ion

10 hours ago, windwalker said:

 

 

Except that 

 

 

Its not....

well obviously in humans it is otherwise you wouldn't have peoplel with male anatomy and a male brain thinking they are women.

 

With humans mind, and brain are two distinctly different phenomenon.

 

Culture and mind are not distinctly different phenomenon in humans.

 

This as an article on research, not a series of study's that prove anything

 

The problem with comparing monkey behavior to humans is that we humans only have one instinct, that is to assimilate the ways and beliefs of the culture they live in without question.

 

Again THE EXACT SAME WAY WE LEARN LANGUAGE WITHOUT BEING TAUGHT, BEFORE WERE ABLE TO BE TAUGHT ANYTHING.

 

monkeys aren't like that. the ARE born with instincts hardwired into the brain

 

Although some other primates do learn how to use tools from the older generation, like how to bash a nut open with a rock, none of them can really be called cultural beings where as a human is almost 100 percent culture.

 

 

14 hours ago, rideforever said:

 

The error with this logic is that it implies you are the whole, and you can easily demonstrate you are not, for instance the whole has created gravity planets and love.  What can you do ?  Nothing, you are just a small monkey.

 

Therefore you who speak are in fact something that has arisen, and if you wish to survive you need to do something otherwise you will die.

 

The whole is not you, it lives and will live.   But you will actually die.  When your body dies and you close your eyes nothing is left.

 

The whole is alive now, but you don't know it, and you are not it, stop talking about it.

 

Spirituality is concerned with making this small self permanent through a fusion bridge with the source, then when the body dies this small voice that you are will live on as itself ... it becomes a soul.   This means the small eddy in the river of life that was given a temporarily supported life, has through its own joy of life and returning to the source it has become a permanent eddy no longer temporary.

 

Spirituality is about .... the individual soul living on beyond death, because of your joy of exploration, and so you truly reflect the source which is doing the same.

 

Of course the whole is there always was there and always will be there.

But you won't.   If you still have the imagination that you are the whole, well try to do something like make a planet.  Does it work?   After you see that you cannot do it, recognize that you are just a monkey and the clock is ticking.

One area of confusion is that if you are able to feel or reach the source (and it is your source after all) .... then it can feel very nice, you can imagine you are the source .... but once again just try to do something the source can do.   And you won't be able to.   Because you are just feeling the source, you are not the source.

 

A second area of confusion comes from the damage to the intelligence of Western people, this has been caused like in Ancient Rome because material possessions are plentiful, and people don't need to use their intelligence in a responsible way.  If you need to think straight to made the wheat grow or your wife and kids will die .... that is a motivator.  If you are a bum with no real honest work, sitting on your plastic chair, looking at your phone .... then when you think it is just shit.    Real thinking and intelligence is a muscle that needs to be trained.

 

A third area is that because of the decline in true intelligence what arises from shit lazy thinking is a a degenerated world understanding and fragmented self-understanding which is called the ego.   The ego is somebody who is ill and no longer recognizes his own self, or true intelligence.    Humans who are ill tend to make others ill, which is important to understand.   Someone who is deeply unhappy gets anxious if a healthy person arrives and will tend to attack them or crucify them.

 

A fourth area is that people unfortunate enough to be born into a world of shit lazy idle people, does not feel very good, not knowing himself, the earth, meaning or anything.   The sterilized world.   And such people become quite desperate inside, some take anti-depressants.    Some reach for spiritual ideas to justify their feeling of not existing.   But the truth is they have been damaged.

I have no clue how this relates to what you quoted me as saying. 

 

What I said in no way implies that you, me, or any compound has a self that "is the whole"

 

incidentally the five heaps of you me or a monkey does have its own gravitational field. Every and any particle that has mass and density hasa gravitational field, it is being in the earth gravitational field that gives us weight.

 

other than that I read your post 3 times and can't see how it relates to what of my post you quoted, or any thing I posted in this thread and to be honest I don't see how it relates to the topic at all.

 

I kind of got the impression like you were drunk and using a random statement as a prop or straw man in order to make some sort of proclamation that you are preoccupied with and that you thought everyone needed to hear?

there are many text far too esoteric for any of you to have come across where the Buddha was recorded  while he was still alive, and answering the monks saying

 

"hear ye oh blessed order of monks! When I have died, and this heap becomes lifeless and then has decomposed  there will be much great confusion about what I said and did not say. Quarelling, hatred, and contempt will become rampant among the sangha. '

"But fear not dear monks for there will be the one called ion who will arise in the future. with his great wisdom and all seeing eye he will unlock all the Dharma that have become mysteries to the ignorant. He will clear all the confusion, and set all the records straight, and will rule over you all like a rod of iron! In as much as iron turns to rust and crumbles.'

