Limitations Are Freedom ~ Limitations Are Boundaries ~ Limitations Are Everywhere!

Limitations Are Freedom ~ Limitations Are Boundaries ~ Limitations Are Everywhere!

4 Limitless Qualities ~ Painted by me Katlovenotwar

Compassion, Equanimity, Love, Joy

Emily Bite Size Vegan ~ History of Veganism Part One

Fertilized egg stages

Evolutionary Biology Douglas Futuyma

See how we are all alike?

Let's start to understand that “limiting” ourselves to eating and drinking only that which can be procured without violence, using the most peaceful methods as possible, is a GOOD limitation. Understanding some worms and bugs will get injured in the process. But using organic farming methods and naturally diverse farming without poisons and allowing the limitations that can start to make a change in this world for real.

I just read an article Stupid Things Meat Eaters Have to Deal With, whereupon the writer lists every valid concern for not farming, killing, and eating animals and denounces each with essentially nothing more than, “I don’t care. I love meat.”

Sadly, just as I know I will never free the world of people who believe in war and killing other people, for whatever reasons they justify, I probably won’t see a world where all people agree that animals are friends not food. Tragically we can’t even see a world where all people believe that ALL People are equal and deserving of basic rights.

But if you can set a limit on yourself that simply says,

“I will not knowingly eat, wear, or otherwise use, anything that caused any avoidable harm possible, and I will education myself and not be blind and willfully ignorant for my own health and the health of the earth.”

From that intention comes everything else. Is it limiting?

For me it is empowering! It is a framework to live from. It is a core inner belief of knowing and peaceful intentions that guides each meal, each work of art and project created, my parenting choices, my life’s purpose. Although it may take the form of dance, spending time with my kids, painting, a ceramic piece, a drawing, a photograph, a book, all these things come from one intention.

To bring love and peace into the world while causing no harm.

Lojong Slogan #39 “All activities should be done with one intention”

Atisha’s 7 Points of Mind Training. Pema Chodron expands on this teaching.

http://www.lionsroar.com/dont-give-up/
Lojong: How to Awaken Your Heart BY PEMA CHÖDRÖN
 lojong (“mind training”) teachings in The Great Path of Awakening by the nineteenth-century Tibetan teacher Jamgön Kongtrül the Great

“#39 All activities should be done with one intention.

Whatever you are doing, take the attitude of wanting it directly or indirectly to benefit others. Take the attitude of wanting it to increase your experience of kinship with your fellow beings.”

Limiting ourselves is not limiting as you might intuit. NO! It is freeing and empowering!

Imagine you did not give yourself limits, How would life be?! Either impossible to decide on anything or just a flurry whirlwind of instability that your life would be a wreck.

Sylvia Plath > Quotes

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” ~ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

So sad. At least they were vegan figs. Limit yourself and find freedom.

Just as we need to choose a purpose. Choose a path. Find our purpose. Walk our path. We must find and choose our friends. We may find a life partner, usually only by limited ourselves to just THAT ONE partner. We can have millions of fans but still must limit ourselves to the number of intimate friendships and relationships out of the fact that we are limited in nature. We are limited by many things outside our awareness and outside our choices.

Love and joy are limitless, and maybe pain, suffering and cruelty are limitless too. It is terrible to think that might be, but still, this is the relative truth. The relative truth of good compared to evil. Light compared to Dark. Life vs death. But even if there is no limit to the amount of pain and suffering and meanness and cruelty and natural disasters that this chaotic world can manifest, there will always be peace and love in equal measure, at the very least. And the ultimate truth for me abides that, no matter how much pain and cruelty in the world exists, inside my peaceful heart is love and joy and genuine happiness at the gift of life and living. At the gift of flowers and animals. Of babies and springtime. Of new friendships and old friendships. Of sibling love. And Mom and Dad love. Just a knowing in my basic goodness and in the basic goodness of most people. Yes I do believe there are some malformed seeds that sprout into malformed lifeforms. There are beings, human or not, who have been inflicted to pain and cruelty, and maybe know nothing else. But there is still always the spirit of love and joy that rises to the top. That shines above the pain. The Sun shining on, despite the rain clouds that might be momentarily covering the sweet, warm nourishing light of the sun. Just be still for a while and you will find inside you the peace and the sunlight that is lit from within you.

I believe that this spark, this mysterious spark of life that every living creature has is the inherent energy that we’ve always had. The spark of life that was inside the egg that was you, that was inside your mother’s womb from the time she was in HER mother’s womb! Yes that is really true! But at the same time I believe the spark of your spirit was alive inside the seed of the seed that would one day become the seed of you that was launched out into the great cosmos of mother’s womb and connected with your other spirit energy living inside the egg. When these aspects of your spirit energy reconnected the YOU that has manifested in your human form, your human container for your etherally energy spirit. A temporary, limited container for your infinite unlimited pure energy.

Limited by your physical make up, and dispositions, needs and sensory perceptual abilities, we each make our way through our lives. Limited by our parents limitations and framework of boundaries.

