaxseeds, and I used chia (slightly higher in calories); it called for cocoa nibs and I used unsweetened cocoa powder (much lower in calories). 

I assembled the ingredients:

I whipped it all up in the Vitamix, using 1-1/2 cups of almond milk because the recipe didn't say how much.

It looked pretty in a glass:

As the photo above shows, it was reallllly thick. That spoon never sank.

I tasted it. Mmm, okay. No refined sugars, smooth and flavorful. I stuck it in the freezer while I cleaned up. Whenever you use chia seeds, the cleanup has to happen right away.

Before trying to consume this, I decided to enter the ingredients into My Fitness Pal to see the damages. OMG! It was about 750 calories. Not happening. I divided it into four 1/2 cup servings at 186 calories each and put it in the fridge. 

Here are the actual ingredients:

Ingredients	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
So Delicious - Vanilla Almond Plus Almond Milk, 1.5 cup	105	12	3	8	143	12
Dry - Chia Seeds, 2 T	120	12	10	6	6	0
Maranatha - No Stir Creamy Almond Butter, 2 Tbsp.	190	7	16	6	60	3
Fruit - Frozen Banana Small (6"-7"), 1 Banana (101g)	90	23	0	1	1	12
Bob's Red Mill - Flaked Coconut (Unsweetened), 30 g (1/4 cup)	200	8	20	2	10	2
Simply Organic - Vanilla Extract, 1 tsp	10	0	0	0	0	0
Cocoa - Dry powder, unsweetened, 2 tbsp	25	6	1	2	2	0
Spices - Cinnamon, ground, 1 tsp	6	2	0	0	1	0

Total:	746	70	50	25	223	29
Per Serving:	187	18	13	6	56	7

I ate it like pudding which was pretty good, and I changed the name to Candy Bar Smoothie Pudding. 

Would I make this again? I doubt it. 

What Have I Learned?

I've learned some lessons worth sharing from my recipe flop:

• Be willing to try something new; you never know but it might be wonderful.
• Rather than treat a flop as a failure, see if you can transform it into something that works for you.
• Ask yourself if the sorry outcome is worth it; if you are underweight and needing tasty, high-calorie nutrients, this might be perfect for you; do you know somebody needing to bulk up?
• Share your flops as well as your triumphs; someone may be grateful that you made the effort so they (a) don't have to, or (b) can try it for themselves.

Have a wonderful day filled with opportunities to grow. It means you're awake and alive!

How the Candy Bar Smoothie Pudding
will look in 1/2 cup servings

Making a Big Decision

So You Have  a Big Decision to Make...

Where do you begin? Psychotherapy is largely about insight into your thoughts and feelings leading to appropriate actions. While psychotherapy often looks at your whys and why-nots, and your psychological obstacles to making decisions by exploring the emotional back story, guidance assumes you know what you want and works with you to get there, or helps you make changes to your goals if somehow they keep being out of reach. Guidance is about action.

With guidance you state your crossroads and what you hope to achieve by making your best decision. You may opt to start with the most compelling option and start planning out that path. If the projected route brings up problems for you, we may examine the second most compelling option and talk that through. Eventually you make a working decision (which can be changed by you at any time). 

Here are some steps you can expect to take with guidance:

• You establish the goal. You may need helping putting it into words, so that's a guidance issue
• You explore ways of achieving that goal and select the route that fits your motivation, risk tolerance and time frame best
• You break down the tasks you'll need to accomplish to get there, with guidance helping you identify and define them
• You commit to taking step one (or more) by a certain time frame, with encouragement to aim high, but not impossibly so, in a short time
• In the next session you account for your efforts and report on your progress

The Whole Point of Guidance is Getting to the Point Where We Can Say

Paralyzed By A Fear Of Old Age or Death?

Your assignment,
should you choose to accept it, is to go right away to see this movie, "Unfinished Song (Song for Marion)" playing in theaters now. Why? Because if the idea of getting old scares you, and the thought of dying is so terrifying you can't even think of it, or if the fear of losing an older loved one such as a parent or life partner devastates you, you need to get over it! 

My uncle, age 85, is currently in rehab recovering from a massive heart attack, and we spoke on the phone today. When we spoke of his desire to leave a meaningful" legacy" and his new awareness he may not have much time to do it, I said to him, "Life is not a permanent condition." It isn't.

The Buddhists sometimes say, as an affirmation, "I might die today." Does that sound negative to you? Does it make a chill run down your spine? If so, those reactions suggest it's time to face the truth and live more fully in the now. The now is really all we have. Rarely do living beings seek death over life, and if they do it usually stems from brokenness of body or mind. The will to live, regardless of our uncertainty of what may lie ahead, is powerful. If the thought of life ending is frightening, we face a crossroads. Either we can remain paralyzed by fear and resist change, or we can embrace the change and let it teach us. I don't mean giving up and fading away. I mean accepting the wrinkles, graying hair or beard, age spots, creaky joints and other reminders we are no longer young as just so many badges earned by living life fully. Not there yet? God bless, because if you're lucky, you'll get there in time.