 

"Do not cross the one called ion who I hereby declare as the one whom the truth is within and who I am here and now calling by name and establishing as my predecessor.'

 

"whenever oh monks, you find yourselves ignorant, confused and quarelling over the things I have said and about the Dharma, and even the deeper meaning of the Tao Te Ching for that matter, go to the one called ion the all seeing and all knowing.'

 

"hopefully I have made myself very clear on this. I repeat  his name is ion, and he is from a place called California. This must be recorded and the news spread to all the sangha present and future lest ye forget and become engulfed in ignorance. DO NOT argue with him please!"

Limahong

 

so yes, that was one of the "nature"s I mentioned and as you said, it is dependent.

 

It appears that everyone here who argues for the existence of the self can not argue their view without relying on magical ideas of how it exists.

 

no one who's view is that the self exists can argue that with pure reason and so the conversation devolves into pics that have a vague connection to off topic comments accompanied by indiscernable off topic ramblings.

 

if anything, form, or phenomenon exist it will have characteristics. Anything with characteristics gets the characterization and it's being/activity from what it is dependent on and nothing originates or exists indipendently of the conditions and causitive factors that characterize it into being.

 

this is not a religious axiom or belief like "I have a soul", but is a logical observation that holds true when applied to anything that can not be refuted.

 

 

...and as far as dreamers having self

 

in my dreams I often experience the dream from several perceptions within the dream.

 

I am not always my usual identity in my dreams, some times the dream is viewed from more than one of the dreams characters view point.

 

often I am not even sure which of the characters in a dream I am, or if I am more than one, or if my perception of the dream is from all the characters and even none of them

 

 

1 minute ago, Stosh said:

Anything that can err , or dream.

anything that can dream exist All of its own self without being dependent on anything?

4 hours ago, Limahong said:

 

Nature.

 

Nature is not dependent? What we call nature is usually the phenomenon dependant on , physical forms, or a things nature.

 

A things nature would be it's being, because no thing can have an essence or essential nature.

 

Buta thing does not have its own being.

 

the being of a thing is the interplay of conditions. The conditions are not the thing  And the thing is not the conditions.

 

so what do you mean that nature has no conditions or dependencies?

4 hours ago, Marblehead said:

100% agreed.  I used to argue this point but I finally realized that my argument had no substance.

 

Either does this post alone withouta counter argument or an example.

 

please please provide an example of  indipendently existing thing, not dependent for its origination and being?

4 hours ago, Limahong said:

 

Characteristics spoken are not the eternalness [of characteristics].

anything said to exist has characteristics. All characteristics are dependent.

 

what are the characteristics of the self, and what are they dependent on?

 

if you say it has no characteristics, than what are you referring to? And furthermore,  if this thing that has no characteristics and no dependencies for existence, than where in reality is it?

 

 

So the self does,not exist in the 4drealityand is dependent only on magic? Maybe God makes selves?

 

what are they made out of ?Even God has dependencies, the principle of infinity for one

 

nothing exist in this world or others that is not dependent.

3 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

I've been through all that here before.  Keep in mind I am a Materialist and a Physicalist.

 

There really are some instincts woven into our brain.  They can be over-come but it is very difficult to do so.

 

Self:  Everything that is and what has become a part of this animal called "Marblehead".  No, I cannot put my finger on my "Self".  That is because it is not just one thing.

 

For sure the "Self" is dependent on many things.  The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, etc.  We are not self-sustaining objects.  Nothing is, really, except for Dao.  But then, that's not a thing so it doesn't apply.

 

A physicists you should know our only instinct is to assimilate the beliefs and ways of the culture you were born into. All thoughts and emotions are the byproduct of that assimilation of culture.

 

Anthropologist will tell you that its a fact that if you took a Caucasian baby born in middle America to a tribe that lived in the jungle of Papaya New Guinea to be raised there by them with no contact with its "mom & dad" it would grow up as one of them with nothing at all in common psychologically with what they would have become if it grew up in the states. It would not identify with its birth family at all.

 

Things like this have happened and been documented, where as the opposite has not happened.

 

We arent born with any other instinct. And if we were and those "went away" they could not be called self.

