tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32826546857757313242024-03-05T17:39:30.456-07:00Practical BuddhismBuddhism is a religion without a god or a creed, yet it's a way of life for four hundred million. It seeks
no converts and strives only to relieve suffering. This blog offers no high teaching but only practical observations, mostly about the daily news. You can write me at familyhelpaz@gmail.com.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-3225025202985672922023-08-05T21:39:00.016-07:002023-08-05T21:39:00.129-07:00Trumpgod<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Originally published as 2016 began, early in the Trump ascendency</b></i></span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></div>
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--<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
Please consider that The Donald is not the problem, but simply a convenient local god.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>From the beginning human tribes created gods that suited their needs and fears </i>de jour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The One True God thing is fairly recent, less than 8000 years, and really a lot less than that. Anyhow, every religious has subgods, though under other names.</span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Millions of scared Americans watched TV and</i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>created Trumpgod, but it could have been any <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
handy </div>
demagogue<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
</div>
. <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
</div>
</i></span></div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Trumpgod</span></div>
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comforts them by soothing their fears of dangerous OTHERS, and making them feel (1)<i>special</i> and (2)<i>safe</i>. <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
All he asks in return is submission. </div>
There's a lot of Trumpish <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
narrative</div>
in the Old Testament, about the chosen people crushing all their enemies<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
. Some of it is scary graphic</div><div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">.</div>
Most of the iterations of that particular<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
ly nasty and jealous </div>
god exiled aliens, built walls, and vanquished foes as violently and dramatically as possible<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
, demanding </div>
ab<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
so</div>
lute personal fealty. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But don't concern yourself with Trump. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Trumpgod doesn't even have all that much to do with the realtor named Donald. </span></div>
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And know this: if Donald <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
vanished this afternoon</div>, they'd pick <div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
another god</div>
in a quick hurry.<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
Television makes quick god substitutions easy.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Notice: Donald is the darling of right wing religious people, and he's a functional atheist with a history of liberal statements, while Cruz and the crew try to sound like preachers. Donald can contradict himself twice in the same sentence, make up stuff that's obviously false, deny any scientific reality and trash the truth to make Ted Cruz blush, and the followers don't care. They love it! Stop Trump forces spent $40 million in anti-Donald ads last weekend, and his ratings went up! </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;">They didn't know that attacking Trumpgod just strengthens the devotion of his members.</span></div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
<span style="font-size: large;">There is only one viable explanation for all that devotion</span></div>
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<div class="gmail_default" style="display: inline;">
and denial in the service of protecting the prophet: Religion.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The smug mainstream watched it all happen, certain Trump would self-destruct, and never realized that a huge movement was afoot, a religious movement with a huge appetite, fueled by hunger for comfort and full of rage at outsiders. A religious mob, especially one that feels ignored and powerless, will turn any convenient icon into their god of the hour.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's religion, in the most radical sense of the term. And it explains why the Trumpgod is so powerful.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-88431232390247679952023-08-05T20:05:00.006-07:002023-08-05T21:37:04.392-07:00Is Pope Francis a Wimp? Amoris Laetitia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Published originally in 2016</span></i></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">The Pope just sent us all a massive letter with hundreds of footnotes. So far he is pissing everybody off. Rightwingers lament the watering down of moral teaching. They rail against Francis' failure to marginalize and condemn anyone who deviates from their favorite rules. Leftwingers are outraged that the Pope just re-iterated old teachings, only in a kinder, gentler way. </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYO_xNlRWlVDSoI2KoKRn6SEtzv_piIW9fmfD80VcEqDTKKIJLyG8zksojfsJomX-6V8tsfXNXK2wiSIsFUINVmmrUCCBPXShc2JJjVpvty8rxVqUppqwgC9VokcXeNqOVAZ0atnOL7Pus/s1600/Pope-Zuchetto_2766237b.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYO_xNlRWlVDSoI2KoKRn6SEtzv_piIW9fmfD80VcEqDTKKIJLyG8zksojfsJomX-6V8tsfXNXK2wiSIsFUINVmmrUCCBPXShc2JJjVpvty8rxVqUppqwgC9VokcXeNqOVAZ0atnOL7Pus/s400/Pope-Zuchetto_2766237b.jpg" width="400" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My take is that this Pope's no wimp. He also no Trump or Sanders, yelling platitudes and peddling impossible promises. With 2000 years of history, some so ugly and some sublime, this Pope is nudging the Church toward actually adopting Christian values, without alienating over half the world's bishops and the entire African continent. Tough task.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">You can read the 259 page document yourself. <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf">Apostolic Exhortation: Amoris Laetitia</a>. Most say it's a snoozer in spots, and occasionally beautiful. </span></span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">It's billed as promoting "Family Love." It's about self-sacrifice, compassion, and all the rest. It sidesteps contraception and promotes responsibility, a relatively recent trend. A couple of takeaways for me:</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3H7I57x_JdC6YZ3ErKbmqcjNgTxDPmyt1yC1yZFHyjFsT-vPP0pGxKn72JkD6ZNNoEAb6Z7Bfz2tSCM3RO2haaWeQnmLZnOB9DctC5sLBuwQU0KAcQI_qL6NHNssqHS1azFR401RzS6RO/s1600/pokegsdn7o.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3H7I57x_JdC6YZ3ErKbmqcjNgTxDPmyt1yC1yZFHyjFsT-vPP0pGxKn72JkD6ZNNoEAb6Z7Bfz2tSCM3RO2haaWeQnmLZnOB9DctC5sLBuwQU0KAcQI_qL6NHNssqHS1azFR401RzS6RO/s640/pokegsdn7o.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"> 1. If re-married Catholics go through some process of discernment, preferably with the guidance of the clergy, they can start going to Communion again. No renouncing their current marriages or being branded as "living in adultery." Since he's writing for the whole planet, Francis can't get too specific about how a local process would work, but it's clear he wants Catholics in "irregular marriages" back on board as full members. Yes, he's careful to avoid changing any basic doctrines, but he's still angering hateful reactionaries who prefer "us against them" Catholocism. They know what this shift will mean. Liberals, disappointed, note that the change is buried in footnotes. Here's a juicy example of the kind of hatred and rage Francis is attracting -- <a href="http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/amoris-laetitia-in-conflict-with.html">click for right wing rant</a>.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpByvXBI5Efzg7w1kEENbhjdZTCJa9EiCqmRbZI1_pvzZm5OZlqUmZLaY4vT2A8yNJ8jxlW9BqsfC_sk8NMvz_KKH30tAQwv5sXEtozcr0KeLGdXpGXabWYDEasDxZqNRIgjoYL7m7mLdd/s1600/150630-pope-francis-mn-1004_c339d33f54fe1b4bad46e610a3de9399.nbcnews-fp-1200-800.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpByvXBI5Efzg7w1kEENbhjdZTCJa9EiCqmRbZI1_pvzZm5OZlqUmZLaY4vT2A8yNJ8jxlW9BqsfC_sk8NMvz_KKH30tAQwv5sXEtozcr0KeLGdXpGXabWYDEasDxZqNRIgjoYL7m7mLdd/s400/150630-pope-francis-mn-1004_c339d33f54fe1b4bad46e610a3de9399.nbcnews-fp-1200-800.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">2. If you're gay, you can stay. And you have a fundamental right to be free from oppression, discrimination, or marginalization, even if the Church won't bless your marriage any time soon. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;"> </span><span face=""arial" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;">According to Francis every gay person, and
presumably every LGBTQ person, must </span></span><br />
<span face=""arial" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif"><i>be</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><i><span face=""arial" , sans-serif">respected in his or her dignity and treated with
consideration, and ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully
avoided, particularly any form of aggression or violence.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif">There's a lot more, and
this statement isn't new, but here Francis isn't preaching to the liberal choir
in the West. He's talking to Africa too, and the Middle East, where just
being gay can earn you imprisonment or the death penalty. </span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif">Nobody is thrilled with
this document, except boring incrementalists. The right wing fringe
deplores its failure to condemn anybody (except those who discriminate and sow
discord). The left wing fringe mostly doesn't care about any papal
document, but the few who do claim it's cowardly and doesn't go nearly far
enough.</span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></b><span face=""arial" , sans-serif"><br />
Read it for yourself, or at least a summary from fairly conservative
Catholic magazine. </span></span><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://americamagazine.org/issue/top-ten-takeaways-amoris-laetitia"><span face=""arial" , sans-serif" style="color: blue; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ten
Takeaways from the Pope's New Message</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-84407084764074021572016-04-04T20:08:00.000-07:002016-04-04T20:08:06.715-07:00Drive Like a Buddhist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7tkvFMpSyxEAaNPDlKdrFPy56oLToX5nMkuE6119N_PM2xRSDrfH9AryONIfeez9WGSyZRNulSVLIYqpnD-xQnVTNeWovvx-nwjfHJA8bUocr4-LaWTkyq-jKb_T9BCITYMVGDwOcDo8/s1600/trafficbangkok.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7tkvFMpSyxEAaNPDlKdrFPy56oLToX5nMkuE6119N_PM2xRSDrfH9AryONIfeez9WGSyZRNulSVLIYqpnD-xQnVTNeWovvx-nwjfHJA8bUocr4-LaWTkyq-jKb_T9BCITYMVGDwOcDo8/s400/trafficbangkok.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thais ignore rules. I was scared to drive in Thailand. Packs of motorbikes surround your car. With centimeters to spare they vie for position at traffic lights. Nobody looks where they're going. Often lanes mean nothing. Cars suddenly pull out of side streets. I'd thought most Thais were Buddhist and I'd expected universal politeness and restraint. Not lawless dodge'm cars with no idea of right-of-way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As often happens here in the The Kingdom of Smiles, I'd misunderstood. Culture dictates driving style. Thais are highly collaborative and mutually aware at a level Westerners don't get.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Think of walking in a big crowd at the State Fair or leaving a baseball game. There are no lanes, no rules of the road, but people rarely bump into each other. Even little kids race around but instinctively avoid collisions most of the time.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIM1gWHzqBQkyiCWy-4q83DGrLqrK6S0T2QjQkuNhQeHIpbGWUd4AyohPkRbKummcJG2ekbZqoZqK2ZGI7qHpljhliNhRPTm19sXqkC6MeUvvhVl18qJx3cPmNl-RthR6bCvwcghlbKbk/s1600/crowd-crossing-street.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAIM1gWHzqBQkyiCWy-4q83DGrLqrK6S0T2QjQkuNhQeHIpbGWUd4AyohPkRbKummcJG2ekbZqoZqK2ZGI7qHpljhliNhRPTm19sXqkC6MeUvvhVl18qJx3cPmNl-RthR6bCvwcghlbKbk/s640/crowd-crossing-street.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thai Buddhists drive as if they were walking in a crowd. You move in a general direction, stay alert to where others are around you, go with the flow, and get where you're going with no problem. It is very foreign concept for someone who drove mostly in Chicago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Even in Chicago traffic, you can get in your lane, follow the rules, and dream your way home. Someone might cut you off and you'll curse and gesture at the violation of the rules, but you don't have to keep close track. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Try rules-based driving in Thailand and you'll cause an accident. Thais do awareness-based driving, just as we all do awareness-based walking.