"Unfinished Song" features the wonderful, seasoned British actors Vanessa Redgrave and Terrence Stamp as they come to grips with her terminal illness. Sound grim? It is anything but. Oh, you will be wise to bring tissues or a hanky, but truly it's a feel-good movie. My aunt is 88, and when I told her about the film, she said, "Sounds like something we need to see!" I agreed.

If you enjoy this movie, don't miss "Quartet," made by the same people, also featuring elderly Brits struggling with the changes and vicissitudes of growing old. And both films feature amazing music that will bring a smile to your face and joy to your heart.

Colors

Union Square Farmers Market, New York

The colors of summer offer tasty variety and nutrition

Color is like food for me. It brightens my existence as much or more than many other sensory joys. A panoply of color is a feast for the eyes. If that luscious array happens to be edible, like fruits and veggies, what beauty! Head to your farmer's market, like the one above near me at Union Square, to feast your baby blues on the gorgeous plant-based goods.

Health experts tell us that eating the rainbow is far healthier than sticking to the white foods: choose whole grain breads, brown rice, yams and sweet potatoes, berries, tomatoes, melons, etc. The chlorophyll that greens up kale, broccoli, lettuce and celery enhances their nutritional value. The antioxidants in red, blue and purple fruits help protect against cancer-causing free-radicals. The betacarotene in carrots and other orange foods helps our eyes, the brown outer covering of grains such as wheat, rye,  and rice, as well as the ancient grains such as kamut, farro and  amaranth, contain the most vitamins and minerals, as opposed to their blander interiors.

Visit TodayIAteARainbow.com

Try to add two or three different colored foods to each meal (natural colors, not commercially colored foods). For example, breakfast can be a smoothie, green or otherwise. Lunch can be a big salad of greens with red tomato, brown beans, yellow-green avocado, red onion, purple olives, and whatever other good stuff you want. Go easy on the dressing because oils weigh it down.

Dinner can be a vegetarian chili, rich with tomatoes and their awesome lycopene, punctuated by black beans, garbanzos and pintos, chopped or grated zucchini, peppers, onions and garlic. Serve this colorful main dish on a bed of quinoa, corn, brown rice or tortilla chips (or even Fritos, once in a while). Another day you can make it Chili Mac by adding some cooked rice elbow macaroni.

Evening snack? Last night I fixed a bowl of fresh berries: blackberries, blueberries and strawberries. Delicious! So here's your challenge: see how many different colors you can eat in a day. We adults will feel healthier than ever, and our kids and grandkids will learn from us that colorful natural foods, as opposed to fake colors in candy, cake, cookies and other prepared foods, are great!

Plant-based eating is healthy and delicious, too!

A Zinger of a Beginning

What do these goals have in common?

• You'd like to shed a few pounds
• You want a clearer head at work
• You need to bring down your cholesterol
• You'd love to have energy in the morning
• You wish you felt clean and bright inside

The answer? You need to start your day with a green smoothie! If this is the only dietary change you make for now, your body and mind will thank you. Replace that heavy breakfast of eggs, fried meat, buttered toast or sugary cereal drowning in cow's milk with a breakfast bursting with energizing, clean nutrition, high in fiber and whole food deliciousness. 

What? You don't usually have breakfast? You are hindering yourself from the get-go by starting the day with low blood sugar and an empty gut just waiting for that first cup of joe to start churning out the stomach acid. So, give this a try and see how you feel. 

Caution: if you have a digestive disorder, before trying a green smoothie, please check with your MD to be on the safe side.

Your Good Garden Life Guide enjoys this amazing morning bell-ringer as often as I can, using any fruits and greens I have on hand. I still enjoy coffee to start my morning, and I don't teach against it, but some people report feeling even better if they cut out all caffeine.

Basic Green Smoothie

• 1 cup cold water (use 1/2 if you want it thick)
• 2 or 3 servings of fresh fruit (e.g. 1/2 banana, cup of seedless grapes, cup of strawberries, half a peeled grapefruit, a peach, a cup of mango)
• 2 handfuls of spinach, or cup of chopped parsley or kale (stems removed)
• 1 cup of ice cubes (less if you use frozen fruit)
• 1 TBS of chia,  hemp or flax seeds

Put these ingredients into your blender in the order given. This is important for best blending. I use a high-powered blender and set it on high for as long as it takes to clean up the counter and put stuff away, a couple of minutes at most. If you have an ordinary blender, you may want to soak your seeds overnight or plan on blending longer. Or use flax seed meal.

Pour into a big glass and enjoy. Notice my quart-sized mason jar fitted with a special drinking lid called a "Cuppow." 

You can find this awesome jar adapter at The Grommet to fit regular and large-mouth jars. I love filling my antique store jar with almost a quart of wholesome morning goodness. It tastes just as good filling your favorite glass, a couple of times or more. By the way, The Grommet has many more amazing new inventions, most made in the USA.

So, are you ready? Let's Go Green today!