 

Ifa self is not an individual like you say, that it's,made up of a combination of things, how is it a self?

1 minute ago, Limahong said:

 

The characteristics cannot be named.

well what  is it dependent on?

 

 

anything that is said to exist is the characterization of what it is dependent on.

 

if it is not dependent on anything it has no characteristics And so does not exist.

 

If it exist it has it's origins, and those origins, and the being of the existing thing will be e product of causative factors or certain conditions.

 

What are those conditions?

I think it's pretty common knowledge in the field of (physiological) medicine, and anthropology that the brain does not  come with thoughts and emotions "hard wired" into it, but for those of you that believe there is a self I ask simply; 

 

What are the characteristics of a self? And what exactly is a self dependent on for its existence and characterization?

Buddhist doctrine is clear that there is no self. In fact it is one of the 3 marks of existence.

 

H also cleary said that there is nothing in all of reality that corresponds to the word self.

 

Many Buddhist who do not really have a thorough understanding of dependent origination/emptiness will argue and argue that there is a self, but IMO it's not Buddhism anymore. The rest of the doctrine that is dependent on there being no self just falls apart into a new age type  belief system that does,not connect in many places

Using the Sam bathrooms doesn't help as long as the woman symbol is wearing a dress.

 

if people use the same bathroom and that is symbolized by showing a figure wearing a dress standing next to one who is not, and that is the symbol in our culture for a woman than that does not help to curb gender assignment to the sexes by enculturation.

 

Btw, enculturation is the continuous process where by we absorb the culture.

 

enculturation is how you learned to speak when you were a baby. it's a way of learning without being taught and in the same way you learn to speak a language you learn what boys and girls are he they walk and talk etc, at least in cultures that engender the sexes which is all of them atm.

 

the same way you learn language you Also learned how o be a boy whether you at a a male or female.

 

That dress on the bathroom placard  places a gender emphasis on the sexes.

 

I recently watched a movie about a Vietnamese guy and his son who fled the war to live in the jungle. The boy grew up 41 years in the jungle, only seeing other peoplea couple of times at a contingencies hiding, so no contact was ever made.

 

it was a very interesting documentary.

 

what was relevant about it is that the 40 something y/o man who grew up outside of the culture could not tell the difference between clothed men and women.

 

He said his father never taught him that.

 

He never learned that boys wear pants and have short hair and like such and such things, never wore make up and did such and such jobs.

 

He never learned that women have long hair and like such and such things, and do such and such jobs, and that they do not like such and such thing and do not do such and such jobs.

 

He never learned that men laugh this way and woman another.

 

he never learned that certain facial expressions and gestures were considered feminine and others,masculine.

 

He never learned anything that his culture assigned to gender roles and as a result he could not tell the difference between men and women who were wearing clothes.

 

Wherein would gender dysphoria take root in a mind like that?

 

?

 

Are there any males who transitioned to female that arent into acting out the cultural female, or behaving what the culture calls feminine and who are not interested in wearing what our culture calls women's clothing, but instead only want to become impregnated and deliver a baby?

 

I have never met a man who was otherwise culturally a man but who felt he was a wwomanbecause he really wanted to become pregnant and deliver a baby so I do not accept that actually want to be a woman except culturally.

 

None of the acting or dressings women is inherently female.

 

Having eggs, becoming pregnant and having a baby and not having a certain chromosome is the closest thing that could be called inherently female.

 

it is because that is the last thing that most of them have on their lists of what it means to be a woman that I feel that it is the culture's idea of femininity they assimilate and want to be recognized as embodying, not what is "inherently" female.

 

That is my point.

just like I might have not had racial disphoria when I was a kid if I lived in a culture that did not place emphasis on race instead of the hood in Austin Texas. 

I know what they call gender disphoria,  and I also know like you say, they have no ideawhat cause it.

 

All I was saying in the place I was quoted was that I believe ina society that placed no emphasis on gender or roles, I do not believe someone would think they were a woman who accidentally got a man's body.

 

Like the Dr said. No one is born with thoughts or emotions hardwired in the brain.

 

As someone who does not believe in an inherent ego, and who thoroughly understands that we are,not born with thoughts and emotions hard wired in to the brain, and as someone who has studied anthropology and understands the process of enculturation is what is responsible for developing or sense of self, identity, and likes and dislikes as well as what we find attractive, (enculturation is responsible for men finding discs placed in the lips attractive to people that live  in that culture and why people in other cultures dont) I'm just saying that they are not born with gender disphoria. I thoroughly understand that it develops after birth just like your sense of self and dependent psyche did.

