Small Steps
The only step necessary in the journey of a thousand miles
is the next one – a single small step.
Lao-Tzu
Argument will not save the world, though persuasive argument my help a person clarify what is arising from their own experience. Preaching will surely not save the world, so I have to be careful in my writing not to revert to my younger days when, dressed in vestments and standing high above attentive rows of listeners, I would tell it like it is, calling it (please forgive me) the “Word of God.”
So I have to write along a path that winds between argument and preaching on one side, and passive pablum on the other. Certain understandings and convictions are gaining intensity and power within me and I want to express just how they are changing my actions and my experience. Telling you what you should do or trying to convince you to believe something, however, is not my intention. Goodness knows, I don’t really know exactly what to do myself. What I want to do is to express what is happening to me, inside and out, as I continue to walk along this marvelous, terrifying, wondrous Way of Tao.
One of the shifts that has occurred in my life is a new understanding of my relationship with the food I eat. Nancy and I are now committed to a plant-based diet. I’m not going to argue the merits of a particular diet. That is one of the many arenas where each of us will have to make personal choices based on what we see and understand of our relationship to the Tao and to the infinite ways it expresses itself. For Nancy and me, the effects of our diet on our health, on the economy, on the environment, and on broader issues of justice and compassion, has become one more step in our journey.
What we eat, how we obtain what we eat, and how these processes affect other lives is an important area of personal revolutionary activism.. The process by which we feed ourselves is intricately intertwined with political and economic systems, with health care systems, and with environmental systems around the world. It relates to how our desires are stimulated by media, how our addictions are fueled, and how we are distracted from clear thinking by emotional arguments.
If you are at the point where you would like to examine this particular area of culture, there are some basic questions you might ask yourself. Try to answer them from as much clear and valid information as you can gather. Don’t assume you know ahead of time, and don’t assume that there is a “right” answer. You’ll find conflicting claims and you’ll need to ask yourself which make the most sense, and why.
Why do you eat what you do?
Where does the food you eat originate?
What makes a food “taste good” to you?
How is it processed?
How does it reach your kitchen?
Who benefits from the way you eat? Who suffers?
What and who are you supporting with your food dollars?
What criteria do you use when choosing which foods to purchase and where to purchase them?
I obviously have reached some of my own conclusions. If you are interested in the people and books who have influenced me, please check the resources below. Whatever your conclusions about the best “next step” on your own “thousand-mile journey,” please arrive at them mindfully with the knowledge that you are part of a revolution that will eventually determine the fate of humanity on Planet Earth. These steps are the only possible route to the revolution we want. They’ll be different for each of us at particular times in our lives, but they are essential.
Liberte′
Bill
The Happy Herbivore, by Lindsay Nixon, published by BenBella Books
Food Inc. award winning documentary video by Robert Kenner
Forks over Knives, documentary by Lee Fulkerson
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, published by BenBella Books
My Year of Meats – a novel by Ruth Ozeki, published by Penguin, (one of my favorite writers)