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I watched Thai drivers closely. No road rage. No horns. No respect for lanes. There's this expectation that if they pull out in front of you, you'll see them and slow. Exactly like walking in a big crowd, with no rules except to avoid bumping into each other. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now I drive relaxed but alert, attending to everything and constantly scanning. On a good day I just think of myself as part of a human flow, abandoning expectations about rules, and trusting that others are keeping an eye on me too. It's not perfect. You can still drive Chicago style and probably survive. You might get there ahead of me too. Or maybe not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5LXtxPD7haQM9x3tyuOboylO9imbQRvofLYq1EIL9LpWuD4JfhgIie9FYIm9TQvVG40EghtqKD1nGiJcCk10LPibZRS4If8pZ22blyiOJUZYwpeLR66RSFgxMnFQRnfFF8UxuOJJAZSH/s1600/happy-driver.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5LXtxPD7haQM9x3tyuOboylO9imbQRvofLYq1EIL9LpWuD4JfhgIie9FYIm9TQvVG40EghtqKD1nGiJcCk10LPibZRS4If8pZ22blyiOJUZYwpeLR66RSFgxMnFQRnfFF8UxuOJJAZSH/s320/happy-driver.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Last week I turned wrong way into a one-way alley. A huge black pickup was coming at me. The guys got out smiling, and stopped traffic so I could back up onto the main road. They pointed me to the correct alley, laughing and waving so the old pink guy wouldn't lose face. Next time I'll being paying attention. Thai style.</i></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-490967446419261702016-03-27T17:15:00.001-07:002023-08-06T00:01:42.739-07:00Overweight Children Part Two: Ten Tips for Parents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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David McPhee, Ph.D.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> Fat kids suffer, and not just because other children are mean. Studies suggest teachers favor lean, cute boys and girls, and assume they're smarter. Many assume obese kids are weak, lazy, and unhealthy. Overweight adults know subtle judgment and rejection, but have grown-up defenses. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>For kids it’s harder. For them “fat” is a cruel insult that has no response. Here are my ten tips for parents:</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> 1. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Never reward or punish with food. Give treats </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px; text-indent: -58.5pt;">for good behavior, especially sweet and fatty ones, and your child will connect fats and sweets with love and approval. If you withhold food to punish, you’ll reinforce the food-love connection. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>2. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Be calm about food. It's a law of nature that you pay a lot of attention to a behavior it will increase, even if the attention is negative. Be neutral and matter-of-fact about what kids eat or don’t eat. If a child isn’t eating, stay cool and distant. If kids are eating in a polite and moderate and healthy way, that’s when to show feelings and appreciation. If you get in a power struggle about food you’re sure to lose.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>3. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Model emotionally healthy eating. Let the kids see you eat slowly, with attention and enjoyment. Express delight about tastes and textures and temperatures so that kids stay aware of the eating process without distraction. By definition, compulsive overeaters don’t pay attention to their food; all they seek is the current fix and the next. Don’t serve food in front of a television or with other major distractions. Mindful eating and compulsive eating are incompatible.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px; text-indent: -58.5pt;"> 4. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px; text-indent: -58.5pt;">Let eating be a pleasant ritual, a ceremony. Have the kids set the table and decorate it. Light a candle or two, even on ordinary occasions. Assume that eating is that special place, not in the media room or the bedroom, and certainly not in the bed or the car. If you have to get fast food, slow it down. Go inside and sit at a table, and don’t teach kids to eat in a moving vehicle.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>5. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Never use shame to get a kid to stop overeating. It won’t work. Compulsive overeaters already associate food with love and approval. A shamed kid will will just eat more to feel better.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>6. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Be aware of your kids’ metabolism. Most children’s blood sugar is a little low when they get home from school. A small glass of juice, or better yet, raw fruit, can help smooth things out. There is no such thing as a “sugar high” (unless the parents expect it) but big doses of refined sugars like soda pop are not kid-friendly.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> 7. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Please don’t put your kid on a diet. Unless it’s a life-time diet, all you will get is resentment from the child, and short term weight loss. Soon the fat will return. Deep down we all know that diets rarely work for long-term weight loss. Older kids might want to improve their nutrition and ask for help. That’s different. Research and learn together, when your teen is ready to explore healthier eating for life.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>8. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Don’t provide binge foods. Kids who eat compulsively often have a few items that make them crazy. Like alcoholics, they start and can’t stop until it’s all gone. Chocolate candy bars are a frequent offender: those big molecules of fat feel so comforting in the mouth and the bit sugar hit is so soothing. It could be any food, but it’s likely to be highly concentrated: lots of calories for the size. Just don’t have it in the house.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>9. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">If you’re overwhelmed, get help. Consider sending yourself to counseling instead of your child. You might be your own kid’s best therapist, and the counseling can provide you tools to do it. In my practice I call it "therapy by remote control."</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktnJzVvXCmqu1Mb_pKMVS09dnyjQKb1joDXM_g3IHbdN4tRqS8s4xZYvJOx3Q2eRiGxHSTkK98qAR7mH3xS9qKtAs06sY82HVJc28TSx-pY3btNLiMIEfS1grGqAq14T-znOXx8zCqaIK/s1600/sharma-obesity-father-son.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktnJzVvXCmqu1Mb_pKMVS09dnyjQKb1joDXM_g3IHbdN4tRqS8s4xZYvJOx3Q2eRiGxHSTkK98qAR7mH3xS9qKtAs06sY82HVJc28TSx-pY3btNLiMIEfS1grGqAq14T-znOXx8zCqaIK/s320/sharma-obesity-father-son.jpg" width="315" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 28px;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>10. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Admit you are ultimately powerless. You can restrict your dog’s food by putting what you want in the bowl, but human food is everywhere. Determined, driven kids will get it, at least when they’re old enough to be sneaky. Start by accepting and enjoying your overweight kid. Start by letting go of all blame and all shame. That's how you'll increase your influence with your child and your ability to help.</span></span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-26045998784785232942016-03-27T17:14:00.004-07:002023-08-06T00:00:41.511-07:00Overweight Children Part One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 22pt;">Play With Your Food: Teaching Kids the Fun of Mindful Eating</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 22pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 29.3333px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i>David McPhee, Ph.D</i></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.95pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> <i>Does it bother you that fat kids are bullied or rejected every day and lead shorter, sicker live</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><i>s than children of average weight? If you're a parent and want to help, you have to understand the problem first.</i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Compulsive eating in children arises from too much wealth and too little mindfulness. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parents counsel and explain but don't model or moderation. We put kids on diets, but we don't teach them the joy of eating that can be found in paying attention. In our society only sommeliers and chefs savor and thoroughly describe what they are tasting and experiencing.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s1600/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s320/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s1600/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">We also set up food as part of a reward system. "Eat your peas and you can have desert" teaches kids "Yes, peas are disagreeable and unpleasant, but to get you to eat them I will gratify you with food full of fats and sugars." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Why not attend to the pea? Create a story of its planting and growth, and how it was protected and nurtured by nature and farmer alike. Enjoy its shape and color. Play with your food a bit and see how many peas will balance on the blade of a table knife. Tell the story of the princess and the pea, or of Jack and his Beanstalk (close enough.) Don't teach that peas are ugly but necessary. Food should never be associated with reward or punishment.<br /><br />I once counseled aides at an eldercare center to be sure to offer residents their glasses before eating so they could see the food clearly, then discuss the food admiringly to see what memories this might trigger. While they are learning to respect and delight in ordinary food, it's OK for kids to smell it carefully and even touch it gently, and experiment with various utensils and unexpected combinations.<br /><br />Most childhood obesity comes from compulsive eating by kids who confuse food with love or at least relief, together with poor teaching and the abundance of cheap, concentrated food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Is Letting a Kid Get Obese a Form of Child Abuse?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">How do you feel when you look at this picture? Are you angry with the parents? Child Protective Services in Ohio recently removed a youngster from his parents just because he was enormously fat. They said letting a kid get so big was child abuse. Do you agree? Does it make you worry about your kids, or about yourself?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parents want everything good for their children and love to see them learn and grow. Few parents really know how to teach their kids to eat with attention and joy, mostly because they don't know how themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nurturing and teaching are the key responsibilities of parenting, and they often go together. Nurturing means providing healthy food that promotes growth and well-being. It also means avoiding using food as a bribe or love-substitute, or withholding food as a punishment. Kids in supermarkets whine for candy. Parents say "If you're good, you can have one piece." Perhaps if they are extremely good, they can have the whole bag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Goodness in a child's mind means only one thing: complying with the parental will, usually by being quiet and unobtrusive. If you are "good" you will receive highly concentrated simple and complex sugars and fats, which nature designed to feel good in the mouth and brain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Later, if we are lonely or bored and want love from outside ourselves, our hearts remember to connect love and comfort with sugars and fats, so we watch reruns with a soda and a bag of chips.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sadly, we don't really taste the Coke or the Doritos. The comfort they provide is primitive, oral, and can never be fully satisfied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">If only we could learn to savor a single chip. Turn off the TV. Hold the chip, notice its texture. Enjoy its colors and how it is translucent to bright light. Smell it slowly, becoming aware of the complexities there. Snap it in half and listen to the sound. Put the half on your tongue and notice again. But wait, the sensations are likely to shift. Slowly chew and then swallow, mentally following the chip all the way down. Describe the experience to yourself, and select words that might communicate the experience to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLZPW6ohbYyczIggcvlyMLpemRwJsXJwKjS8sZPiUkXNEX4emA6GNqTqpi-Ry7quPFt4ZXa0SCEyDq9y26Q20u7DGB1RJP0l5KlwK4WU-l_Dx5Ripz4U0FCB17p9T33QhnylB5uS7VLKM/s1600/KidsEatApple.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLZPW6ohbYyczIggcvlyMLpemRwJsXJwKjS8sZPiUkXNEX4emA6GNqTqpi-Ry7quPFt4ZXa0SCEyDq9y26Q20u7DGB1RJP0l5KlwK4WU-l_Dx5Ripz4U0FCB17p9T33QhnylB5uS7VLKM/s1600/KidsEatApple.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sound silly? Maybe, but I remember a monk leading a group of students though an exercise like that as we held and touched and sniffed the big red apples he'd brought us. For nearly an hour. When he finally let us take a bite, it was apple ecstasy for me. I'll never forget that apple from 40 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe you've taken wine tasking courses. They follow most of the steps I suggested for the potato chip, and they have certainly enhanced my appreciation. Sadly, I often go through the attention exercise only with the first sight and smell and and sip, then drink the rest of the glass mindlessly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are games parents can use to teach kids mindful eating, far better than lectures about "slow down and enjoy your food," but the best teaching is through example. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dieting rarely works long term. It's about restricting and limiting ourselves temporarily, usually so we can be thinner and feel more attractive. It makes our favorite foods our enemy. When we've learned that food is a substitute for love, food-as-enemy is a recipe for craziness. Mindful eating can lead to moderate eating with great pleasure, and we can model it for our kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-75202710755354672352016-03-25T12:12:00.001-07:002023-08-05T23:53:19.064-07:00Ten Tips for Power Parenting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>In 20 years as a family psychologist, I noticed what usually works and what doesn't. These tips are the best I know</i>.</span></span></span></h2>
