daojones

@silent thundercan you share your haiku of the DDJ?

Autodidactic renaissance man with an eclectic approach to pragmatic problem solving in order to provide innovate solutions that create competitive advantages.

@ralis its hard to tell where the ptsd ends and the effects from injury begin. My nervous system is wrecked from both, but theres a clear physical injury (indirectly impacted due to the trauma) to an important nerve. Dissociation, brain fog, and being stuck in a sympathetic nervous system state are the main issues psychologically. Its a real liver qi stagnation situation. @ezzaI'm glad you felt compelled to share, because thats actually not the type of thing thats on my radar. Its helpful to know about it to keep as something in my backpocket, like as you say as a last resort. Looks promising and a phase 3 clinical trial is pretty serious business. @Master LograyThanks, yes I am familiar with Norman Doidge's work. I'm actually looking now at Joaquin Farias and his movement therapy now that leverages neuroplasticity.

Will check those out when I need a tonic! @RaraThe green darjeeling sounds very interesting. Would love to try - where do you recommend looking for this?

@Vajra Fist Jiaogulan the poor man's ginseng I've drank my fair share of Jiaogulan in Thailand, and I never found it to be so appealing. To me, it has a taste that is similar to this green super food...I think spirulina? Anyhow its very healthy tea, I just couldn't get into it. The spring dragon mix looks like quite the tonic!

@silent thunder Thanks for sharing. I can definitely relate. @ilumairen I will check out your trusted resources, thanks! @Toni Totally agree with your ockhams razor there. For sure there is deep underlying trauma. The brain fog is due to a traumatic brain injury, which has yet to be properly dealt with despite much efforts.

I have tried binaural beats, but am unsure which ones are legit and what frequency even would be helpful. So it was quite a scattered attempt. Any recommendations on that? I don't think it sounds odd to drink water when it sets in, although I drink water and tea all day and haven't had any changes from that.

@SirPalomidesThai ice tea...that stuff slays me. I even have it made without the sugary ingredients and I still feel unwell after!

@Mithras Theres a lot of different types of tea. I just drink it because it makes me feel good and I like it. I was fortunate to be exposed to people who have good tea taste and I learned some stuff from them. Matcha is pretty popular, but its also really expensive and I don't really like it. So just because something is popular doesn't mean you have to like it (or that it's good). I don't like the big tea chains like David's because all their tea has this yoga chick pot pouri taste. Its kinda like pop culture, mostly the same thing with barely differentiable characteristics. That being said, if you can find a tea place with a bunch of different teas to try thats a good place to start so you dont have to spend a lot right off the bat. Its good to know what kind of taste adventure you enjoy, so setting that direction first is helpful. I'm not a fan of pu'er tea, which is very popular in high end tea drinkers. I like japanese teas a lot, and very very rarely a black tea. The black tea must be exceptional for me to really like it. I also think to really know that you like something you'll need to drink it a bunch of times. Hard to figure it out right away, but definitely you'll be able to say I really like this vs I dont like this at the first cup. Sometimes a brew may not be right so it can skew the process, so try to figure out a general type of tea you like and go from there. Roasted barley is also really nice and warming, although its not a 'fine' tea. I still like it a lot!

@Rara Well I didn't think I've made enough posts to be recognizable! I check in every once in a while. I've been on a strange and difficult journey, but I always feel at home when I come back here. Thanks for the warm welcome I hope I can share some of my lessons here with everybody some time in the future.

Microwave is my no no word. I grew up eating microwaved food, and stopped using it many years ago. It just tastes gross, and there is an obvious difference in energy from it vs food I heat up on the stove. I think some people are more sensitive to this type of thing, and I am in that category.

I'm actually quite skilled at this. Just to be clear though, you are interested in decision making via intuition in a pragmatic sense. Some of it is due to natural talents I've been gifted with, but I'll try to break down the skills involved and process I feel is going on. I also need to state the value and importance of experience. In certain types of decision making this is invaluable. Mistakes are part of the way, but the inability to learn from your mistakes is an obstacle. The first thing to realize is that the more data you have the better your intuition can work. For me the intuition is like traveling to a destination that is very far at a rate faster than you should be able to because you simply don't know how to get there exactly. So the more data you have the easier it will be for your intuition will get to the destination on it's own. Being good at research is very important for the data accumulation phase. This is big skill by itself. I read fast. I pick out the important part of info fast. And then I can synthesize it with any other relevant areas of knowledge that are relevant to the problem at hand. Research also applies to human situations. You need to be able to look at people, groups, etc..and size them up quickly. What's their motivations. Who are they. Where are they on the social hierarchy. What do they want, etc... Most people are not unique. Get enough life experience and this part gets easier and easier. The same patterns (and people types) repeat themselves. Your intuition should be able to pick out these patterns before you consciously do because its seen them before and knows how the patterns work and conclude. Part of pattern recognition is about having a well founded system for interpreting patterns. I have a very ground up approach to philosophy and psychology that all my observations feed into. I've asked the big questions, searched, read, and am still reading and searching. But I've built up enough knowledge to know the different perspectives one can apply to certain questions, people, and scenarios. And of course some perspectives that I think are most accurate to reality or in other words paradigms that have the strongest predictive power of the future. My observations get turned into patterns easily because I'm strongly connected to all these ideas I've learned. This enables me to quickly size up people and situations. I'm also experienced enough to realize it's both a strength and weakness. I am very judgemental internally, and need to remember to keep an open mind when it comes to people specifically. The conclusions drawn from my intuition are fundamentally probabilistic. There's an extrapolation of data, processing of the data intuitively, and it spits out the highest probable scenario that it thinks is the truth. This may sound mechanistic, but there's a strong 'feeling' component to it. Developing that feeling right side of things is probably more in the spiritual and energetic realm of practices. I think people who don't have good intuition may be bad at data collection, don't have strong foundations for which to compute the data into, or may also be too ungrounded with the feeling component. With regards to the latter, their supposed intuition may just take them on wild rides (like gamblers who just feel it this spin as an extreme example). Hope that's helpful!