 

Again in a culture without rigid gender roles I don't think this would occur.

 

 

 

I don't know of a culture without rigid General roles.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-02-26/transgender-wrestler-wins-high-school-girls-title%3Fcontext%3Damp&ved=2ahUKEwjStq2wirTcAhUGslQKHUyZCRoQFjABegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw30aD6-oIT3FBSrGZ_DDG-_&ampcf=1

 

Born a female so Texas won't let her wrestle on the boys team. Transitioning to male so taking steroids and testosterone. Wins every single match, never loses.

Hmmmmm?

 

 

The Dr. in this video has an interesting perspective on the subject.

 

All my thinking tells me that we are born blank and without inherent self. That along with my understanding of dependent origins I see that their sense of self and who they are is as real to them as everyone else's sense of self and identity is to them.

 

I would think that in the process of enculturation that we all undergo, some male for example it obviously it would apply to females as well, assimilate female behavioural traits, gestures, ways of speaking, etc., but it must be understood that all of what I just listed are entirely culturally derived.

 

Most of what we call male or female traits are cultural constructs, even that males and females assume submissive or dominant roles in courting rituals, as in women are attractive and men go pick up on them is a total construct with no actual basis in our biology.

 

So a "normal straight male" child identifies with boys and men by how it is spoken to and treated and because of how others in the culture identify with him. In this process of enculturation his brain sort of rejects anything the culture perceives as female, and assimilates the things perceived as the male and the male role.

 

a  trans person switches it and rejects the male role and assimilates a cultural opposite. Again a male for example, rejects its cultures male behavioral traits and instead assimilates the females.

 

Alot of that behavior, along with feminine gestures, postures, facial expressions, ways of talking, laughing, emotional expressions etc (whether attributed to male or female) when assimilated by a mind will cause thoughts, ways of thinking, consciousness, and a dependent sense of self to arise.

 

So a lot of the feminine behavior when assimilated by baby boys can cause the psyche of a girl to develop in the body and mind of a baby boy, and that will elaborate and diversify into their sexuality. They will end up wanting boys to like them broadening of the behaviour they are assimilating has that woven into it. 

 

But it's all cultural and no different then when a baby boy assimilates boy stuff and then identifies with all that as self, or an aspect of self, all that is psyche, not in anyway inherent.

 

So I do not discriminate against them. In real life I tend to want to call transgender  that were born women "dude" when I'm talking to them, and the ones who were born men I end to call "she, her, etc"  but it is because they embody the act, and are acting out the role that  the culture calls male or female and so psychologically they are. Again, just like "normal straight folks"

 

However the society e moment seems bent on everyone accepting a certainnarrative about the phenomenon that I can't accept. I Can accept that a male can culturally and psychologically be a conceptualized woman, and that a "Dr" can mutilate the males genitalia, or culturize female genitalia image onto his male genitalia, and that a male can be somewhat femminized by taking femalehormones and blocking puberty, but that in noway gives that male a female anatomy.

 

And that is what they want us all to accept, that this high tech genitive mutilation actually assigns a new biological sex. It is not a female anatomy, it is a mutilated male reproductive system that is incapable of releasing an egg that it carried since it was an unborn fetus that either is fertilized develops into another human.

 

Getting pregnant and giving birth or laying an egg, with a female reproductive system is a defining characteristic of being female. Not dressing and acting like a lady and having a hole or pocket that has no other real purpose but for a male to put his penis in.

 

There is more to being a female than having a hole for a guy to put his penis in.

 

To say that that's a female anatomy is the ultimate statement that women are nothing but walking vaginas.

 

So I think that transgender thing is more the result of cultures having defined  everything as either belonging to male or female, not because a person was born a female ina les body.

 

 

I do not think it is compassionate to say that it is or to pretended that the sex of there body is a birthdefect. It is not compassionate to lead a person further into delusion.

 

Many parents and des nowadays convincing children that their bodies are mistakes and that their reproductive organs are birth defects. They are coercing them into an egostate and telling them that the Dr can help them.

 

When I was a very young boy mine was the only white family in a black neighborhood. I assimilated "black" cultural behavior likes dislikes, speech. I identified with a group of children who identified as "being black" and verbally recognized me as being that too. I used to wish that my skin would slowly get darker and my hair would slowly change because I wanted to have hair cuts like, and think about hair like the people in the group I identified with did. I thought if it happened slowly no one would be shocked or confused. 