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"> The reason they work so well is that almost any approach succeeds if it's grounded in consistent love and common sense. Kids are hard-wired to develop, and will so if we make things safe, then get out of their way. The vast majority of parents are alreadly more than good enough. These hints provide ideas for moms and ads when they are distracted or troubled or want to fine tune their approach</span></span><span style="font-size: large;">.</span></span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.blackparenting.org/ESW/Images/BlackFamily.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.blackparenting.org/ESW/Images/BlackFamily.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBdcBhYBEN1tVAKEsZq9qQ6ijXAopSGC2EblY9Ok1udfDATMgyt39OR3NhT2MtqGvEgka_UaMbhZHPKMYy7jol1hgHDNIdXfKvlQ4bnZ-g95cEnLLmjfRMfb5bT6IdBUWW32mhN3xndyNt/s1600/iStock_Family_1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>1.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Stay in charge, not in control</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;">. It can be a fine
line, but the difference is big. If your focus is control of your children, you
may be getting in the way of their </span><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">development. To grow up, kids need to face and
conquer challenge after challenge, and some of those challenges can be a little
risky. If you over-control, you limit the challenges, and the children's developoment may lag. In
contrast, if you are in </span><i style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">charge</i><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">, you’ll
provide a structure of safety within which your children can experience failure
and success on their own terms.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>2.</span> <b style="line-height: 150%;"><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Parent with emotion</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;">.</span></span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;"> Our </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">feelings are part of
our identity. Our kids need to see that
emotions aren’t dangerous and that they can be beautiful. Emotions do not cause and can’t excuse bad
behavior. If your own parents’ anger was
associated with violence or withdrawal, you may be giving your children the message that their anger is “bad” and that a “good” kids sit inexpressively or smile
sweetly, all the time. Emotions are information, and kids need to learn to express emotions in
ways that don’t scare others and don’t lead to harm. If you let you children see you angry or sad, and
allow them to see you deal with it competently, you’ll he give them a far greater
gift than teaching them to hide or suppress their feelings.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuJ4sxq8nJ0szoSDotfA90U2G9yFauZxdsNlAKREgjarfDs_9uhKKza_CSyhCPN7YR0dBi6E6On5ahYVdHjuKTUyHA0uWmMwN-OEFORRmpc0AuZZcbV_6mjurCE79cbGE2IMMl1tlonUib/s1600/GrandparentsCloseHg.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuJ4sxq8nJ0szoSDotfA90U2G9yFauZxdsNlAKREgjarfDs_9uhKKza_CSyhCPN7YR0dBi6E6On5ahYVdHjuKTUyHA0uWmMwN-OEFORRmpc0AuZZcbV_6mjurCE79cbGE2IMMl1tlonUib/s400/GrandparentsCloseHg.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> <b><i>3. Consult your own parents. </i></b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Ev</span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;">en if your
biological mom and dad aren’t available, there are plenty of willing older
adults who’d be glad to give advice and support. Expand and extend your family
and your kids will benefit. It can also ease your stress. When I try to explain my work as a child
custody evaluator to friends in Thailand, they invariably say “but where are
the grandparents?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>4. </span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Be an intentional parent</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;">. A parent is a kind
of manager. Effective managers create an
environment, and then and set up systems, and make adjustments so everything works
smoothly. They don’t expect perfection, but they have a plan. Let your kids know what the plan is, and let
them participate in making it. If you
just react when there are problems, you’ve created an environment of management
by crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>5.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Pay attention.</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> All children lie all the time,
and all children tell the truth all the time. It just depends on what you pay
attention to. If you just listen to
their words, you’ll rarely get it right. If you respond only to body language,
you’ll do better, but still misunderstand. Kids’ communication is a package.
You need context, history, words, and the non-verbals. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDtNuyZRrWmH4O_MJ_P9fEPWfbGJmBunWjnFaMJj7rhu6O1sG_PHI9CGEOzC33RIdn3AHidddnFmwKDHO0JqLOCGnF28oMEiGaonbA_dn3Y6j5NkTVodoqRP6d3vUtfvFRY6yjO-ZKZmCb/s1600/Confused-with-Questions.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDtNuyZRrWmH4O_MJ_P9fEPWfbGJmBunWjnFaMJj7rhu6O1sG_PHI9CGEOzC33RIdn3AHidddnFmwKDHO0JqLOCGnF28oMEiGaonbA_dn3Y6j5NkTVodoqRP6d3vUtfvFRY6yjO-ZKZmCb/s320/Confused-with-Questions.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>6.</span> <b style="line-height: 150%;"><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Don’t ask questions.</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> When you ask a child a question, unless you’re teaching him or her
or working together on something,<b> </b> you put the child in charge. You’re saying “please
give me some information I want and need.”
Your children can give or withhold or distort information any way they like.
This often leaves you frustrated and wanting more. If you have an open
relationship with your children, you won’t need to ask a lot of questions. If you
know your children, you’ll be aware of context, history, and body language anyway,
which will usually tell you what you need to know. Questions don’t put you in charge, and the
answers, if you get them, don’t give you control. Parents who take a vacation
from questions often report feeling closer to their kids.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>7.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Be a teacher of right and wrong.</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> This seems obvious, but we often fail by teaching at
the wrong level. The right level is just a little above the child’s current
developmental stage. Imagine a child
teasing a cat. For a very young child you might warn “Oh, don’t tease, kitty
might bite you.” An older child could be reminded “I think that’s really
bothering the cat.” A still older child
could learn from a discussion of kindness to animals in general, and a teen or
young adult could see the value of not causing suffering to any living
thing. The progression is from avoiding
pain (for the very young child) to living by principles. Of course, while explanations are important,
you example of right moral behavior is the most important.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>8.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Play for no reason.</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> People have paid me
lots of money to sit on the floor and play with their kids. It’s called “play therapy” and it’s not a big
secret. Kids are wired to learn and to work through problems with their play.
If we create an environment and get out of the kid’s way, acting more as a
cheerleader and less as a guide, children will often be able to deal with something
they are not equipped to discuss or hear advice about. Schedule regular play sessions with kids and
let them take the lead. Just your
presence is often enough. One boy healed a relationship with his somewhat
insensitive father by having the dad simply sit with him and watch him play
video games. All Dad had to do was say “hmmm”,
or “wow” from time to time. The play was regularly scheduled for 20 minutes
after supper, and nothing was allowed to interfere. I’m no fan of video games,
but this was a happy exception.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJfm7NxoctrkvG3-XWhgo_sjmeKFPVup6OhzAKtNiLUYOt-eISee_qjLGmk0RTVaL6fA-5jCnWXD8uwM0IAWc4dhHSb6HWV3X9-Q2q6yyaxquAmP9kAxXdApvXrJ9a1_bZDRJIGn5D3WCn/s1600/spanking.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJfm7NxoctrkvG3-XWhgo_sjmeKFPVup6OhzAKtNiLUYOt-eISee_qjLGmk0RTVaL6fA-5jCnWXD8uwM0IAWc4dhHSb6HWV3X9-Q2q6yyaxquAmP9kAxXdApvXrJ9a1_bZDRJIGn5D3WCn/s640/spanking.jpg" width="496" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>9.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">If you hit your child, do it in anger.</span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> Don’t ever hit your kids. It doesn’t
work and it sends the wrong message. But if you do ever slip and strike your
child, let it be in the heat of the moment. Later, when you apologize, you can
use the moment to teach about how to manage feelings, and how to express anger
with words instead of fists. If you
cause a child physical pain in a cold, calculated and deliberate way, there’s
no way to create a teachable moment. Scheduled and ritualized infliction of
pain on a child is never good parenting.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> </span>10.<span style="line-height: normal;"> </span></span><b><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Remember, you are good enough. </span></i></b><span style="line-height: 150%;">Even if you overcontrol, misread feelings, badger
your children with questions, and have no time to play you're good enough. Even if you are
overstressed and yell or hit at times, you're good enough. If your consistent message is love and it’s </span><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">usually delivered with
common sense and kindness, your children will likely grow strong and develop
well.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">11. <b>Bonus tip:</b> <b><i>Co-parent with patience and deep respect.</i> </b>Whether are still married to your children's other parents and still madly in love, or long divorced and cordial but distant, they way to treat that other parent is your prime way to teaching your children about healthy adult relationships.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;">David McPhee, Ph.D.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -0.75in;"><i>This is an update of an article I wrote in 2012</i></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-44950193967483154332016-03-20T19:06:00.001-07:002023-08-05T23:42:55.715-07:00Jesus as my Personal Lord and Savior: <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">My friend sent me picture of an Australian church with amazing brickwork. I noticed a little white sign near the side door:</span><br />
