boycotting Chinese products

by L. Valdez Karl

As if we needed another reason to boycott Chinese products — tainted toothpaste, pet food, and toys with lead paint just weren’t enough…

From the Tibetan news website:

Latest threat from China: Toxic Clothes?

Here’s a good reason to wash new clothes before putting them on infants and children: A New Zealand television station is reporting that “scientists found formaldehyde in woolen and cotton clothes at 500 times higher than is safe.”

UK trading standards are on alert after Chinese-made clothes in New Zealand were discovered to have up to 900 times the safe level of formaldehyde in them. Formaldehyde is used to protect clothes that have to be shipped great distances against mildew. However, long-term exposure to high levels can be harmful, causing problems ranging from minor skin rashes to some types of cancer.

The latest safety alert over cheap Chinese goods was sounded in New Zealand. It has been passed on to trading standards officials in Britain.

“Any consumer worried about harm caused by clothes they have bought should contact the retailer or report their concerns to trading standards,” a spokesman for the Government’s new department for business, enterprise and regulatory reform said.

For more information you can visit the No More Made in China website

http://www.nomoremadeinchina.com/xn_resources/widgets/photo/slideshowplayer/slideshowplayer.swf
Find more photos like this on No More Made in China

and

Not China Made.net has a list of China-free shopping:

* American Apparel
* American Plastics Toys
* Blessed Nest
* Born Free Baby Products
* Buy American.com
* Corelle (Kitchen-ware)
* Crayola Crayons
* Holgatetoy
* ImagiPlay
* Justice Clothing
* Made In USA Products
* Maple and Mark
* Shop for America
* Still Made In USA .com
* Story Board Toys
* Toys Made In America
* Uncle Goose Toys
* US Made Toys
* Whittle Shortline Railroad
* Zebulon USA
* Zebulon USA- Toys

My reason for boycotting Chinese products is purely political — I support a free Tibet. Mommy Zabs, who started Not China Made.net, says, “Not everyone may feel led to ban or boycott China. But I am asking you to be aware, read labels, pay attention to just how much we as parents buy from China. It’s alarming.” I don’t have children, but do it for yours.

I have always said, BE AWARE, READ LABELS, LIVE MINDFULLY. If you think one person can not affect change, you are wrong, and I will write about that at a later date.

So, yes, it IS possible not to buy products made in China if one shops mindfully and not automatically. Don’t mindlessly hop over to Wal-Mart — #3 on the Top Ten Corporate Villians of the Planet list — just because it’s “easy” or “cheap.”

please support our sponsors

by L. Valdez Karl

Commercial time for Mindful Shopping…

I’ve gathered the ads of a few companies that I have purchased from and have become their affiliate. Some sell organic products and/or donate a portion of their proceeds to global causes — if I was not familiar with their products I would not recommend them.

For the yoga teachers out there, I’ve bought bolsters from YogaAccessories.com for my private students and they love them, plus you can download music for your classes from Find Bliss. I’ve bought turmeric/ginger capsules from Organic India for my arthritis and use it regularly. The Y Catalog’s website states that 10% of everything you spend “will go towards changing the world.” If you need yoga books, click on the Amazon link, although I recommend supporting your local independent book store first!

BUT! If anyone buys anything from any of these sites and the product is made in China, please let me know and I will cancel my affiliation with them. Immediately.

Mucho thanks…and shanti!

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=linsyogjou-20&o=1&p=10&l=st1&mode=books&search=yoga%2C%20meditation&fc1=000000&lt1=&lc1=3366FF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

yoga = recycling

by L. Valdez Karl

Yoginis, do you recycle?

You might want to read more about “recycling” in this article.

“These women care about their looks and are keen on keeping up with the latest trends….They’ve finished raising their kids and want to enjoy being fashionable again,” Ando says. “They’re the types who use eco bags while shopping and drive hybrid cars. They have a strong awareness of protecting the environment. And they have no worries about going back to old boyfriends. That’s why I call what they’re doing ‘recycling sex.’… “

And a wife doing yoga should also get alarm bells ringing, according to another “recycling sex” wife.
 [emphasis added.]

“I don’t know whether yoga increases your female hormones, or what, but since I’ve been doing yoga it’s made sex feel so much better for me,” [emphasis added]…. “Yoga improves your shape and I always have an excuse for getting out of the house by telling my husband I’ve got a yoga session on.”

earth day every day, I say…

i’m not the only one

by L. Valdez Karl

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I try not to buy things made in China as a one-person protest of China’s occupation of Tibet. I’ve also written about Mindful Shopping (what a concept!) here and about how difficult it is to find things that are not made in China.

