Justice and The Connection to Food
I’ve been thinking about Justice quite a bit over the last year. Last night this TED Talk, In uncertain times, think like a mother, showed up in my feed. Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE, a non-profit that works with women leaders who protect and provide for communities facing war and disaster. Together, they build skills, strengthen local organizations, advance progressive movements, and advocate for rights. In the TED Talk she asks, what does love look like in the public sphere? She quotes Cornel West, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
The original meaning of Justice comes from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit “yu” means “to unite”, “to connect”, “to yoke”, “to join”. The Sanskrit “yuj” means “harnessed”, “joined”, “yoked”, from this comes “yoga” meaning “to link”, “to join”, “union”, and “to connect with the divine”.
George Ohsawa writes about justice in The Essential Ohsawa. In the East, justice is joyful, familiar, kind, amusing; whereas, in the West, justice is somber cold, nasty, and cruel. He writes that Absolute Justice, the basis of all existence, is unconditional, divine love. It is the spirit of all existence, an impartial law that applies to everything that exists. Where there is justice there is peace and balance. Some have said that justice is unattainable, but Ohsawa writes that it is attainable. We must first understand Absolute Justice because Justice for humans comes from Absolute Justice.
Absolute Justice is the source of all visible and invisible phenomena. It comes back to yin and yang and the Dao. The visible world is governed by matter, force, and war. Yang. It is measurable, the goal is relative. Satisfaction of desires. The invisible world is governed by spirit, acceptance, and peace. Yin. It is immeasurable, the goal is absolute. Awareness of oneness. Nothing is completely yin nor completely yang. At its extreme, yang transforms to yin, yin at its extreme transforms to yang. Trying to find balance between extremes is exhausting, we try to find balance in the middle instead of the extremes.
The Unifying Principle of Yin and Yang is a vision of the world based on the idea of unity of matter and spirit. It is the key to unlock a life of health, happiness, peace, and the ability to transform misfortune into a celebration of life. (This is not the same as toxic positivity.)
Another way to look at yin and yang is energy that is constantly changing. Expansion and contraction. Outward and inward. Flexible and fixed. Clockwise and counterclockwise. Cooler and hotter. Open and blocked.
What is one way to find balance? Food. The food we eat affects our blood quality, our blood feeds our brain which gives us our perception. Alcohol, drugs, and chemically processed foods are extreme yin, salt is extreme yang. Opposites attract. Have you ever noticed salty chips, peanuts, or pretzels at the bar during happy hour? Closer to the middle we find local fruits and nuts, leafy greens and seeds, root vegetables and squash, beans and sea vegetables, and whole grains. Our bodies naturally want to be balanced. This doesn’t mean we have to eat a boring limiting diet. It actually opens up possibilities. When imbalanced, we experience dis-ease, irritability, mood swings, degenerative diseases. When balanced, we feel flexible, free, peaceful, at ease, energetic, vibrant.