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<span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Persons on this property for other than recognized church activities are trespassers. This area is under constant electronic surveillance</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Already irritable from watching CNN, I immediately imagined what "recognized church activities" might be. Collusion with oppressive governments in slavery and genocide? Support of US candidates for president who want to ban all Muslims and most Mexicans and who think climate change is a hoax? How about Catholics consigning the poorest in Africa to hell for considering the use of birth control, even to prevent transmission of AIDS? (Pope Francis apparently got rid of that one a couple of months ago). How about covering up and indirectly promoting child sexual abuse by clergy, worldwide? These are some widely known church activities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">I'm pretty sure a if a band of Christian conservationists walked around the church softly singing hymns and carrying banners about protecting the planet or something. . . .that would definitely NOT be recognized as a church activity, and police would be summoned. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Of course churches produce saints. While most Catholics and Lutherans looked the other way, a few brave Germans sheltered Jews at great personal risk. In the USA, heroes helped runaway slaves. Some were movtivated and supported by churches, though most religious groups preached the rightgeousness of slavery. </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">In the First World, churches exist mostly to reassure members and add importance to life transitions. "Church activities" include inspirational weekly sessions with comforting ritual, often in expensive buildings on tax-free grounds. There may be token trips to soup kitchens and the occasional food bank drive. To date, however, there is no scientific evidence that church membership renders people more ethical, more commited to peace and justice, or superior on any variable typically associated with "goodness."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">The political climate in the US requires that candidates be religious. The second most popular Republican concludes hateful tirades with a forced grin and a "God Bless." The sole candidate who has worked for justice on the streets a socialist secular Jew. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Millions of Americans claim to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior, but too many persecute minorities, exclude refugees, build walls and vote for hateful demagogues. Preferring isolation and relishing military aggression, they provide no evidence that they have heard or heeded the Gospel of justice for the poor, simplicity of life, and least of all the requirement that above all they love one another. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Richard Rohr is a Catholic priest who challenges us about creating a religion to serve outselves rather than adopting a lifestyle to serve others.</span></div>
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<span face=""open sans" , "arial" , sans-serif"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one's "personal Lord and Savior" . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great. </b></i></span></span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Richard Rohr </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">click here for</span> <a href="http://www.azquotes.com/quote/580181" style="font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, sans-serif;">more Richard Rohr quotes</a></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-25363614733943003432012-06-10T09:09:00.001-07:002012-06-10T09:09:45.196-07:00Teach Your Kids to be Good: Part Two<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Be good! If you're good you'll get a treat. If you're bad you'll be punished.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Parents, pay attention. You're not really teaching about goodness and evil, handing out happiness and pain on some moral basis, like a watchful god. Mostly, you just want your kids to shut up, play quietly, and not raise a fuss. You want them to learn that goodness equals passivity and compliance, the two evils that lead adults to everything from not voting to genocide.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We even report that tiny babies were "good" if they slept soundly and didn't cry a lot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Please teach kids that goodness means acting with compassion. Show them that goodness leads to more goodness, measured in the quality of family relationships. A parent who is gentle and available and interested will be more likely to have a child who feels free to express big feelings with instead of aggression. A parent who shows tenderness and affection to the other parent is more likely to have a child who feels safe and comfortable with change and challenge. A child who sees parents being generous with money and possessions will be more likely to share toys and kindnesses. Demonstrations are a hundred times more valuable than explanations in this regard, and a thousand times more useful than punishments and bribes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Show your children how to be good.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-63130063982985608172012-06-10T08:03:00.001-07:002023-08-06T00:03:12.646-07:00Teach Your Kids to be Good: Part One<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h2>
<i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">A poor explanation of Karma</span></i></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can use the Hindu/Buddhist idea of karma to teach kids how to be good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Karma's not as simple as this cartoon suggests. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Buddhism teaches that things happen for lots of reasons: weather, heredity, nature and karma.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> Karma's different from the others, though, because we have some control over our decisions and actions. Unlike weather, genes, and the natural order of things, karma is about choice. We can choose to do good, or bad, or nothing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">We can't change nature or our genes, but acting with compassion and attention will make a difference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Here's a way to introduce a toddler to karma without ever mentioning the word.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">With your child, pick a or bowl or pot. Together, go outside, find some dirt and fill the vessel. Do it with great attention, describing and experiencing together how the dirt looks and feels -- its texture and weight and color. Put the pot in a special place and let it sit for a day or more, commenting often on the wonderful things that will happen inside the pot later. Go out with your child and buy some radish seeds. Read the instructions on the packet out loud and explain them to your child. Together, plant a few of the seeds very carefully, add the right amount of water, and put the pot on a sunny ledge. Because radishes germinate very quickly, you won't have long to wait.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Explain to your child about all the things that have to come together to made the seed grow: soil, water, and sun, and someone to plant and care for the seed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As the radish grows and matures, you can refer to it again and again as you teach the child about cause and effect, pointing out that good deeds (planting, watering, putting the pot in the sun) help the seed grow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe you'll get a nice edible red radish after a few weeks. The radish will offer new opportunities. What is the best thing do with it? Eat it with great mindfulness? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe you won't get a radish. How will you explain that in terms of cause and effect? Maybe you did everything for the radish, but the sun was too dim or the water wasn't quite right, or the soil was not ready.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Either way, your child can learn about cause and effect, and you will have a touchstone for future teaching. You can provide a context for many of your child's experiences when you start an explanation with "Remember the radish?"</span></div>
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-51400451448447523662012-03-28T03:41:00.002-07:002012-06-09T12:13:22.128-07:00Royal Buddhist Diet: Guaranteed Weight Loss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">A Slim King Pasenadi Thanks the Buddha</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">King Pasenadi of Kosala was very fat. He waddled around his
kingdom, belly swollen, feet sore, and short of breath. One day, after eating a whole bucket of rich food, he found
the Buddha and sat beside him panting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">The Buddha commented "When you stay mindful you will know
how much you have eaten and what is enough. Then all your afflictions
will become slender and you will age gently and protect your life."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Fortunately, a brahmin youth from the king's retinue was nearby.
Pasenadi instructed him to memorize the Buddha's comment and recite it whenever
the King was about to eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">As soon as Pasenadi learned to pay attention to his food -- to
savor it and become aware of tasting and chewing and swallowing -- he was able
to delight in a single cup of rice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">In time Pasenadi became slim and strong, and as he sat stroking
his slender limbs, he said "The Buddha has shown me compassion twice: for
my welfare now and for my welfare in the future."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://www.practicalbuddhism.net/2012/01/part-i-childhood-obesity-has-both.html"><b><i>For lots more on the Buddhist Diet, click here</i></b> </a></span></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-66687594088246852422012-03-28T02:49:00.001-07:002012-03-28T02:49:38.329-07:00Best Buddhist Cartoons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">The Practical Buddhist has been taking himself too seriously again, so here's a break:</span><br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-34389120253744414482012-03-28T02:19:00.000-07:002012-03-28T02:19:20.418-07:00Ashamed of Your Atheism? Come Out of the Closet.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Richard Dawkins in not some crank. He's one of the foremost
ethologists and evolutionary biologists of our time. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">He is also a
very intentional thorn in the side of religious people and their leaders. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Dawkins has proposed that the current pope be tried as a war
criminal for many offenses including opposition to birth control in poor
nations (where the alternative for limiting population is starvation.)</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">After 9-11 he
was quoted in the<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span><i>Guardian</i>:</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Many of us saw religion as
harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought,
if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th
changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally
dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in
their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill
themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others.
Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of
inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird
respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop
being so damned respectful!</span></i><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">He's right. We have no
problem arguing public policy, vigorously and endlessly. Why is religion so,
um, sacrosanct? </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;">Why are atheists more
fearful of coming out of the closet than gays? Buddhism has no god, and
Hinduism doesn't require one, so apparently godlessness can be respectable. But for God's sake, don't tell my parents!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-8632635774631594722012-03-27T23:39:00.001-07:002023-08-05T22:06:10.848-07:00Aggressive Atheism: Buddhist Response<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZrAO6n4NLCe1zssuOz7xx1RxYVRaFxUOK325zhmy73HicdAQ805zTVCNNIuAW3y4-0lYKcc_RYaf6X4-Zs8fU5GPnsDxsNJ_ShJtfCDapo33aCEiTSaIJdI53Y4pLxfaPH6NVh2N5gmx/s1600/reason-rally+signx-large.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlZrAO6n4NLCe1zssuOz7xx1RxYVRaFxUOK325zhmy73HicdAQ805zTVCNNIuAW3y4-0lYKcc_RYaf6X4-Zs8fU5GPnsDxsNJ_ShJtfCDapo33aCEiTSaIJdI53Y4pLxfaPH6NVh2N5gmx/s400/reason-rally+signx-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">As I write I'm visiting in Chiang Mai province where our Thai friend is preparing a Buddha shrine for a newly-rented home. It's done with great and precise ceremony. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">There's proper placement of candles, flowers, small glass of water, incense, and above all, the Buddha image itself. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And there's lots of bowing involved. How come? The Buddha, who said he wasn't a god, only "awake," taught that gods in general weren't very useful on the path to self-realization and universal compassion. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">So why does a Buddha <i>statue</i> rate all this fuss?</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">One teacher told me that when we bow to the Buddha image, we bow to ourselves, not a dead guy from India. I still think about that. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Here's a religion/philosophy that insists we look inside, not just outside, for beauty and completion. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Buddhism isn't atheistic. Its teachers aren't like Dawkins who rallies followers to heap scorn on believers.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Lacking gods, it's properly <i>non-theistic</i>, but that doesn't mean you can't have any God or gods you like. You don't have to stop being a Jew or a Catholic to embrace the triple jewels of Buddha, dharma, and sangha. You just have to be willing to look deeply inside too, and practice compassion and seek to relieve suffering in the world. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Back to the new rental --- the shrine is installed, all reds and fake gold, and looks down from its high perch, candles ablaze and incense smoking, reminding me of 2500 years of dharma. As I bow to the gilt plaster statue, I realize that without the certainly of guidance by gods, I have to look deep into me for the meaning I seek. But I'm not giving up Jesus or Mohammed or the Holy Spirit any time soon. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-87683123344000288782012-03-25T18:19:00.003-07:002023-08-05T22:10:47.153-07:00I Am Not Trayvon Martin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOirBFEh503y2fVNcnsAZMZBW-PNjt1Fzvxk0qyFCVTQU8GgSjmDsSt_Jnau8c1jK9NaloaCBwrS-DRs1ux9_mcsVZP2DsVxkpyVSjbRy3Yx6Fi5okVTUUx9raywHFXtTRlSprPAC80rv3/s1600/trayvon-and-baby-thumb-400xauto-32682.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOirBFEh503y2fVNcnsAZMZBW-PNjt1Fzvxk0qyFCVTQU8GgSjmDsSt_Jnau8c1jK9NaloaCBwrS-DRs1ux9_mcsVZP2DsVxkpyVSjbRy3Yx6Fi5okVTUUx9raywHFXtTRlSprPAC80rv3/s640/trayvon-and-baby-thumb-400xauto-32682.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Note in August, 2023. In March of 2012, Travon Martin was gunned down for being black and wearing a hoodie. I forget the details. There were lots of protests.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: large;">Some protestors are wearing shirts that read "I am Trayvon Martin." They mean that they look suspicious and maybe dangerous, probably because they are Black. Maybe they wear hoodies or walk too slowly on the way home.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I'm am not Trayvon Martin. I'm pretty old, and very pink-skinned. I wear glasses and usually walk in middle-class neighborhoods, when I walk at all. I drive an aging Toyota. Cops always give me a pass. So does everyone. I'm safe. No danger to anyone. I fit a no-threat, clean old white man profile. If I were female instead of male, I'd be perfect.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But remember this. Privileged old white men like me run everything. We drag our feet investigating hate crimes, or pursue them with vigor, all for political reasons. We start and stop wars. We oppress, and when convenient, liberate. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The Trayvons of the world aren't dangerous. Old pink men like me are the ones to be feared. I am not Trayvon Martin.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-48551590997790379172012-03-25T18:02:00.001-07:002023-08-05T22:16:29.886-07:00Hunger Games and Buddhism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6raRy291oALrCcSVnygqfgNbHBisAWA3ym62JyUw-kPIbs0U-ONLp9kM-uul0ejMVD5wkv0gPlWbxGCIKD0_pZhYOMQ2RoB57CkV2MqGRu6_Lijc5P9Sd0chwepmEVXAW7HYaVh0RQUBu/s1600/Hunger+Games+3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6raRy291oALrCcSVnygqfgNbHBisAWA3ym62JyUw-kPIbs0U-ONLp9kM-uul0ejMVD5wkv0gPlWbxGCIKD0_pZhYOMQ2RoB57CkV2MqGRu6_Lijc5P9Sd0chwepmEVXAW7HYaVh0RQUBu/s400/Hunger+Games+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">This teen-search-for-meaning flick is setting stunning box office records.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In case you've been in a coma -- Hunger Games is a tale of violence and corrupt power: The evil government picks 24 kid-gladiators to main and kill each other in high def until only one is left standing. It's a variation on a plot older than Greek mythology. And it has the obligatory love-triangle, but there's also a twist.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">In this post-armageddon HG world, where the starring adolescents are adorable and noble, there's not a hint of a formal religion. The tale hangs on teen self-discovery and emerging virtues of courage, selflessness, and commitment to the common good. It also addresses the eternal question of whether violence is OK if you murder in pursuit of some higher good. These ethical questions are the ones the dharma has explored for for millennia. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">By the way, they're the same questions raised in the Harry Potter franchise, and even in the Batman movies.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">It takes more than sex, violence, and really cute actors to capture the attention of untold millions of teens, so fast. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Like our ancestors, we're hard-wired for this story, and long to hear it again and again. We want reassurance that in the midst of horrible loss and suffering, nobility of spirit triumphs and in the end all will be well. This is the core plot in all literature, including sacred scriptures, and when you can come up with a fresh presentation like HG (or Potter, or Logan's Run) it's a matter of build it and they will come.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-34949704738546584732012-03-18T12:15:00.001-07:002023-08-05T22:14:26.930-07:00Sex, Drugs and Buddhism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57BGy79GAkZgnjpp_QRpKdb_8XfhKr_DCsjl670nyJA_7IWCllhfXUTLwFDK2P-dQX9qixJU9QCT42XOaEfXqsHQOsakhBDka-TlfFVWUUuRkM9SnEDWKofL1dElg4rGPsDwUK_7M_z9e/s1600/Addiction-Cycle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg57BGy79GAkZgnjpp_QRpKdb_8XfhKr_DCsjl670nyJA_7IWCllhfXUTLwFDK2P-dQX9qixJU9QCT42XOaEfXqsHQOsakhBDka-TlfFVWUUuRkM9SnEDWKofL1dElg4rGPsDwUK_7M_z9e/s640/Addiction-Cycle.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Buddhism and Addiction</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Buddhists like to talk about attachment, and how it messes with our peace of mind and ability to see clearly. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Addiction is attachment gone crazy. The addict can never really pay attention or be at peace. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">It can be sex or eating or cocaine or work or even extreme sports. Anything that gets me high can become an addiction.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">While I'm high, my suffering is blunted or can even seem to disappear. Problem is, the high never lasts, and most methods of getting high cause troubles of their own.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">The addiction cycle can be triggered by any kind of stress or pain. To dull the pain, I'll get high (acting out), then sink into shame. The remorse leads to resolutions and commitments, and things can go fine until I'm in pain again and it starts all over.</span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Buddhist philosophy can help at every phase of the addition cycle. Stress and pain can be eased through regular meditation and the practice of compassion, reducing the craving for the high. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Shame and depression can be less a problem when the addict begins to learn self-awareness and self-care. New commitments can be bolstered by healthy reliance on others for support. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-83888685622731568412012-03-17T15:59:00.000-07:002013-04-14T10:22:33.251-07:00Want to Smell Like a Pope? Buddhist Response<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Pope commissions custom-blended eau de cologne</h1>
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Fragrance, which mixes hints of lime tree, verbena and grass, was concocted by Italian boutique perfume maker Silvana Casoli</div>
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<a class="contributor" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tomkington" rel="author" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Tom Kington</a> in Rome</div>
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<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/3/14/1331757195747/Pope-Benedict-XVI-has-com-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Pope Benedict XVI has commissioned a bespoke eau de cologne" border="0" height="384" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/3/14/1331757195747/Pope-Benedict-XVI-has-com-007.jpg" style="background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 1.166em; line-height: 1.357; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px;" width="640" /></a>Pope Benedict XVI has commissioned a bespoke eau de cologne. Photograph: AP</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">He is picky about his robes and his red shoes are tailor-made, but Pope Benedict has taken the meaning of bespoke to a whole new level by ordering a custom-blended eau de cologne just for him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The fragrance, which mixes hints of lime tree, verbena and grass, was concocted by the Italian boutique perfume maker Silvana Casoli, who has previously created scents for customers including Madonna, Sting and King Juan Carlos of Spain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Casoli said she had a "pact of secrecy" with her most illustrious client to date, and refused to release the full list of ingredients that had gone into his scent – but she did reveal that she had created a delicate smelling eau de cologne "based on his love of nature".</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Practical Buddhist Responds</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't resist. This 84-year-old pope may be infallible, but he wants to smell nice. He also wants a scent nobody else has, like a lady with a custom designer dress. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Buddhist monks, even the Dalai Lama, are careful not to dress in anything but ordinary robes, or wear jewelry or perfume, because it could be distracting from their lives of reflection and meditation. It's not that different for Catholic monks, actually.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But as you go up in the Catholic hierarchy, the outfits get fancier and fancier, until the pope-stage, where you get to wear very tall hats and scarlet slippers and monster rings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And exclusive perfumes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Buddhist monks don't go that route, but aren't likely to pass judgment on it either. They'd probably tell the pope he looks great and smells really nice, and wish him well in his tough job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I confess frequent frustration with this pope, but learning about this little vanity somehow makes him seem more human, vulnerable, and likeable.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-22763287546541903172012-03-10T16:24:00.002-07:002023-08-06T00:18:06.465-07:00Gay Marriage? Buddhists Don't Even Believe in Marriage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><b> Buddhists Don't Even <i>Believe </i>in Marriage</b></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORP5_g-Tr-15ANSTl2N8HaT2zljnA85lIrmxoJsWVZi0c6uCN0A1J-m3N7cvfNKmuMcY3R47NJqC_2ILjJVgmh6oJIgKrJ4LJd9VZkGTQJlz3MI-2w2tuLkBGpv5eBn_KHJN1Jyc3soJZ/s1600/page114_blog_entry91_1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjORP5_g-Tr-15ANSTl2N8HaT2zljnA85lIrmxoJsWVZi0c6uCN0A1J-m3N7cvfNKmuMcY3R47NJqC_2ILjJVgmh6oJIgKrJ4LJd9VZkGTQJlz3MI-2w2tuLkBGpv5eBn_KHJN1Jyc3soJZ/s400/page114_blog_entry91_1.jpg" width="400" /></a><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">If Buddhists don't get excited about homosexuality, they're even less concerned about marriage. Fact is, they don't believe in marriage at all, at least as a sacrament.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: x-large;">It's a civil union, a contract between two people. Monks don't officiate at weddings. They do bless weddings, but monks will bless anything including bikes and beer-bar grand openings.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">Over here, we're all tied up about the difference between marriage and civil unions. Many would let gays have all their civil rights, so long as they don't call it marriage, because marriage is "sacred."</span><br /><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">For Buddhists, everything and everyone is sacred already. Including gay people and their love. And a commitment to love and fidelity between two people is just a civil union, but that's plenty. </span><br /><br />
<span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">We're not going to see same sex marriage in Tibet any time soon. Most Buddhists live in countries that are conservative socially, and social norms are always stronger than religion. But no matter, they don't have sacramental marriage for straight people either.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-74951777725701067712012-03-10T09:25:00.001-07:002023-08-06T00:28:26.615-07:00Women and Buddhism? Just Give Up.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b>Women in Buddhism</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A smart Buddhist will not fight pointless battles. Most battles are distractions anyhow. </span><br /><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcBaDIMIYkdd_wcklDDNUA3tDOcvwKMy3VoFegBfxMQVdtelrFP9ZIh3FW5y9X65Qi_1c3wbMn6gWLnyLhmAtFAFKMWHCHr6g5NAbptratyl_5vdU-LoeCMm2lWT-NJAPbhzx1bbcB1Me/s1600/Buddhist+Nuns+Myanmar+-+Burma.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjcBaDIMIYkdd_wcklDDNUA3tDOcvwKMy3VoFegBfxMQVdtelrFP9ZIh3FW5y9X65Qi_1c3wbMn6gWLnyLhmAtFAFKMWHCHr6g5NAbptratyl_5vdU-LoeCMm2lWT-NJAPbhzx1bbcB1Me/s400/Buddhist+Nuns+Myanmar+-+Burma.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Young Buddhist nuns in Burma</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There are many Buddhist women leaders who learn and teach and practice compassion joyfully. They are not militant. They know that Buddhism is an imperfect, ever-evolving, culture-bound tradition that still practices gender discrimination. They love the dharma, and can let go of worry and anxiety about Buddhist nuns being officially inferior to monks. They are experts in giving up, giving over, and letting go of peripheral concerns while clinging fiercely to core truths like the Four Noble ones.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">There is plenty in Catholic teaching that is useful and beautiful and life-giving. The present Pope has issued stunningly incisive teachings on social justice, poverty and peace, but is dismissed because of his silly statements on birth control increasing AIDS in Africa. He is a great but very imperfect teacher. </span><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Just so Buddhism. It's discriminated against women, almost everywhere it has blossomed. Buddhists, depending on where they live, are superstitious animists, rigid reactionaries, or (in the West) elitists. Sometimes. So what? Everyone I love has faults and imperfections. Any religion does too. Can a I learn from it and follow it's best teachings in spite of the warts?</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-9157029910234812002012-03-07T10:15:00.001-07:002012-03-07T10:15:38.105-07:00The Buddhist and the $5 Million Watch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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$5 million dollar watch</h1>