So it did my heart good today to read this story in the Chicago Tribune about another woman who tried to stop buying things made in China — for a different reason, but it is her protest just the same. I thought I was the only one who diligently read labels!

A family tries 12 months without ‘Made in China’

Strike China from the shopping list? Good luck. One experiment highlights how much U.S. consumers rely on those imports.

By Mary Ellen Podmolik | Special to the Tribune
August 19, 2007

Is it possible to live without Chinese-made goods?

That’s what Sara Bongiorni wanted to know, and after a year of a self-imposed embargo, she said she’s thankful her telephone didn’t break because she fears she might have broken down herself and bought a replacement made in China.

The Baton Rouge, La., mom and her family did make do, however, without a coffeepot, a blender, birthday candles and a lot of toys.

“We knew it would be difficult but until we did this, we really didn’t know how much we rely on imports for everyday things,” Bongiorni said….

The story gives tips on boycotting Chinese goods:

– Don’t expect friends and family to join in.

– Be prepared to go without convenience items, like an inexpensive coffeemaker.

– Get out your magnifying glass to look at tiny print on boxes and labels.

– When ordering from catalogs and Web sites, be prepared to make phone calls asking for the item’s country of origin.

– Dig deeper. Some toys from Danish firm Lego, for example, are made in China.

– Brush up on geography. You’ll have to decide whether Hong Kong and Macau are part of the boycott.

On the Students for a Free Tibet website it says that “in December 2002, a worldwide coalition of Tibetan and Chinese organizations and human rights and labor advocates launched an international Boycott Made in China campaign designed to level economic pressure on the Chinese government to end its occupation of Tibet. In a coordinated effort to urge people to stop buying goods made in China, activists throughout Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Europe and India, are educating consumers about what their money is supporting when they buy ‘Made in China.’

The Boycott Made in China campaign, representing a worldwide coalition of Tibetan and Chinese organizations and human rights and labour advocates, plans to put the brakes on China’s crimes through the power of the individual consumer. Campaign organizers believe that, more than any other force that could be bought to bear against China, the latent power of the free, informed and responsible consumer can pressure the world’s last surviving giant Communist dictatorship to allow the Tibetan nation and the Chinese people the freedom they have been long denied.”

Tucked away comfortably in our small towns or suburban subdivisions, ALL of us are a part of the bigger global picture. Our choices DO affect change, one person at a time.

Sorry if this sounds judgmental, but THINK, PEOPLE! Mindfulness is a life practice. Mindfulness is a choice. THINK about where your food comes from. THINK about where your clothes come from — are they made by companies in foreign sweatshops that employ child labor? The three biggest corporate villains for clothing are Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Dilliards. THINK about whether the cosmetics you buy are tested on animals. The biggest corporate villains for cosmetics insofar as animal testing and using known carcinogens are Maybelline, L’Oreal, Almay, and Revlon.

Think outside the box. Think mindfulness. Be mindfulness. Be aware.

JUST THINK.

what city are you, and other things

by L. Valdez Karl


You Are Austin


A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll.

You’re totally weird and very proud of it.

Artistic and freaky, you still seem to fit in… in your own strange way.

I knew that. but I hated living in Texas.

Your Inner Retro Girl Is

1960s Hippie Chick

uh…no-brainer…

Tommy Lee Shares Your Taste in Music


See his whole playlist here (iTunes required)

…and tattoos.

The Movie Of Your Life Is A Cult Classic

Quirky, offbeat, and even a little campy – your life appeals to a select few.
But if someone’s obsessed with you, look out! Your fans are downright freaky.

Your best movie matches: Office Space, The Big Lebowski

actually two of my fave movies.

You Are a Flashy Red Bra!

Outgoing, friendly, and fascinating.
You’re a charmer, with your pick of the men.
But you want a man who’s as magnetic as you are.
You need someone who can keep up with your all night gab fests!

yeah, I do have one or two.

Your Gemstone is Ruby

Daring, enthusiastic, and spontaneous.
You are energetic and passionate, with an appetite for life.

red seems to be the operative word. red = root chakra = groundedness or lack of it…..hmmmmmm……

now what other blog can you read that has pictures of red bras, Tommy Lee, the Dalai Lama, and political news about Tibet? Not many. I’m nothing if not eclectic.

feel good Friday

by L. Valdez Karl

I borrowed the idea for this post from Vanessa — I love her blog, so check it out. It’s not about yoga, but it’s all about spirit. Thanks, girlfriend!

Many of you are too young to remember Sly and the Family Stone, but I loved Sly. The band was old school funk, and being brought up on the south side of Chicago, I loved that the band was “mixed.” I also loved the blond wig on Sly’s sister, so out there and in your face. Plus I had a thing for the sax player, but I had a thing for all sax players back in the day.

