thelerner

I wouldn't support ratings. Things get contentious enough sometimes without people voting, lobbying and taking sides. The Bums have thrown the original 'Blogs' into a separate holding pen in the past. I could see doing that with old or untouched personal section blogs. Michael

Ah, Spring, where a young man's interest turns to baseball, girls and what!? I'm no expert (Trunk here has the most input & info on the question) but you seem to be pretty normal to me. I'd drop the obsession w/ retention. Some discipline is good, but at 16 don't be so worried. If there one thing the Tao teaches its that things run in cycles, hot and cold, energetic and lethargic. Westerners tend to think one is better then the other; the more energy the better, it's not always so. My advice: let it be, don't be overly strict with yourself. Go for a walk its a beautiful day. Michael

Shostakovitch was right, the 20th century was bloody almost beyond belief. But you have to look wider then that. Many many great things happening too and continue to happen. Stare too long at the abyss and you hurt your spirit. Ignore it and you lack perspective and reality. Michael Speaking of reality I was just listening to an Podcast called 'Stuff you Missed in History Class', light, short 20 minute, informative, without being stuffy. They have an interesting show called 'What really happened at Kent State'. They cover things from several sides, from who was in the crowd? Who made up the Guard, Who was shot, why.. No definitive answers, but enough depth to flesh out the human dimension.

You got me to Google him and I read a few articles. I'm surprised there's only a comic book and not a movie made about him. Adventurous guy, a renegade life of good, bad and very strange. Michael

Tangled Indeed. I used to get hot and flustered occasionally at posts and people. So much of that is ego talking- wanting to be right, show off how clever I is. For the last year or three I try to state my truth (knowing its mine, not the Universes) once or twice and move on. Leave the arguing to the youngsters who still have the fire for it and maybe need to get it out of their system. Michael Of course printing this pretty much guarantees I'll launch into ill fated rant within a few days. Thus is life.

I believe The Who said it best in the 70's, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. What looks like change is just a pendulum of reactions and overreactions swinging back and forth. Michael

I did a few months of Kaishan Golden Bell/Shield a few years ago. It was interesting, probably nothing to compare to movies . There was a short chi gung form and visualizations, rubbing the belly w/ an herbal elixir, then a long series of hitting the stomach area in a circular manner. You slowly graduated from an open hand to loose fist, to harder fist, wooden block etc. I quit before the wooden block training started. It was nice, not done in a militant or masochistic way. The advanced students were taking very hard blows repeatedly in the stomach and other areas. It probably built up internal strength. I learned a light tapping exercise from it that I still do, and they had excellent longevity guided meditation that is unique. Nice people, unique practice, but it was expensive, $100 a month and it only met once a month, (though it required daily practice) which was a turn off for me. Michael

Seems like a long winded way to say Meditation Good. :0

"They believe Mr Prahlad could teach them to help soldiers survive longer without food," Fantastic that's what we all want. Maybe they could dissect him and figure out a way to make Bigu into a pill; skip that 40 years of training crap.

And thats what makes you so dangerous

The paradox of alcohol is that while it's a toxin to the liver and brain, its very good tonic for the heart (whose disease is major killer). A number of populations studies have shown men who drink a glass or 2 a day, live longer and healthier then tea teetotalers. This is backed up by numerous studies, the caveat being one or two glasses. The full protective effect seems to based partly on the alcohol in the drink and not on antioxidants alone. Personally I'll have a glass of wine w/ dinner and drink a beer or two w/ friends every now and then. Makes sense to drop it for a few days or weeks once in a while though and when going on retreat or doing intensive meditation I'd also abstain. Michael

Some people can do Bigu (living w/out food and water) for surprising amounts of time, but there generally is limits. Many self proclaimed Bigu advocates have been caught sneaking food. In Chicago there was a chi gung teacher who'd announce at his demos he hadn't eaten food for years. If questioned closer you found out 'soup' was allowed . Still there are people who fall into a natural Bigu, eating when they're hungry, but going days w/ full energy w/out eating. For them its effortless. They're simply listening to the body. Bigu isn't a goal but a natural byproduct of their cultivation. Note in the cases I know of (one teacher I correspond with) its usually a few days in a row kind of thing. Michael

