Anandi reports another vegan blog just stopped being vegan. She thought the comments were very harsh, the vegan community is often very hard on people who leave it. Is that one of the traits of being a cult? When people are punished for leaving? Perhaps people were just expressing their own feelings about another's actions. Such a strong reaction means there's a lot of meaning in there. I'm all for exploring what is important to people.
I asked he why the person stopped being vegan. It was health reasons, but supposedly they are never specific. Which makes me think they stopped feeling good, and listened to their body. They never get specific. Was it cheese? Was it meat?
Reading section 5.2.4 of The Essential Sangharakshita, he talks about moving away from harm to others. Whether that's not eating veal, to veganism, the point is to exert effort to reduce the harm done to others by providing ourselves nourishment. What I admire about Anandi is that she's not an angry vegan, she is OK with others not being vegan. She works very hard to make yummy vegan food. My mouth waters when I read her blog, because I remember those lovely meals. I'm a semi-vegetarian with aspirations. I feel lucky to live with such a good cook.
Anandi should really write this blog because she's the food expert. Yesterday we made curried chick pea salad, that was awesome. For dinner we had the tofu, broccoli and peanut sauce with rice. We haven't really had that here at home, that's more of an Aryaloka meal. I was so honored that she included that meal in our retreat eating.
Update on retreat: We moved the beginning time from 6 to 7 and only I got up. Anandi stayed up till midnight last night, and decided she doesn't like doing new year's alone. I slept. Instead of getting to meditation after 30 minutes, I took 75 minutes to read and write, and then sat down to do a mindfulness of breathing. Anandi woke up and ground some coffee. I heard her padding around and making noise. I did not resent it, but I was thinking about how we were not in harmony. I felt guilty that I didn't stay up with her. I've always been in relationships with people who wanted to celebrate New Year's Eve, and I don't particularly like staying up that late, it throws everything out of whack.
So we through out our rigid schedule of meditation and just wrote a list of essentials we'd like to do today. So that's how the retreat is going to go today. No Netflix or video games for me. I think that's something I'd like to do in my regular life. No non-Dharma books. We are talking about our life visions and the blocks towards achieving those goals and ideas. And cleaning becomes important. I'm not very good about cleaning, and I'm hoping the retreat helps me to clean and organize the house. It already has.
I'd say the challenge of an in-home retreat is that it's harder to step out of your usual patterns in your own home, going off to a retreat center makes it easier. And yet it's in the home where it really counts, so maybe it's good to fight that fight.
I asked he why the person stopped being vegan. It was health reasons, but supposedly they are never specific. Which makes me think they stopped feeling good, and listened to their body. They never get specific. Was it cheese? Was it meat?
Reading section 5.2.4 of The Essential Sangharakshita, he talks about moving away from harm to others. Whether that's not eating veal, to veganism, the point is to exert effort to reduce the harm done to others by providing ourselves nourishment. What I admire about Anandi is that she's not an angry vegan, she is OK with others not being vegan. She works very hard to make yummy vegan food. My mouth waters when I read her blog, because I remember those lovely meals. I'm a semi-vegetarian with aspirations. I feel lucky to live with such a good cook.
Anandi should really write this blog because she's the food expert. Yesterday we made curried chick pea salad, that was awesome. For dinner we had the tofu, broccoli and peanut sauce with rice. We haven't really had that here at home, that's more of an Aryaloka meal. I was so honored that she included that meal in our retreat eating.
(photo by Anandi)
Update on retreat: We moved the beginning time from 6 to 7 and only I got up. Anandi stayed up till midnight last night, and decided she doesn't like doing new year's alone. I slept. Instead of getting to meditation after 30 minutes, I took 75 minutes to read and write, and then sat down to do a mindfulness of breathing. Anandi woke up and ground some coffee. I heard her padding around and making noise. I did not resent it, but I was thinking about how we were not in harmony. I felt guilty that I didn't stay up with her. I've always been in relationships with people who wanted to celebrate New Year's Eve, and I don't particularly like staying up that late, it throws everything out of whack.
So we through out our rigid schedule of meditation and just wrote a list of essentials we'd like to do today. So that's how the retreat is going to go today. No Netflix or video games for me. I think that's something I'd like to do in my regular life. No non-Dharma books. We are talking about our life visions and the blocks towards achieving those goals and ideas. And cleaning becomes important. I'm not very good about cleaning, and I'm hoping the retreat helps me to clean and organize the house. It already has.
I'd say the challenge of an in-home retreat is that it's harder to step out of your usual patterns in your own home, going off to a retreat center makes it easier. And yet it's in the home where it really counts, so maybe it's good to fight that fight.
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