Yes we are expansive and limitless in possibilities, but only to a certain point.

Once you embrace a purpose in life for yourself, a mission statement so to speak, a sole purpose greater than all others that is the ONE intention that you do all activities from, whether you are cooking a meal, cleaning the dishes, reading to your kids, taking a walk just because, talking to your mother or a loved one, talking to a difficult person you have to interact with, or a difficult person you don’t have to care about. Or how you just interact without anyone. With yourself?

I feel so empowered by my limitations on what I can eat. Wear. Buy. I feel free knowing that I will live truly and truthfully from the intention of bringing love into the world and minimizing suffering. Then what to eat for breakfast or lunch or dinner is still a hard question to answer, but my limitations help me decide. And when you add up all the

fruits

vegetables

grains

nuts

seeds

to choose from, well there are SO MANY OPTIONS!! OMG I can’t decide what have for breakfast! Well lunch at this point.

Please consider embracing the concept that limitations are freedom! Then live from that intention and choose your meals with kindness for all including yourself, which means your health not not your ego.

Go vegan forever now.

Think About Our Meals

Dear Everyone,

Today's Thoughts:

I want us to think about our meals. Where do our meals come from? The question I really want to pose is this:

When you look at your plate and see all that you are about to eat, would you be able to watch the entire process of what got the different things onto your plate? Would you personally be able to take part in the processes that were involved in getting your meal from its original sources to your plate? Now I don't mean literally, as in, are you skilled in those methods, but from a different perspective, would you be able to follow through with the procedures involved in getting your "food" onto your plate?

Would you feel comfortable watching a movie that shows a realistic picture of how the various items you eat were processed for your consumption? Would you feel comfortable with your children watching that movie? Would you feel comfortable watching in person how animals go from where they live to your plate? If you were asked to take the life of the animal you eat, could you? Would you? Could your children? Would you want your child to help you prepare the meal? Would you allow your kid to be involved, to witness and to do, every part of the process of getting that “food” from it’s original beginning point to the point of being a “meal” on  a plate? (Again suspecting the obvious safety risks of kids with knives). Could you personally get your hands into the various multitude of processes that go into taking a live creature and making it into a meal? How much of this would you let your children see and do?

How do you feel about these questions if you consider eating; fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, water.

How do you feel about these questions when you consider eating chickens, cows, pigs, fish, ducks, rabbits, crabs, shrimp, octopus…..

What if you consider eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, sour cream, BUTTER!

If the only way you could eat meat, dairy or eggs was too have the animals in your own yard, to provide them with the food that they need to live, to clean up their excrement, to care for their needs. To tend to the pregnant and be present for the births. To care for the injured and sick. To live with them daily. If you were required to slaughter the animal that you were going to consume, to prepare it for consumption and all that comes with that, would you do it? Again, not from skilled perspective but from a heart perspective.

Many people do have chickens and have no problem taking their eggs and eating them, despite the fact that what that is is their menstrual cycle. Or killing them and eating them, when they feel it’s time. Of course there ARE animal farmers who do this everyday. They get desensitized to the killing. They are convinced they are right.

But I ask you, the consumer who only shops at the grocery store. The person who never seems to notice or see the REAL animal being eaten without a second’s pause or hesitation.

Could you milk a cow? Do you know the difference between a person milking a cow in their backyard and the dairy industry? Could you kill a cow, chop it up and eat it?

DO you know that the ONLY WAY a cow can get milked, have milk, is to HAVE A BABY, like like a human. They are pregnant for 9 months, just like humans. They nurse up to 3 years, just like humans are intended to. And they love their babies all their lives, just like humans are intended too.

Could you care for this pregnant cow and be present as she births her baby, like the badass she is, without pain medication or the support from loved ones. Then steal her baby from her so you could steal her milk? Even if you were the “kindest possible” of all kinds of farmers you could be, best case scenario, they live happily, freely roaming, never separated, and you, kindest farmer of all time only take milk from 1 of her udders. Once a month only! Is that ok?

Well, in my eyes, if my neighbor came over, once a month, and squeezed a little milk out of only just one of my boobs, I would be, surprisingly, feeling violated. Molested. Mistreated, And I would feel like calling the cops, and if I did, I think the cops might, possibly think that was weird enough to warrant a come looksey?

Cows are so lovable and it is really mean, gross and rude to take their milk. Even just a little squeeze once in awhile for your coffee or what have you.

Plus it’s so bad for you. That is clearly documented. It makes people sick, fat, bloated. Causes a shitload of terrible illnesses and diseases. Dis eases.

Cows are so nice. Pigs are nice. Chickens are nice. You know, I think pretty much, all animals are nice in their own way, except for alligators and crocodiles. I mean Lyle Lyle was very nice. But even the ones that are NOT nice, well, we still shouldn't eat them and tear them apart and make things out of their dead body parts.

Go vegan forever.

katlovenotwar

Vegan Artist Mom