 

At that age If my mom told me that I was actually descended from Africa, and that I was supposed to have been black and my fair skin was actually a birth defect I would have believed my mom. If even later in life if her nd a few Drs and a team of nurses etc all assured me I was African American and they were going to fix my birth defects then they would totally be creating the way I saw an understood reality, and I'd think that they must e telling the truth.

 

 

 

On 7/15/2018 at 3:14 PM, Seatle185 said:

Thank you. I have actually been brewing and am still really new to it. I am on just my 3rd brew at the moment and i am loving it! I am at the point where i have 2 huge scobys and am planning to start a scoby motel because i dont know what else to do with them and dont want to throw them away.

 

I have been experimenting a bit on the second brew, the first few times i used pom juice which was great, this last time i tried apple juice and cinnamon which has been my favorite!

give the extra scobies to friends.

 

I used to give them out for people to start their own brews.

 

in fact I think I started a thread here after I discovered how to make a kombucha like beverage out of thin air 5 or 6 years ago.

 

I was a member of an online kombucha brewing group, and members were always asking people how to make KT from scratch.

 

I did not realize that they were asking how to make KT from a store bought brand, I thought they meant literally from scratch.

 

I wondered about it hard, came up with an idea, tried it and it worked. Tried it again and it worked again.

 

I should try it again.

 

After posting that thread I ended up sending off some cultures to interested parties along with some mushroom cultures on agar.

 

 

you can use just about any type of tea, but if you decide to use anything else but black tea, use one of your extra SCOBYs because it will effect the balance of the populations that are in the scoby 

 

always keep your original culture going in black tea.

for diaphragmatic breathing

your belly should go out while inhaling and fall back with the exhalation. So you are with the inhale, but not the exhale

 

for reverse diaphragmatic breathing be with the belly on the exhalation going in, move all the air out as the belly goes in and let the belly fall out for the inhalation.

 

 

regular

 

 0712180856.mp4

 

reverse

 

0712180857.mp4

 

 

consciousness (according to the Buddhist definition) when analyzed by dependent origination is dependent on "ego", there fore ego can not uproot consciousness.

 

nothing is Is individuated; an existant is characterized by what it is dependent on, and it's being is characterized by what it is dependent on.

 

Without its dependencies it could not be being or have characterizations; its being and characterization are dependent.

 

since its characterization is dependent on the coming together of causative factors, and the being of that characterization is dependent on the playing out of those causative factors it can not be called individuated/self/I.

 

since the causative factors are not the being or existence of the thing(perceived form or phenomenon) itself, but are only conditions of it, he characterization and being can not be called the characterization or being of any of the causative factors either.

 

A crashing wave is born  when the conditions of water, energy vector, and reef all come together and meet; those are the causative factors of a crashing wave.

 

each condition is equally causative in the characterization and being of any thing.

 

The wave is characterized by the shape of te reef, the depth of the water and the speed and direction of the vector of energy.

 

if the vector comes from the north west, west, or south west the crashing wave will bare that characterization in its size and form, and in its being and duration. If the reef is long or short it will be seen in the characterization of the crashing wave, and in its being and duration. If the water is deep or shallow this will be seen in the characterization, being and duration of the crashing wave.

 

everything about the wave is dependent on the causative factors; no reef, no crashing wave. no vector, no crashing wave. no water no crashing wave.

 

so a things characteristics, it's characterization and the being of those characteristics and characterization are not it's own nor of it

 

But the characteristics, the characterization and the being of those are not products, possessions, or characteristics of the causative factors either.

 

water will not produce a crashing wave; without conditioning water rests in stillness.

 

waves are not produced by a reef; crashing waves do not come from or out of a reef.

 

wind by itself does not bare the characteristics called a crashing wave. Wind is incapable of producing a wave all by itself.

 

So they are all equally causitive, but none of them can cause. Nothing is born out of anything.

 

nothing is individuated or can be.

 

nothing has its own characteristics or being, so nothing can be said to have "individuated"

 

if a fire is said to have individuated from its causative factors (fuel, air, & heat), than one could remove the fuel without affecting the characterization and being of the fire. The fire could be cut off from air, or rage with flames without any heat.

 

but fire does not come from wood, fire does not come from air, nor is it produced or come from heat.

