EagerMind

I'm going to be starting a meditation practice soon with the goals of health in mind. I've read a decent amount of taoist and buddhist philosophy over the years but was wondering what meditation I should start with. I'm a bit of a skeptic in a way but would love to learn how to circulate chi through my body to heal myself! I'm planning on starting with 15 minutes twice a day and go from there.

I've had inflammation for about three years, I think I might have an auto immune disease. It took me a while to figure out what my problems were but i've switched over to a vegaterian diet and it's helping a little but I still have inflammation and pain in my prostate, kidneys, bladder and now my right leg is slightly swollen. I've been to a couple doctors and while they help a little almost all of the progress I've made has been from my own research! So far to combat the inflammation I've switched to a vegetarian diet, I take probiotics three times a day (which help tremendously), and take two 81mg asprins a day. I'm pretty lazy so exercise is only walking 1 mile a day. So my question is what can I do to help the healing process besides seeing doctors? I was thinking tai chi any suggestions? I'm a 33 year old male.

I just started reading this book yesterday "The Wisdom of Solitude" and so far I find it very interesting and entertaining!!! From what I've gather so far (I'm on chapter 3, it's a short book 140p) it's about a women who does a rigorous 100 day buddhist retreat in the woods inspired by her teacher Korean Zen Master "Seung Sahn". I borrowed the book I'm reading from the library but the link to amazon is The Wisdom of Solitude

That could be a combination of lifestyle and genetics. I look very young for my age even though I'm 29, I get mistaken for 18-22 all the time. Not to say I don't take care of myself but that wasn't always the case, I did a lot of bad stuff when I was younger (heavy drinking, heavy smoking, horrible eating habits, some recreational drug use). I also think a lot of asians have the genetics to look younger than they are!!!

I've had the same thing happen before, it's because you're excited. As you become accustom to the person and continue being affectionate you'll become less and less excited and the leakage with stop or dramatically decrease to almost nothing.

I was hoping I could get a couple awesome book recommendations that deal with Eastern Philosophy/Religion/Spirituality (other awesome books would be good too even if they don't deal with the topics mentioned above). Some of my favourite books that really inspire me are: Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits I love reading this book, I almost always have it with me!!!! Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Volume 1: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary This whole series is great (as well as the the Taoist series) but I keep this one with me the most because I love reading "minding mind", I still haven't made it all the way through the book though. Thomas Cleary is an amazing translator, I can't believe how much stuff he's done!!! The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters I borrowed this from the library and skipped around in it a lot but recently bought it and started reading it from the beginning and am enjoying it. The Secrets of Chinese Meditation: Self-Cultivation by Mind Control As Taught in the Ch'An, Mahayana and Taoist Schools in China Another book i can read over and over again! The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation My favourite books on Vipassana, I've read this multiple times but it's been a while since the last time I've read it. Twenty-Five Doors to Meditation: A Handbook for Entering Samadhi Awesome book on different types of meditation with descriptions and examples. Opening the Dragon Gate: The Making of a Modern Taoist Wizard Awesome read! Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!!!

Free Books Main site http://www.dlshq.org Download free books http://www.dlshq.org/download/download.htm Some other cool links I found when I was researching Hinduism and Yoga over the past couple of months (sorry if I get a little crazy with all the links, I like sharing ) Yoga http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga This guy is a total badass, he's trained most of todays top hatha yoga instructors, B.K.S. Iyengar, K. Pattabhi Jois, ect... Also just to let everyone know K. Pattabhi Jois died about two weeks ago at the age of 93, very sad! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Tirumalai_Krishnamacharya http://www.yogawiz.com http://www.abc-of-yoga.com http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/ Yoga Centers Awesome yoga article about studying yoga in India, a link to the place they studied at is after the article link. http://www.thewanderingnomad.com/yoga_in_india.html http://www.yogapoint.com http://www.sivananda.org http://www.whitelotus.org http://www.kripalu.org Hinduism Some very interesting stuff to read about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahabharata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana http://www.celextel.org http://www.sanatansociety.org http://www.srimadbhagavatam.org http://www.ganesh.us Happy reading