I'm wondering what effect apple cider vinegar has on the system. Does it make urethra and bladder more alkaline or acidic?

Thanks - I'm a bit confused because I read drinking cranberry can create more acidic urine which helps infection.

How is the dalai lama chosen? I heard that this will be the last one due to some interference from China, but want to full understand this situation better.

My mom passed away last year. I've been dealing with insane other issues, and haven't had the ability and state of mind to deal with it as I've just been consumed by winning my other battles. I've been doing a bit better recently and wanted to start dealing with my mom's death, but I don't even know how to start. Reading your post made me feel less alone on this issue. Thanks.

Was wondering any thoughts, books, etc... on how to prepare when death is near.

Any recommendations on enema related anti bacterials? Antibiotics have not been able to help a seriously painful prostate infection ive got.

@karl why dont you think the water bed is healthy? My favourite product is boobies. Unfortunately, I don't own any so I borrow them from women who have a pair. There are 3 types of infrared saunas - far, mid, and near. From what I have read near is the most beneficial.

I'm currently taking a goji berry tincture, but am wondering what method of preparation results in maximum absorption of the medicinal components of goji berries? I've had goji in soup and tea and it's quite delicious - but just want to get the most bang for my buck

Di-Tao are supposed to be the best ones I hear!

I'm interested to hear more about how 3 relates to 4. It seems so intuitive to me that it does, but I just havent put the pieces together as to how. Something I have been wondering about for some time. Can you point me in some right directions?

Not the first time I have heard such a comparison. I think it's reasonable to assume some sino-israelite connection. Similarities between confucianism and talmudic stylings seem to be another one I've heard of.

Ya, that's what I'm saying! The body is one major factor making this world a sysphysian effort. If the first noble truth about suffering is correct, then surely we must be in hell.

Hi Gerard! Lately I've been coming to the conclusion that this world we live in is hell. And if, one may say well this world and your reality will be what you make of it - then why can't this apply to more classical definitions of hell as described in your original post. And if that's the case - then what's the difference between your hell and my hell? My main point is actually this. How do I not go to hell? Who is deciding what is right and wrong anyways? If its brahman or a mainstream theological god, then how do we know what is right and wrong really? Through religious doctrine written and propagated by man? If so, then who has really got the most True religion - because that's the one everyone should follow in order to be good and not go to hell. We all know what dangerous path this line of thinking leads to. If one is to brush aside the above, and state to be just generally be good and do no evil - then what does this really mean in terms of actions? Except via the broad strokes of the ten commandments or the noble 8 fold path, how do you really accomplish being good (and not going to hell). It seems very reasonable to assume that we all just take on some normative pragmatic and/or cultural framework and then plow on being good. However, we here at TB know life is just not that simple. I postulate that most of life is a moral grey area. A choice between evils one may say. And even if one disagrees with that statement, my original question slightly modified now would still stand unanswered: who decides what is good/right in the grey areas? I'm really not trying to be facetious. I just feel like you've brought a geniune message, and that there's a whole lot of practical and philosophical history of failure with respect to addressing the pragmatic consequences of such a message. How do you make sense of it in light of the issues I brought up? I've been feeling particularly swayed by Nietzschean thought recently. I do believe his line of thinking would represent the cutting edge of philosophical thought in this area. This sort of ties into my first paragraph. If life is what you make and/or perceive of it, then why doesn't this apply to "le good". Can we not make our own good, and then be sent on karmically according to how we did based on our own rules? p.s. I really like thanissaro bikkhu. will be reading that kamma study you posted from him! Edit: for addressing this I had a couple of friends go to wat chom tong. After 2-3 weeks of a regular meditation retreat schedule, they did 72 hours straight meditation to cap it off and felt completely awful at that point! I never made it there, but did hear good things from my friends even though they didnt feel good at the end. There's also another wat for meditation retreats out near mae hong son/pai area that I heard was very nice. I did a 2 week session at wat umong, which is on the outskirts of CM, so doesnt quite count as forest style even though theres a big forest where monks live beside the wat (there's also convenience stores around too). I averaged around 6-9 hours of meditation per day, which I know is not on par with what's expected, but it was the best I could do. I wouldn't recommend wat umong as it's not as legit as wat chom tong or others by a long shot. I still had a good experience, despite the neo-nazi monk who ran it at the time I was there (not joking). I don't think anyone can pull of 24/7 for 3 weeks though. I hope you don't see my post as over thinking things. There are serious pragmatic consequences to how one should act if kamma, hell, and morality are to be taken seriously. I'm not saying kamma doesn't exist, and perhaps meditation can and does help one realize the existence of kamma, but so what? How does one pragmatically deal with such a conclusion?