 

if none of the conditions are capable of producing the fire than the fires characterization and being can not be said to belong to the conditions.

 

so it doesn't belong to itself, or another.

 

nothing is self or in possession of or has its very own characteristics, and the characteristics do not belong to any other thing or non-thing .

 

if nothing is in individualized self, than nothing else could also be another self; if there are no selves, so there are no others.

 

 

Sunyatta is just the shine on the Apple. Many people mistake the shine for the Apple.

 

The Apple the "right understanding" of dependent origin. Many people mistake the meaning of dependent origins with cause and effect, but the conventional view of cause and effect is dependent on delusion and thusa construct of delusion. 

 

An Apple has no shine, isn't shiney and does not shine.

An apple comes from a tree, but a tree comes from an Apple; if causes are effects how can they be causes? If effects are looked at as being causes, how can the be called an effect?

 

Heat can not in itself cause fire, it has no power of causation. Heat is not an independently occurring or independently existing phenomenon. It is a conditioned occurance.

 

A fire  is conditioned, the conditions  of a fire are heat, fuel and oxygen. No oxygen No fire, no fuel no fire, no heat no fire.

 

Each condition is a causative factor and each characterizes the fire equally.

 

A thing is empty of having its own characteristics ; characteristics are donated by the conditions; the characteristics are not the conditions them selves, and the conditions themselves are not the characteristics. 

 

If a things characteristics do not belong to them selves, and they do not belong to the co,editions they come from, how can any thing be called a self that has its very own existence, and that has things that belong to it? If nothing is a "self", how can anything else be an "other"?

 

If an Apple is emptiness having no nature of its own, no intrinsic being and no dualistic characteristics of its own or otherwise, how could it have a shine or be the producer of a shine?

You can also,make sasparilla or root beer with a kombucha culture.

 

You can make really good beer really quickly with kombucha too.

 

The yeast in KT make alcohol that is usually instantly,converted into acetic acid by the acetobacter bacteria.

 

You can alter the balance to favor the yeast or bacteria in your brew several ways.

 

Steeping your tea to long or using too much tea will favor the yeast because of the tannins. That will cause your brew to be very bubbly, and put holes in the scoby but won make an alcoholic beverage.

 

Hops is a bacterial suppressant  that's why they began using it to make beer in the pre sterile days 100's of years ago. Its discovery led to more constant and stable brews.

 

So tomake a nice IPA use the same amount of sugar in the water, no tea at all but boil up some hops to add the sugar too.

 

Filter That then add you starter with fresh hops.

 

I did it in half Half gallon jars which I sealed off with press & seal that I secured on by screwing the band over the press and seal tightly.

 

Press and seal actually allows gas to pass through it, so when pressure builds up in the jar it will cause the press and seal to form a dome, but will not pop because the co2 Will slowly escape allowing nothing else to enter.

 

I made,my beer without any brewing equipment other than a jar and press and seal.

 

I don't drink alcohol any more though, but it made a fantastic IPA.

Home made sauerkraut, or homemade Kim Chi.

 

Store bought stuff is often not fermented.

 

Lots of stuff we consider as garbage, junk food used to be probiotic  and good for you.

 

Sourkraut, pickles, ketchup, mayo, soda, and more were fermented foods containing live  probiotics that were really good for you, but even when purchasing tthese as organic products nowadays it's all junk food.

 

Soda used to be made by the lactic acid bacteria and yeasts found on ginger root.

 

You'd make a starter by adding cut ginger to sugar water; that was called the "ginger bug", bug= micro organisms.

 

with that as a starter you could then brew up sasparilla or whatever.

Be real careful using a continuous brew set up. Make sure any plastic and rubber fittings are chemical resistant and  be sure to make SURE all the metal is stainless steal.

 

Otherwise I hate to tell you but your also drinking plastic, plasticizers, rubber, and metallic compounds all of which would out weigh any benefits of the tea.

 

Edit-meaning if you buy an inexpensive apparatus that is sold as a drink dispenser that is intended for using for iced tea or lemonade than it is not likely made for holding alcohol and strong acids.

 

HDPE, and PP are OK plastics.  I believe that those are marked #2, and #5.

 

A stainless steal dispensing spout is essential with the right kind of rubber gaskets.

 

If you buy everything at a homebrew shop they use all the right plastics, rubbers, and metal.

 

Even if your not using a continuous brew set up

up, make sure the container is made of real glass, and just glass, not like a glass vase or something that might be leaded.