Hehehe. I said "movement". The constipation is still here, but I'm back on psyllium-husk therapy, and that's... uhhh... "helping things along" as it were. Bit of a drag, though, insofar as my genera-mucil stuff is CHOCK-A-BLOCK FULLA SUGAR!!!! $^@$!! I'll investigate tablet-form this week.
It's pretty nice to get on the scale and see that this is actually working again. After having been stalled at roughly 264-5 since August 8th, I was getting a bit discouraged. That's only natural, I suppose. And it was complicated and exacerbated by this ethical dilemma regarding a diet based on critters. I won't say that I'm not still a tad conflicted. I also won't say that I'm not enjoying eating meat. I'm only comfortable with being one kind of hypocrite at a time, please.
So, I made the final jump. A few days ago, I ate beef for the fist time in nearly seven-or-so years. Up until very recently (even post-LC) I swore that I'd never eat beef again. I find the US beef industry to be one of the most hideous, insidious, hell-born pain machines ever to blight the Earth that Joseph Mengele didn't have an active hand in. I still do. But I've never been one to say that my former vegetarianism was a result of being repulsed by taste. Truth is, animals taste good, and that includes beef. But quite frankly, I also do firmly believe that there is BSE in the USA, and that it's here to stay. But you can avoid exposure by buying and eating organic, grass-fed beef (which I do anyhow). BSE is caused and spread by forcing cows to be cannibals, and feeding them cattle offal mixed in to their feed. I refuse to participate in that cycle, and decided to buy two very nice organic sirloins for my girl and myself. Certified Organic (Oregon Tilth) inherently means "all vegetarian feed" in the case of beef. I will say that it tasted divine. Check that: $^@*ing awesome. To say anything else would be a bold-faced lie. Frankly, I think that would be a greater breach of precepts than the eating of meat itself.
The whole issue has raised so many challenging points of practice for me. I realize that this period of my life--this whole weight-loss issue--is really the true core of my practice, critter-eating included. Ahiṃsā is something that is so dear to me, yet for years and years, I haven't had the ability or willingness (or, frankly, the guts) to focus that light upon myself.
Non-harming? I wonder if there is a Pali word for "non-self-harming"? I have been killing myself softly with good intentions about food for years.
May all animal-beings achieve enlightenment, even before me...
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