There's the real world practice of paying strict attention to everything you do. Writing things by hand is a good training for focusing attention, each letter and word shows a level of your mindfulness and concentration. Rewrite a poem or sayings that have meaning to you. Examine the writing for breaks in concentration, repeat. There are mathematical ways of honing concentration. From simply counting up in 2's to 100. Then down. Later 3's, 7's etc. Graduate to 500's, counting up and down, even 1000 counting down by 13, things like that. In meditation, I find holding a mudra (raised hand position) makes me more concentrated. Michael

To those who are enlightened or near it, Evil does not exist. That's because they live in the now, where things are ..as they are. To the common man ofcourse there is evil, pick up a newspaper, look at all the unnecessary pain in the world, the pointless devastation's and nastiness where people, animals and the environment suffer. my 2 cents Michael

While I have great respect for Taomeows knowledge and wisdom I disagree with this statement and another post that dismissed the doctors report out of hand. Western medicine is by no means perfect but for serious emergency ailments it is often the best route (though not IMO for prevention and less serious bouts). People end up dismissing modern medicine and paying the ultimate price. There are honest doctors and when they see obvious misrepresentations and magic bullet cure alls they have the right and obligation to speak out. (as do alternative healers). I believe that is the case in the article I pointed to. The whores are by no means on one side. My bottom line from reading everything is that the flush while misrepresented in the book, has value beyond placebo. Some of positive reviewers had blood work before and after and showed improvement. The fact people had fewer globs w/ more flushes mean that there systems were umn 'flushing faster'. Michael

Being Jewish we celebrate Shabbat, the sabbath. The family eats together, we'll all say prayers in Hebrew. I like to translate them as 'Spirit of God, You are Imminent & Mysterious, Wow, time and light. Then the same prayer, but Wow, wine. Finally the same prayer ending with Wow, the grains of the earth. Then its about eating a festive meal on a special holiday that happens once a week. Michael