When I was in high school in the ’70s, I had the “honor” of being at a Sly Stone concert in Grant Park, Chicago, when a riot broke out. My friends and I ditched school to go to this free concert — peace, love, dove, baby. You might remember their album “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” — uh, yeah, I was there.

Sly had the reputation of not showing up for concerts and when people started to figure out that he was a no-show, they got a little hot under the collar. Unfortunately, so did the infamous Chicago Police when they saw people ripping the stage apart and stealing instruments. Tear gas really doesn’t smell good, y’all.

So enjoy the funk and be yourself.

peace.

will the real reincarnated Buddha please stand up?

by L. Valdez Karl

Starting September 1, all reincarnated living Buddhas will first have to be approved by the Chinese government.

Excerpts from a recent news story on the website phayul.com:

“…The measures, which are deliberately targeted at one of the core belief systems of Tibetan Buddhism, reveal the Party’s agenda to undermine and supplant the Tibetan religious hierarchy and weaken the authority of legitimate Tibetan religious leaders including the Dalai Lama….

The new “management measures for the reincarnation of living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism”, which are described by the official press as “an important move to institutionalize the management of reincarnation” [emphasis added] were passed by the State Administration of Religious Affairs (SARA) for implementation from September 1. The Chinese authorities use the term ‘Living Buddhas’ to describe reincarnate lamas or tulkus, individuals who have consciously decided to be reborn, often many times, for the benefit of all others…

In the measures, the State Administration for Religious Affairs states that reincarnations of ‘living Buddhas’ who do not have government approval are “illegal or invalid” [emphasis added], which is intended to convey that the Tibetan system of recognizing and educating reincarnate lamas is no longer relevant, because it is the government that decides whether a reincarnation is a legitimate religious figure or not. The government intends this to apply even to tulkus who have been recognized some years ago by Tibetan religious authorities, as part of their systematic attempts to undermine the traditional religious hierarchy in Tibet….

These measures on reincarnation, and the fact that China continues to hold in custody the boy recognized by the Dalai Lama as the 11th Panchen Lama, Gendun Choekyi Nyima, are also part of the government’s efforts to ensure they are in a position of control over the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama [emphasis added]. But the Dalai Lama has clearly placed on record on numerous occasions that if the present situation regarding Tibet remains the same, he will be reincarnated outside Tibet away from the control of the Chinese authorities. Tibetans believe that individuals such as the Dalai Lama who have gained a high enough degree of meditative stabilization can choose their next rebirth…”

The notion that the Chinese government will now “govern” reincarnation strikes me as not only ridiculous but also Kafka-esque. The idea that “living Buddhas” need to be “approved” by the Chinese government would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. It sounds like a good Seinfeld episode where instead of the Soup Nazi there would be the Buddha Nazi: “WHAT?!? YOU DON’T HAVE OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT APPROVAL TO BE A BUDDHA! GO AWAY! NO ENLIGHTENMENT FOR YOU TODAY!”

(Sigh)…don’t they know that everyone has buddha-nature?

I am curious to know what Chinese Buddhists think of this ruling. But since the number of readers from China stopped at 30 a long time ago which leads me to believe that this blog has been blocked in China, I guess we won’t be getting any comments posted from that country. That’s OK – I’ve been banned from more than a few places in my life (insert winking smiley.)

“I vow to awaken for the benefit of all beings, and to realize its immense value, and to know that it is possible in this life regardless of conditions.”

BOYCOTT THE 2008 OLYMPICS IN BEIJING

FREE TIBET

FREE THE PANCHEN LAMA

happy independence day, Ma India

by L. Valdez Karl

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=7399792002477900458&hl=en

Today is India’s Independence Day. Sixty years ago today the world’s largest democracy was born. This video is a performance of India’s national song.

I have only been to India twice and will return to south India in January 2008 for my third trip. It’s been said that if one is tired of India, one is tired of life.

Good, bad, or indifferent, I love India. When my foot first hit Indian soil, I felt like I had come home. I stepped out of the Chennai airport at about 2 AM, stopping for a few moments to take everything in, just as an animal does when you open the door for its escape — it stops and sniffs the air and you can see its nostrils flare, and the eyes trying to take everything in at once, and you can see the hair rise almost imperceptibly on its neck, before it bounds away, never to look back. I felt free and powerful and alive. That night was my independence day.

There is not a day that goes by since I returned from my first trip that I do not think about India, the people I met there, the experiences I’ve had. My fourth and fifth trips are seeds in my mind’s garden, waiting to sprout — Rajasthan, then the Kumbh Mela. I travel to India alone, a solo female traveler of a certain age, which is just the way I like it.

Home is where the heart is, and my heart is in India.