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The white gold timepiece is encrusted with 1,282 diamonds, and will be shown to a small number of people at a corporate event in Basel.</div>
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It was created by Swiss firm Hublot and took 17 people 14 months to make, according to the AFP news agency. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.077em;">"We profit off the general growth of the economy in the region," Jean-Daniel Pasche, president of the Swiss Watch Industry, told AFP.</span></div>
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"There are many people who have the means to acquire a Swiss watch - they find our products very attractive."</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">The Practical
Buddhist Responds</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">Let's just say you had billions. Would you
have a watch like this? How would you keep it safe? How would you keep
yourself safe when wearing it? Would you get insurance? Would you worry about
it being stolen? Would you be proud of it? Would you be embarrassed about if
you wore it in front of poor people? Would you show your friends? Would you
sell it? Would you give it to a lover? Would you give it to the poor? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">You know that's just the beginning of a
long, long list. Every one of those questions would upset you mind and disturb
your serenity and capacity for joy. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">That's why Buddhists, who try
to enjoy everything, don't like to be too attached to anything. Little
attachments distract us, and big attachments make us crazy and sad.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 150%;">You can keep the watch.</span></div>
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-32912207231107481912012-01-18T19:52:00.003-07:002012-01-19T13:47:14.251-07:00Play With Your Food: Tips for Healing Childhood Obesity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 22pt;">Play With Your Food: Teaching Kids the Ecstasy of Mindful Eating<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.95pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.4pt; margin-left: 30pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 8.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Does it bother you that fat kids are bullied or rejected every day and lead shorter, sicker live</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">s than children of average weight? If you're a parent and want to help, you have to understand the problem first.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 8.4pt; margin-left: 30pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 8.4pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4NqIfewo5fw6Eze7L_2OvS-5DPTGzRf1mc90bqblmmdowyPfo9VvGGyU2TAMO9fiaFywlbPAsvt35T5YKXHLbAtN_ZJQvO4bNMviA74puMSiJhC7A9-U1M7VkNTsdOuFDgB_i4E9e1Ag/s1600/newsweekfatkid.jpg" /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Compulsive eating in children arises from too much wealth and a too little mindfulness. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parents counsel and explain but don't model or moderation. We put kids on diets, but we don't teach them the joy of eating that can be found in paying attention. In our society only sommeliers and chefs savor and thoroughly describe what they are tasting and experiencing.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s1600/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s320/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-coBJ0hkhqMcP1Yhx4PqaoWN0EkAev5i1SoGblCdIaqg1AhVOsrfJxAoLXWmADHWz41xrbPfJ7p89WpdX4j8P_1tZ1lmzyXtsQKg3VnQ8S2i9LdNCawlEbPWlPIlwRqB3exoyPWf9QUyl/s1600/Bribery-or-Rewards-for-Children.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">We also set up food as part of a reward system. "Eat your peas and you can have desert" teaches kids "Yes, peas are disagreeable and unpleasant, but to get you to eat them I will gratify you with food full of fats and sugars." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Why not attend to the pea? Create a story of its planting and growth, and how it was protected and nurtured by nature and farmer alike. Enjoy its shape and color. Play with your food a bit and see how many peas will balance on the blade of a table knife. Tell the story of the princess and the pea, or of Jack and his Beanstalk (close enough.) Don't teach that peas are ugly but necessary. Food should never be associated with reward or punishment.<br />
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I once counseled aides at an eldercare center to be sure to offer residents their glasses before eating so they could see the food clearly, then discuss the food admiringly to see what memories this might trigger. While they are learning to respect and delight in ordinary food, it's OK for kids to smell it carefully and even touch it gently, and experiment with various utensils and unexpected combinations.<br />
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Most childhood obesity comes from compulsive eating by kids who confuse food with love or at least relief, together with poor teaching and the abundance of cheap, concentrated food.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 22pt;">Is Letting a Kid Get Obese a Form of Child Abuse?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8pxnDmyPgiPC3h7qyKexr5t9hjBq1sB883y2qE9XO4ed5gmAcoLQ18vAFWRTyLo7FXk_iMxrSE974O1fO2gAOPswM1FoYKznMBTyEiEef7_1smDnvfJpn2wd3iKqARkEhMaExSoIqdNLZ/s400/88894048_4405b66e8e_o-300x212.jpg" width="400" /></span></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">How do you feel when you look at this picture? Are you angry with the parents? Child Protective Services in Ohio recently removed a youngster from his parents just because he was enormously fat. They said letting a kid get so big was child abuse. Do you agree? Does it make you worry about your kids, or about yourself?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Parents want everything good for their children and love to see them learn and grow. Few parents really know how to teach their kids to eat with attention and joy, mostly because they don't know how themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Nurturing and teaching are the key responsibilities of parenting, and they often go together. Nurturing means providing healthy food that promotes growth and well-being. It also means avoiding using food as a bribe or love-substitute, or withholding food as a punishment. Kids in supermarkets whine for candy. Parents say "If you're good, you can have one piece." Perhaps if they are extremely good, they can have the whole bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Goodness in a child's mind means only one thing: complying with the parental will, usually by being quiet and unobtrusive. If you are "good" you will receive highly concentrated simple and complex sugars and fats, which nature designed to feel good in the mouth and brain.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeqYDcTwWbCDHoGI3qf7bknLtQNNVoR6mj2ZsCHzvH0NFuIVYWDgkeG880KtsUCFPoasIXHPDJwDvYbZgZck7X9Is4O-6kMplxdli6nEBhTpCN7HBZzcdwyPAOXeUieigjZAKX_nwCGQV/s1600/Fat-Kids-Target-for-Bullies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheeqYDcTwWbCDHoGI3qf7bknLtQNNVoR6mj2ZsCHzvH0NFuIVYWDgkeG880KtsUCFPoasIXHPDJwDvYbZgZck7X9Is4O-6kMplxdli6nEBhTpCN7HBZzcdwyPAOXeUieigjZAKX_nwCGQV/s640/Fat-Kids-Target-for-Bullies.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Later, if we are lonely or bored and want love from outside ourselves, our hearts remember to connect love and comfort with sugars and fats, so we watch reruns with a soda and a bag of chips.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sadly, we don't really taste the Coke or the Doritos. The comfort they provide is primitive, oral, and can never be fully satisfied.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">If only we could learn to savor a single chip. Turn off the TV. Hold the chip, notice its texture. Enjoy its colors and how it is translucent to bright light. Smell it slowly, becoming aware of the complexities there. Snap it in half and listen to the sound. Put the half on your tongue and notice again. But wait, the sensations are likely to shift. Slowly chew and then swallow, mentally following the chip all the way down. Describe the experience to yourself, and select words that might communicate the experience to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLZPW6ohbYyczIggcvlyMLpemRwJsXJwKjS8sZPiUkXNEX4emA6GNqTqpi-Ry7quPFt4ZXa0SCEyDq9y26Q20u7DGB1RJP0l5KlwK4WU-l_Dx5Ripz4U0FCB17p9T33QhnylB5uS7VLKM/s1600/KidsEatApple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLZPW6ohbYyczIggcvlyMLpemRwJsXJwKjS8sZPiUkXNEX4emA6GNqTqpi-Ry7quPFt4ZXa0SCEyDq9y26Q20u7DGB1RJP0l5KlwK4WU-l_Dx5Ripz4U0FCB17p9T33QhnylB5uS7VLKM/s1600/KidsEatApple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbLZPW6ohbYyczIggcvlyMLpemRwJsXJwKjS8sZPiUkXNEX4emA6GNqTqpi-Ry7quPFt4ZXa0SCEyDq9y26Q20u7DGB1RJP0l5KlwK4WU-l_Dx5Ripz4U0FCB17p9T33QhnylB5uS7VLKM/s1600/KidsEatApple.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Sound silly? Maybe, but I remember a monk leading a group of students though an exercise like that as we held and touched and sniffed the big red apples he'd brought us. For nearly an hour. When he finally let us take a bite, it was apple ecstasy for me. I'll never forget that apple from 40 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Maybe you've taken wine tasking courses. They follow most of the steps I suggested for the potato chip, and they have certainly enhanced my appreciation. Sadly, I often go through the attention exercise only with the first sight and smell and and sip, then drink the rest of the glass mindlessly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">There are games parents can use to teach kids mindful eating, far better than lectures about "slow down and enjoy your food," but the best teaching is through example. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;">Dieting rarely works long term. It's about restricting and limiting ourselves temporarily, usually so we can be thinner and feel more attractive. It makes our favorite foods our enemy. When we've learned that food is a substitute for love, food-as-enemy is a recipe for craziness. Mindful eating can lead to moderate eating with great pleasure, and we can model it for our kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="color: #3d316a; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 22pt;">How to Make Things Better: Ten Tips for Parents<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> Fat kids suffer, and not just because other children are mean. Even teachers favor lean, cute boys and girls, and assume they're smarter. Many assume obese kids are weak, lazy, and unhealthy. Overweight adults know subtle judgment and rejection, but have grown-up defenses. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>For kids it’s harder. For them “fat” is a cruel insult that has no response. Here are my ten tips for parents:</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkOOLIt3s3XYbdrBIhxumD2pnNQe_80eEqqHhN-5DhnLL3WT8JkkwDb43w5mkqmbZHf8WnC_S73v82EWW5EbaXTaLaotS6-gJzow3-0o170l6HzEU44XLE2trZf1l-gid21bGMDpd42FP/s1600/timefatkid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkOOLIt3s3XYbdrBIhxumD2pnNQe_80eEqqHhN-5DhnLL3WT8JkkwDb43w5mkqmbZHf8WnC_S73v82EWW5EbaXTaLaotS6-gJzow3-0o170l6HzEU44XLE2trZf1l-gid21bGMDpd42FP/s200/timefatkid.jpg" width="157" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>1. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Never, ever reward or punish with food. If you give treats for good behavior, especially sweet and fatty ones, your child can learn to connect fats and sweets with love and approval. If you withhold food to punish, you’ll reinforce the food-love connection. </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>2. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Be calm about food. It's a law of nature that you pay a lot of attention to a behavior it will increase, even if the attention is negative. Be neutral and matter-of-fact about what kids eat or don’t eat. If a child isn’t eating, stay cool and distant. If kids are eating in a polite and moderate and healthy way, that’s when to show feelings and appreciation. If you get in a power struggle about food you’re sure to lose.