Cool Thoughts for Hot Days
Dear Friends and Family,
I love iced coffee.
Light, no sugar.
No cold brew or nitro infusions.
Not hot coffee poured over ice.
Just plain; made hot in the morning and cold by the end of the day so it can be drunk the next morning.
Dunkin’ Donuts is best or the kind served by the carts that take over the sidewalks on early weekday mornings.
I inherited this New York cultural love of iced coffee from my Brooklyn-born mother. Something passed on either behaviorally or through DNA. Somewhere, sometime a seed for loving iced coffee was planted in my psyche and summers in the city demand it to bloom.
My iced coffee addiction is a samskara, a habit, a groove in my mind. Lately I’ve made a conscious effort to change my habit. I no longer order from the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street or the cart on the corner. I still feel their pull when I pass by on a hot summer morning but I’ve decided that breaking the habit and not using 200 plastic cups and straws a year is a small thing I can do to eliminate waste. Instead I make my own. Just the way I like it and drink it in a reusable glass.
Big headlines about climate change and the potential extinction of polar bears by mid-century can be overwhelming. The problems are so enormous and the universal samskaras are so deep that there seems to be nothing I can personally do to stem the tide of global warming. But I can do something small. Like stop using plastic cups and straws.
The concept of Karma can be hard to understand. In its most basic form Karma states that every action yields another action or a reaction. While big problems can take complex solutions it is also important to realize that in most cases big problems are created by an infinite amount of small actions. One way to work with big problems is to take small actions that counter the habits causing the big problem. Taking small actions seems doable; using canvas bags for shopping or attacking the coronavirus by washing hands, wearing masks and social distancing.
Small actions can change the trajectory of these seemingly insurmountable issues.
Yoga practice is like this. By getting on my mat or sitting on my cushion every day I change little by little. Inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, closer and closer towards the removal of ignorance and the understanding of how I can become a more respectful citizen of the world.
Lately, I am eyeing the milk alternative cartons in the dairy aisle thinking I can change my iced coffee habit even more by switching from whole milk to almonds. Changing Karma is like this…cracking one nut at a time.