"yoga unveiled"

by L. Valdez Karl

I highly recommend this movie to all yogis and to non-yogis who want to understand what traditional yoga is all about. This documentary came out last year and contains interviews and clips of many of the Indian and western yoga biggies, as well as old shots of Krishnamacharya and Indra Devi. However, I was disappointed that the filmmakers did not mention my teacher, Srivatsa Ramaswami, who studied with Krishnamacharya for over 30 years. There is also some good analysis on the state of yoga in the west.

Of course I loved all the scenes in India…FYI, the yogi in padmasana in the opening scene of this video sample is Lara, who was the asana demonstrator in my month-long 2005 intensive at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. The ancient yogi carving in my photograph above can be seen at Mahabalipuram, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a bus ride outside of Chennai.

no attachment, no aversion

by L. Valdez Karl

What would happen to pain if we did not label it as such? What would happen if we turned to face our obstacles instead of pushing them away?

I teach vinyasa flow and yin yoga. Yin yoga is a style that is still unfamiliar to many yoga students. It doesn’t make you sweat and you don’t feel like you’ve gotten a “workout” — “you mean you’re not moving? you’re just on the floor? no way can I do pigeon for 10 minutes, are you kidding?!?”

I believe that if you have strictly a “yang” practice like astanga or vinyasa, you are only giving yourself half the gift of yoga.

Because of my training with Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers and my own personal yoga and meditation practices, I feel that a yin/yang yoga practice offers a complete practice not only on the physical level, but more importantly on the psychic level. Working on these deeper levels is what leads to our personal transformation, and the changes we make in our soft tissue have a profound influence on the emotional, mental, and energetic levels. My own yoga practice deepened when I moved away from an alignment-based, precision-obsessed practice.

A quiet yin practice reveals our subtle body. We move from the gross muscular level into our bones, into the connective tissue deep within us. Many yoga students don’t practice in a way that invites stillness because many times the contemplative aspects of yoga are ignored in western yoga classes. How many of you sit in stillness for 10-15 minutes DURING a vinyasa class, i.e., at the end of class, not AFTER the class, only as an option? My study at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in India showed me how different yoga is there compared to the fitness classes labeled as yoga here.

In my training with Sarah earlier this year she said that “yoga is a process of fully inhabiting ourselves — body, heart, and mind.” Sarah believes that as a society we are so fixated on our bodies looking and performing a certain way that we neglect the spirit body. She said that Ken Wilber calls this “bodyism”, and I see it all the time in vinyasa classes.

There is nothing wrong in trying to perfect an arm balance or headstand, nothing at all. But if the only thing behind it is Ego, then it is only a performance. Non-attachment, non-Ego, is accepting yourself just the way you are in that present moment when your legs smash the wall and you crash down from a very shaky headstand — and smiling about it instead of swearing. I ask my students, “what is going to ultimately transform you? holding an arm balance for five minutes or sitting in stillness for five minutes?”

The stillness of yin yoga allows us to observe the rising and passing away of physical and emotional sensations. All of our life experiences reside in our body, and the emotional afflictions we all carry affects the body and hardens us, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Yin yoga is not just about cultivating physical flexibility, but our inner flexibility as well. Sarah believes that we can never truly soften if we do not investigate these sensations and turn toward our pain and discomfort, instead of running from them. This process is similar to vipassana meditation — watching, arising, abiding, passing away.

Sarah’s teacher training included a workshop called “Working with Emotional Obstacles Along the Path.” She suggests that we explore our personal responses to our sensations, and instead of pushing them away, confront them, because if we do not, our obstacles continue to live in our bodies. Sarah recommends a five step process:

* Recognition — Identify what is disturbing you the most. Emotional pain, illness, addiction, self-hate?

* Acceptance — Acknowledge the issue and explore how and where it lives inside you. Does it have a shape, color, size, temperature, texture?

* Impartiality — Let go of defining the issue as right or wrong. Let go of assumptions and just observe.

* Personification — Imagine this issue as a living being in front of you. Notice its gender, color, size, etc. Ask It what It needs of You, and if this need is met, how does that make You feel?

* Compassion — Give yourself permission to have this need as you begin to open to the expansiveness and clarity of your newfound Awareness.

Yoga, done with mindfulness, allows us to come home to ourselves.

TADA DRASTUH SVARUPE VASTHANAM
(Yoga Sutra-s 1.3)
“Then, the ability to understand the object fully and correctly is apparent.”

“In the state of Yoga, the different preconceptions and products of the imagination that can prevent or distort understanding are controlled, reduced, or eliminated. The tendency to be closed to fresh comprehension or the inability to comprehend are overcome.” (Reflections on Yoga Sutra-s of Patanjali, TKV Desikachar)