I looked through the overwhelmingly positive reviews from the book. Then looked deeper, here is the best site against it: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=93 Here are some excerpts: "What has been done, however, is a lovely little study that suggests just how much self-delusion is involved in liver flushes. Like the case of colon cleanses, when seasoned con men learn how liver flushes actually “work,” they will be likely to tip their hats in appreciation for such simplicity and perfection, a scam, where the remedy induces the “evidence” of its efficacy. But on to the case report to which I refer that a group in New Zealand contributed to the Lancet: A 40-year-old woman was referred to the outpatient clinic with a 3-month history of recurrent severe right hypochondrial pain after fatty food. [Note: Here "hypochondrial" means "below the ribcage,' not "hypochondriac."] Abdominal ultrasound showed multiple 1-2 mm gallstones in the gallbladder. She had recently followed a “liver cleansing” regime on the advice of a herbalist. This regime consisted of free intake of apple and vegetable juice until 1800 h, but no food, followed by the consumption of 600 mL of olive oil and 300 mL of lemon juice over several hours. This activity resulted in the painless passage of multiple semisolid green “stones” per rectum in the early hours of the next morning. She collected them, stored them in the freezer, and presented them in the clinic. Microscopic examination of our patient’s stones revealed that they lacked any crystalline structure, melted to an oily green liquid after 10 min at 40°C, and contained no cholesterol, bilirubin, or calcium by established wet chemical methods. Traditional faecal fat extraction techniques indicated that the stones contained fatty acids that required acid hydrolysis to give free fatty acids before extraction into ether. These fatty acids accounted for 75% of the original material. Experimentation revealed that mixing equal volumes of oleic acid (the major component of olive oil) and lemon juice produced several semi solid white balls after the addition of a small volume of a potassium hydroxide solution. On air drying at room temperature, these balls became quite solid and hard. We conclude, therefore, that these green “stones” resulted from the action of gastric lipases on the simple and mixed triacylglycerols that make up olive oil, yielding long chain carboxylic acids (mainly oleic acid). This process was followed by saponification into large insoluble micelles of potassium carboxylates (lemon juice contains a high concentration of potassium) or “soap stones”. In other words, the “stones” that liver cleansers are so proud of and go to such effort to strain their poo for after doing their flushes are not gallstones and were almost certainly the product of the actual flush itself! (Cue the con men tipping their hats in appreciation.) It makes perfect sense, if you think about it. These protocols usually involve fasting and then consuming up to a half liter or more of olive oil at one time. That could easily provide the conditions for this sort of reaction to take place. Neat, isn’t it? The very sign of “success” of the liver flush is something that has nothing to do with gallstones and everything to do with the results of the flush itself. Indeed, it’s quite clear that, even if you don’t have gallstones, if you do a liver flush and then look closely enough, you’ll find things in your stool that very much look like gallstones that are really due to saponified oil. Now I know (and you do too) why virtually every liver flush protocol includes large amounts of olive oil or similar oils plus epsom salts or orthophophoric acid and fruit juices. Unfortunately, I have not seen any more recent studies, and I’m not sure if any are really needed after the investigators discussed above conclusively showed that they could mimic these “stones” chemically. In any case, it’s a beautiful scam. People do these flushes, they see things that look to them like gallstones being “flushed” out, and they believe it works. Consequently, they keep doing it. Because these flushes involve materials that don’t have to be purchased from a “healer” (although certainly many “healers” sell various “supplements” to “aid” liver flushes), they can be viewed more as a means of healers to demonstrate their skill and keep the patient coming. (And going, too!) It also serves as a way of “demonstrating” the efficacy of “detoxification.” " I found a discussion board on Liver Flushing; again many said it helped, but those who had the stones analyzed found they were a hardened olive oil/lemon juice mix, ie there is no flush, just round balls produced by the method itself. What do I think? Half con, but not necessarily worthless, the site makes clear that Hulda is over reaching w/ the claims of parasites and the nature of stones, but it might be the the method has cleansing and detox effects, the stones are just a side show. You're almost literally creating soap inside your body! What do I know? Nothing, as per usual. If I suspected I had liver or gall bladder problems I might try it, but I suspect other forms of fasting might be better. For what its worth the article and other sites have outlines on how to do the flushing. Michael

If its a course where you take notes, take'em on the right hand page during class, then after class do them over, neater and more concise on the left (pictures and doodles are good). Teachers want to give A's. Get into a relationship with them. Ask what you should concentrate on, the format of the test etc. Let them know after class what you have problems on and make an appointment to see them after class. If you're in college, see if groups, (frats etc.) have copies of old tests or old notes from the same teacher. See if you can access them example; I was in a Co-ed Service Fraternity Alpha Phi Omega, they had files and on occasion shared. Find out your best study style. Concentrated for 90 minutes or better off taking 5 minute breaks every 25. Mint flavored gum or hard candy- study while chewing and take some during the test (if allowed), its been known to help. Other then that the basics, repetition, mnemonics, study cards, good nights sleep. You can download free sleep/study hypnotic routines at the Itunes Podcast store, 'Meditation Station' has a 'Pre-test Meditation' as well as ones called 'ZZZZZ' and 'Evening Inventory' (which I use and like). Yours Michael

Thanks for this. Practical and wise. Michael

I posted earlier siddhi's should be accepted but not desired. I try to contradict myself once a day, so let me say I desire 'powers' in dream work. From the simple memorizing of the multiple dreams at night, which is very doable, to lucidity and beyond; looking at and understanding other dimensions that may or may not be out there. In dream work is an oft forgotten but necessary step on the spiritual road. I'm haunted by a question Ron Jeremy once asked 'How will your practice help you when your dead?' I may be wrong but I suspect a possible answer lies with mastery of lucidity. Michael

When I'm in meditation sometimes my eyes will tear, usually early on. Strangely, so will my nose, liquid will drip from it. I've always thought its linked to a deep relaxation response. Michael