I'm rereading a book called Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits (which by the way is really good!) and while doing research have stumbled across a couple links that some might find interesting. Hermitary Sacred Mountains of China Sacred Mountains of China - wiki Zhang Daoling

Amazing!!! It's too bad that I'm scared to take drugs

I've been through some pretty bad experiences when I was younger because I blindly put my faith in my parents and family doctor. Not to say they didn't care, I know they did! Fortunately I came to the realization that I have to listen to my body and not to take what people that are older then me as absolute. It's really hard when you're brought up to rely so heavily on your parents! I do get a little upset but I don't really get angry with the hospitals and doctors. I'm pretty healthy I eat extremely healthy, take vitamins, don't smoke, don't drink, don't take illegal drugs, and occasionally work out (I should definitely work out more!). So I hardly ever go to the doctor, I'll actually be going soon though to talk about some really bad GURD (Acid Reflux) I've been having but the last time I was there was for a check up at least a year ago. On the other hand I get extremely pissed at my parents because I really care about them and they can't break their cycle of bad habits. My mom is 50, smokes at least 2 1/2 packs a day, eats like crap, doesn't sleep much, drinks a ton of coffee, and doesn't exercise. I don't know if I'm leaving anything out but she's in really crappy shape! I try and get her to workout with me, I offer her some of my healthy vegetarian meals, I use to constantly yell at her about her smoking (I figured out it does neither of us any good). My dad is just as bad! He's at least 30lbs overweight (I'm sure more), doesn't exercise, eats like crap, he runs a business so he has tons of stress, and even though he takes blood pressure medication his blood pressure is still high. The only good thing about my dad is that he's willing to try, it's just hard for him to stay on track. I can occupationally get him to work out with me and for a while i got him to eat egg white omelets. Just an example of how bad his health is: when we go to the gym he can only do a maximum of 15 minutes of walking on the treadmill before he starts to have chest pains from his blood pressure shooting up I haven't lost hope and will do my best to get them into shape! Also I completely agree "health doesn't come in a pill"! I think people should try and treat the cause and not the symptoms. Cause: I'm fat and my blood pressure is high Solution: lose weight, eat healthy, exercise Stupid solution: take a pill, become fatter, feel like crap I know for a fact it's extremely hard to change your lifestyle, one of the hardest things for me was to quit smoking about 8 years ago but because I didn't want to feel like shit anymore I knew it had to be done.

It's ok, I still love you

There's a torrent for it with english subtitles here --> http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/viewtopic_60873.htm

Here's a site I recently stumbled across and thought some of you might be interested in! www.freebuddhistaudio.com

You never know what kind of an effect this discussion will have on people, words have a very profound effect weather spoken, written or typed!!! Just discussing this has encouraged me to try being (I tried complete vegetarian before) semi vegetarian again. I'm going to go for excluding all animal products except milk, butter, and fish. And the only reason I'm going to be eating fish is because it's necessary to get some animal protein, the fatty acids are extremely good for you, and vitamin b12 is essential. Right now I get most of my protein from beans and milk anyway so it's not that much of a change, I just have to cut the occasional chicken breast and stop eating eggs (which I hardly ever eat anyways). I obviously would love it if I didn't need to eat fish to get protein, and omega fatty acids but I'm not sure of any other way, I do want to be healthy while saving the fuzzy creatures.

I've heard about this before and since I'm not a scientist can't verify it for myself. Some people say soy is amazing for you some people say it will kill you, I have no idea but I do eat it every once in a while (probably more that I know). I occasionally eat miso soup with tofu in it but only once every couple of weeks and I also occasionally drink soy milk but not very often. If I knew it was health I would eat it a lot more often!