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>3. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Model emotionally healthy eating. Let the kids see you eat slowly, with attention and enjoyment. Express delight about tastes and textures and temperatures so that kids stay aware of the eating process without distraction. By definition, compulsive overeaters don’t pay attention to their food; all they seek is the current fix and the next. Don’t serve food in front of a television or with other major distractions. Mindful eating and compulsive eating are incompatible.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbOHQQvPFOqlw3gOCOIwMQar0sUf_nkKKYrSgCLfAE7_Eo0mwOm6GBKi5It3-vRiMVQROjdvdl-b8HWyOZXDJQfsCuyYHLliyvxiAcCnVZpVDGMwmqeGJ3Whg0vMmx-gV-2zwR5q9rwVr/s1600/Family-Dinner+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbOHQQvPFOqlw3gOCOIwMQar0sUf_nkKKYrSgCLfAE7_Eo0mwOm6GBKi5It3-vRiMVQROjdvdl-b8HWyOZXDJQfsCuyYHLliyvxiAcCnVZpVDGMwmqeGJ3Whg0vMmx-gV-2zwR5q9rwVr/s1600/Family-Dinner+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbOHQQvPFOqlw3gOCOIwMQar0sUf_nkKKYrSgCLfAE7_Eo0mwOm6GBKi5It3-vRiMVQROjdvdl-b8HWyOZXDJQfsCuyYHLliyvxiAcCnVZpVDGMwmqeGJ3Whg0vMmx-gV-2zwR5q9rwVr/s320/Family-Dinner+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> 4. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Let eating be a pleasant ritual, a ceremony. Have the kids set the table and decorate it. Light a candle or two, even on ordinary occasions. Assume that eating is that special place, not in the media room or the bedroom, and certainly not in the bed or the car. If you have to get fast food, slow it down. Go inside and sit at a table, and don’t teach kids to eat in a moving vehicle.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>5. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Never use shame to get a kid to stop overeating. It won’t work. Compulsive overeaters already associate food with love and approval. A shamed kid will will just eat more to feel better.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>6. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Be aware of your kids’ metabolism. Most children’s blood sugar is a little low when they get home from school. A small glass of juice, or better yet, raw fruit, can help smooth things out. There is no such thing as a “sugar high” (unless the parents expect it) but big doses of refined sugars like soda pop are not kid-friendly.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> 7. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Please don’t put your kid on a diet. Unless it’s a life-time diet, all you will get is resentment from the child, and short term weight loss. Soon the fat will return. Deep down we all know that diets rarely work for long-term weight loss. Older kids might want to improve their nutrition and ask for help. That’s different. Research and learn together, when your teen is ready to explore healthier eating for life.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>8. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Don’t provide binge foods. Kids who eat compulsively often have a few items that make them crazy. Like alcoholics, they start and can’t stop until it’s all gone. Chocolate candy bars are a frequent offender: those big molecules of fat feel so comforting in the mouth and the bit sugar hit is so soothing. It could be any food, but it’s likely to be highly concentrated: lots of calories for the size. Just don’t have it in the house.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>9. <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">If you’re overwhelmed, get help. Consider sending yourself to counseling instead of your child. You might be your own kid’s best therapist, and the counseling can provide you tools to do it. In my practice I call it "therapy by remote control."</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktnJzVvXCmqu1Mb_pKMVS09dnyjQKb1joDXM_g3IHbdN4tRqS8s4xZYvJOx3Q2eRiGxHSTkK98qAR7mH3xS9qKtAs06sY82HVJc28TSx-pY3btNLiMIEfS1grGqAq14T-znOXx8zCqaIK/s1600/sharma-obesity-father-son.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktnJzVvXCmqu1Mb_pKMVS09dnyjQKb1joDXM_g3IHbdN4tRqS8s4xZYvJOx3Q2eRiGxHSTkK98qAR7mH3xS9qKtAs06sY82HVJc28TSx-pY3btNLiMIEfS1grGqAq14T-znOXx8zCqaIK/s1600/sharma-obesity-father-son.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjktnJzVvXCmqu1Mb_pKMVS09dnyjQKb1joDXM_g3IHbdN4tRqS8s4xZYvJOx3Q2eRiGxHSTkK98qAR7mH3xS9qKtAs06sY82HVJc28TSx-pY3btNLiMIEfS1grGqAq14T-znOXx8zCqaIK/s320/sharma-obesity-father-son.jpg" width="315" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>10. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">Admit you are ultimately powerless. You can restrict your dog’s food by putting what you want in the bowl, but human food is everywhere. Determined, driven kids will get it, at least when they’re old enough to be sneaky. Start by accepting and enjoying your overweight kid. Start by letting go of all blame and all shame. That's how you'll increase your influence with your child and your ability to help.<br />
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</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-4667098745503940992012-01-17T23:00:00.006-07:002012-01-18T10:20:11.883-07:00Childhood Obesity Part Three: Tips for Worried Parents<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><b style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large;"> </b><i style="background-color: white; font-size: x-large;">For Parts One and Two, please see postings for October 13 and November 29</i><br />
<div style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 4.0pt 0in;"><div class="MsoTitle"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGhfWm49gU5_DJj43xbxgT6VLeCyU_VgKcVWovAbO5jwn7CkbX2w4SAAf_9Sx3Wt_TfC-42amrFwnmpdRtRPmusJYv5m8OpxShZuYESZRCr2MAvSKrY_kJotDLX038Suv_JPYqHIg5BPB/s1600/childhood_obesity-300x225.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGhfWm49gU5_DJj43xbxgT6VLeCyU_VgKcVWovAbO5jwn7CkbX2w4SAAf_9Sx3Wt_TfC-42amrFwnmpdRtRPmusJYv5m8OpxShZuYESZRCr2MAvSKrY_kJotDLX038Suv_JPYqHIg5BPB/s400/childhood_obesity-300x225.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: .25in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Fat kids suffer, and not just because other children are mean. Even teachers favor lean, cute boys and girls, and assume they're smarter. Many assume obese kids are weak, lazy, and unhealthy. Overweight adults know subtle judgment and rejection, but have grown-up defenses.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">For kids it’s harder. For them “fat” is a cruel insult that has no response. Here are my ten tips for parents:</span></i></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>1.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Never, ever reward or punish with food. If you give treats for good behavior, especially sweet and fatty ones, your child can learn to connect fats and sweets with love and approval. If you withhold food to punish, you’ll reinforce the food-love connection. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>2.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Be calm about food. It's a law of nature that you pay a lot of attention to a behavior it will increase, even if the attention is negative. Be neutral and matter-of-fact about what kids eat or don’t eat. If a child isn’t eating, stay cool and distant. If kids are eating in a polite and moderate and healthy way, that’s when to show feelings and appreciation. If you get in a power struggle about food you’re sure to lose.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>3.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Model emotionally healthy eating. Let the kids see you eat slowly, with attention and enjoyment. Express delight about tastes and textures and temperatures so that kids stay aware of the eating process without distraction. By definition, compulsive overeaters don’t pay attention to their food; all they seek is the current fix and the next. Don’t serve food in front of a television or with other major distractions. Mindful eating and compulsive eating are incompatible.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEUeFPpG9Kf4JJQIPOaNSxp_9JIrvpMI0MihyphenhyphenwnzBDuhskW6MWOF2SwDpd8Y3cM0Xp-v0ETgFnccucaf_Y1wfz07sVTaAYsk6fllE81we18buN4uo8EeEafbccwaEqASsRuaQWxkRsUYre/s1600/family-meal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEUeFPpG9Kf4JJQIPOaNSxp_9JIrvpMI0MihyphenhyphenwnzBDuhskW6MWOF2SwDpd8Y3cM0Xp-v0ETgFnccucaf_Y1wfz07sVTaAYsk6fllE81we18buN4uo8EeEafbccwaEqASsRuaQWxkRsUYre/s320/family-meal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>4.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Let eating be a pleasant ritual, a ceremony. Have the kids set the table and decorate it. Light a candle or two, even on ordinary occasions. Assume that eating is that special place, not in the media room or the bedroom, and certainly not in the bed or the car. If you have to get fast food, slow it down. Go inside and sit at a table, and don’t teach kids to eat in a moving vehicle.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>5.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Never use shame to get a kid to stop overeating. It won’t work. Compulsive overeaters already associate food with love and approval.A shamed kid will will just eat more to feel better.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>6.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Be aware of your kids’ metabolism. Most children’s blood sugar is a little low when they get home from school. A small glass of juice, or better yet, raw fruit, can help smooth things out. There is no such thing as a “sugar high” (unless the parents expect it) but big doses of refined sugars like soda pop are not kid-friendly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIAS0HtwB1h3s5-erBiqXoIA2QjUwr8szu8rKxWzdsVsnKnSuJcU5zI5SJnQgQRyA6PlBZCzGjX0ANl24hYuI1-cZvi0Ah3xqDFrZNoYH_Ud5QVpscGBcpizL2ffBHWIauMWx8ArY8C33y/s1600/9d8a867dc7be6df8d7ac4c9aa869cdae_lm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIAS0HtwB1h3s5-erBiqXoIA2QjUwr8szu8rKxWzdsVsnKnSuJcU5zI5SJnQgQRyA6PlBZCzGjX0ANl24hYuI1-cZvi0Ah3xqDFrZNoYH_Ud5QVpscGBcpizL2ffBHWIauMWx8ArY8C33y/s320/9d8a867dc7be6df8d7ac4c9aa869cdae_lm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>7.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Please don’t put your kid on a diet. Unless it’s a life-time diet, all you will get is resentment from the child, and short term weight loss. Soon the fat will return. Deep down we all know that diets rarely work for long-term weight loss. Older kids might want to improve their nutrition and ask for help. That’s different. Research and learn together, when your teen is ready to explore healthier eating for life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>8.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Don’t provide binge foods. Kids who eat compulsively often have a few items that make them crazy. Like alcoholics, they start and can’t stop until it’s all gone. Chocolate candy bars are a frequent offender: those big molecules of fat feel so comforting in the mouth and the bit sugar hit is so soothing. It could be any food, but it’s likely to be highly concentrated: lots of calories for the size. Just don’t have it in the house.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>9.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">If you’re overwhelmed, get help. Consider sending yourself to counseling instead of your child. You might be your own kid’s best therapist, and the counseling can provide you tools to do it. In my practice I call it "therapy by remote control."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-text-indent-alt: -.25in; tab-stops: 31.5pt; text-indent: -58.5pt;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span>10.<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Admit you are ultimately powerless. You can restrict your dog’s food by putting what you want in the bowl, but human food is everywhere. Determined, driven kids will get it, at least when they’re old enough to be sneaky. Start by accepting and enjoying your overweight kid. Start by letting go of all blame and all shame. That's how you'll increase your influence with your child and your ability to help.</span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 150%;"><br />
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<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-58284227163809200872011-11-29T17:33:00.127-07:002011-11-29T17:33:00.739-07:00Childhood Obesity Part Two: Apple Ecstasy and Buddhism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><a href="http://www.dbtechno.com/images/NYC_restaurants_calories_law.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="fat bug obesity virus" border="0" height="282" src="http://www.dbtechno.com/images/NYC_restaurants_calories_law.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How do you feel when you look at this picture? Are you angry with the parents? Child Protective Services in Ohio recently removed a youngster from his parents just because he was enormously fat. They said letting a kid get so big was child abuse. Do you agree? Does it make you worry about your kids, or about yourself?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The single most popular post on this blog was one on Childhood Obesity (October 13, 2011). Other posts, on mindful eating and on the Fifth Precept have had a lot of hits too. It's made me think. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Parents want everything good for their children and love to see them learn and grow. Few parents really know how to teach their kids to eat with attention and joy, mostly because they don't know how themselves.</span> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Nurturing and teaching are the key responsibilities of parenting, and they often go together. Nurturing means providing good healthy food that promotes growth and well-being. It also means avoiding using food as a bribe or love-substitute, or withholding food as a punishment. Kids in supermarkets whine for candy. Parents say "If you're good, you can have one piece." Perhaps if they are extremely good, they can have the whole bag. Goodness in a child's mind means only one thing: complying with the parental will, usually by being quiet and unobtrusive. If you are "good" you will receive highly concentrated simple and complex sugars and fats, which nature designed to feel good in the mouth.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Later, if we are lonely or bored and want love from outside ourselves, our hearts remember to connect love and comfort with sugars and fats, so we watch reruns with a soda and a bag of chips.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sadly, we don't really taste the soda or the chips; the comfort they provide is primitive, oral, and can never be fully satisfied.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If only we could learn to savor a single chip. Turn off the TV. Hold the chip, notice its texture. Enjoy its colors and how it is translucent to bright light. Smell it slowly, becoming aware of the complexities there. Snap it in half and listen to the sound. Put the half on your tongue and notice again. But wait, the sensations are likely to shift. Slowly chew and then swallow, mentally following the chip all the way down. Describe the experience to yourself, select words that might communicate the experience to others.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sound silly? Maybe, but I remember a monk leading a group of students though an exercise like that as we held and touched and sniffed the big red apples he'd brought us. For nearly an hour. When he finally let us take a bite, it was apple ecstasy for me. I'll never forget that apple from 40 years ago.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Maybe you've taken wine tasking courses. They follow most of the steps I suggested for the potato chip, and they have certainly enhanced my appreciation. Sadly, I often go though the attention exercise only with the first </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">sight and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">smell and and sip, then drink the rest of the glass mindlessly.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are games parents can use to teach kids mindful eating, far better than lectures about "slow down and enjoy your food," but the best teaching is through example. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Dieting is dumb and doesn't work long term. It's about restricting and limiting ourselves temporarily, usually so we can be thinner and more attractive. It makes our favorite foods our enemy. When we've learned that food is a substitute for love, food-as-enemy is a recipe for craziness. Mindful eating can lead to moderate eating with great pleasure, and we can model it for our kids.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-44843197239212761322011-10-13T10:58:00.000-07:002011-10-13T10:59:47.479-07:00Childhood Obesity and Buddhism: The Fifth Precept<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<h2 style="color: #3d316a; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Effects of Childhood Obesity (Center for Disease Control and Prevention)</h2><br />
<div style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.33em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Childhood obesity has both immediate and long-term effects on health and well-being.</div><div style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.33em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img src="http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/childhood-obesity.jpg" /></div>Immediate Health Effects:</div><ul style="font-size: 12px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: disc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" type="disc"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.7em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70% of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.7em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Obese adolescents are more likely to have prediabetes, a condition in which blood glucose levels indicate a high risk for development of diabetes.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.7em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Children and adolescents who are obese are at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, and social and psychological problems such as stigmatization and poor self-esteem.</li>
</ul><div style="font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.33em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;">Long-term health effects:</div><ul style="font-size: 12px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: disc; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.7em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Children and adolescents who are obese are likely to be obese as adults and are therefore more at risk for adult health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. One study showed that children who became obese as early as age 2 were more likely to be obese as adults.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0.7em; margin-left: 1.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.7em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk for many types of cancer, including cancer of the breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, pancreas, gall bladder, thyroid, ovary, cervix, and prostate, as well as multiple myeloma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.</li>
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Practical Buddhist Responds</b><br />
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The problem arises from wealth and a lack of mindfulness. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Adults counsel and explain but do not model or become examples of moderation. Children's diets are sometimes restricted or limited, but we don't teach them the joy of eating that can be found in paying attention. In our society only wine experts and chefs savor and thoroughly describe what they are tasting and experiencing. We also set up food as part of a reward system. "Eat your peas and you can have desert" teaches kids "Yes, peas are disagreeable and unpleasant, but to get you to eat them I will gratify you with food full of fats and sugars." Why not attend to the pea? Create a story of it's planting and growth, and how it was protected and nurtured by nature and farmer alike. Enjoy its shape and color. Play with your food a bit and see how many peas will balance on the blade of a table knife. Tell the story of the princess and the pea, or of Jack and his Beanstalk (close enough.) Don't teach that peas are ugly but necessary. Food should never be associated with reward or punishment.<br />
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I once counseled aides at an eldercare center to be sure to offer residents their glasses before eating so they could see the food clearly, then discuss the food admiringly to see what memories this might trigger. While they are learning to respect and delight in ordinary food, it's OK for kids to smell it carefully and even touch it gently, and experiment with various utensils and unexpected combinations. <br />
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Most childhood obesity comes from compulsive eating by kids who confuse food with love or at least relief, together with poor teaching and the abundance of cheap, concentrated food.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;">Here's a simple interpretation of the Fifth Precept or Training by Thich Nath Hanh (www.plumvillage.org)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"></span></i></span><br />
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivate good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practising mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I am committed to ingest only items that preserve peace, well-being, and joy in my body, in my consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family and society. I am determined not to use alcohol or any other intoxicant or to ingest foods or other items that contain toxins, such as certain TV programs, magazines, books, films, and conversations. I am aware that to damage my body or my consciousness with these poisons is to betray my ancestors, my parents, my society, and future generations. I will work to transform violence, fear, anger, and confusion in myself and in society by practising a diet for myself and for society. I understand that a proper diet is crucial for self-transformation and for the transformation of society.</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282654685775731324.post-44525128902449967182011-09-24T12:02:00.000-07:002011-09-25T16:23:57.899-07:00Weight Loss the Buddhist Way: Mindfulness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Obesity Epidemic "Astronomical"</span></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-outline-level: 2;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>The prognosis for the nation is bad and getting worse as obesity takes its toll on the health of adults and children alike.</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i><br />
</i></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">By</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><a href="http://www.webmd.com/r-morgan-griffin">R. Morgan Griffin</a><span style="color: black;"><br />
<i>WebMD Feature</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 3.75pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><span style="color: black;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 2.25pt;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">One of the biggest health stories of the year has been the rise in obesity among both adults and children in the U.S. We've all heard so much about the "obesity epidemic" that it's easy to think the story is being blown out of proportion. After all, people putting on a few pounds may not seem to warrant the proclamation of a national emergency.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><b><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">The Practical Buddhist Responds</span></b></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">The Buddha lived in a royal palace surrounded by the finest of everything, including limitless food. Later he adopted the life of extreme ascetics who allowed themselves only the bare minimum for survival. At last he found Middle Way of Moderation. The Middle Way respects our bodies and our minds and avoids the excesses of starvation diets or compulsive gorging. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Following the Middle Way means focusing, but not on scales or sizes or the shedding pounds. It means attending to health, treasuring our miraculous bodies, and treating them with tender care. If we are moderate in diet and in exercise, we will weigh what we should weigh and look as we should look, barring serious illness.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Why is moderation so hard? Some otherwise bright and disciplined people seem unable to attain it. The answer may lie in a combination of circumstance and training. We are surrounded by opportunities to eat without attention, mindfulness, or moderation. Even now in our economic crisis, most can buy as much fat and starch and salt as they want. We have been taught that food is for comfort and entertainment, not for celebration of sharing. Sitting alone watching a TV romance, your companions a jumbo bag of chips and a sugary soda, you are in a drugged state of no-attention and no-awareness. It masks pain and delays engagement with life.<br />
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A first step toward diet health is attention. Become aware of everything you put in your mouth. What is the consistency, the taste, the texture? How would you describe it to someone unfamiliar with it? Until eating with attention becomes habit, you could write your food (and drink, even water) in a special diary or notebook, along with your impressions and observations about it. The vast majority of people find that careful and consistent attention to their food and drink will bring better order and moderation in eating and drinking.<br />
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A second step, after beginning to be aware of your food and drink, is to notice the triggers to consumption. Many eat when anxious, for example. With practice you can learn better ways to manage your nervousness and fear, such as brief, focused meditation or even skillful breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;">Meantime, know that you are here and now, and that whether fat or thin, there is nothing inherently wrong with you. As you begin to seek the Middle Way and develop your skills in paying attention, the weight is likely to take care of itself.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0