Aetherous

That's good news.

You seem confused.

Having been in a similar situation (being in a psych ward against my own will), I totally sympathize. Those places can be freaky and confusing, and in my view, they don't help people whatsoever. I actually have more PTSD from those experiences than I do from war. I personally suggest you get out, and take some time off from things at a more peaceful location. For me (I don't know about what's going on with you so this might not apply), it was important to see through the delusions my mind was formulating, and simply live in plain old physical reality. Rejecting any ideas that things happening mean something other than what they are at face value. Any ideas of magick especially can be harmful...just forget about all of it! Focus only on what's clearly right in front of you and cultivate serenity. This is also a way of meditation. The methods of this book totally helped me at the time, to go from crazy to normal. Crazy is just mind...but if you have no mind, then there's no crazy. Getting a lot of sleep is also supremely important. No doctor was capable of helping me...and it was incredibly hard actually to see through my own bullshit. We tend to believe our own "truths" naturally, so it can be hard to go completely against what you know to be "true", but in the cases of insanity, this "truth" is at the cost of our peace. You have to make a really clear choice about how you want your life to be...more pretending to be special, and ending up in a psych ward...or being normal and living peacefully? Making that choice can be the first step toward seeing through all the nonsense, living a mundane life, and gradually getting better mentally.

Doing full squats will beat everything, except stuff like Viagra (which no one should take). You just have to do stick with it for like 5 months consistently, before seeing true results.

If I remember correctly, Plato attributed it to his teacher Socrates, who never had writings of his own.

It's a single question...there are just multiple sentences with question marks at the end of them. Those are to clarify the single question. He's really just asking about "pure yang" and hoping JAJ will hit on all of those aspects of the topic.

Yes, I've done it. My mouth feels the freshest when I do this, and also use a tongue scraper first thing in the morning...I also brush normally with toothpaste too just to be safe, dentally. It takes at least a few minutes up to 20 minutes to do the pulling...you wait until it changes consistency, from oily to something more watery. Then when you spit it out (do not swallow!), it should be white. I've seen it on my friends' facebook statuses a lot that they're using coconut oil for this. That's only good if you have pitta dosha imbalance. Sesame oil is good for everyone. That dessert sounds completely awesome!

But will you attain enlightenment from that?

The worst part about him is that he trained his students to react to something coming at them by flinging themselves around as if having a seizure.

Stop.

Are you talking about deci belle? I think they put "lezboyenne" which is pretty upfront about them not really being a clear gender.

Thanks astralc, If you have any information to add, or corrections to make, please feel free. I think you're very right about sensitizing to others. It seems to me that our fingers learn best by the comparison of contrasting qualities (for instance, feeling a very weak pulse with no volume versus a very strong hitting pulse with big volume).

Forget about "realized people"...do you see anything wrong in the world? I know I do.

This is an encouragement to keep trying to learn the pulse, or start if you haven't yet. It gets easier. The knowledge unfolds to you the more you study, practice on yourself and others, and want to learn. You will suddenly get true insights and experiences that didn't come from any books. Just keep trying. Here's an experience that I haven't read elsewhere, for instance, but which revealed itself to me: If you feel the artery walls by gliding your finger over it, with the different fingers, you'll get a sense for which finger is more sensitive to changes. In my experience, the thumb has absolutely the most sensitivity, and it decreases in the order of the fingers, all the way to the pinky, which is the least sensitive. I suspect it's the same for everyone. So this is one reason why a certain quality will only be felt under the index finger, and another quality will only be felt under the ring finger...because of sensitivity. The index can pick up higher vibrations than the ring...this is why it's said that vata dosha is kind of sharp like a cobra striking, and kapha dosha is kind of smooth gliding, like a swan pushing through water. You can take the same pulse the acupuncturist way, with the middle finger over the radial styloid process, or you can even go further up the arm, past the radial styloid completely in the Ayurvedic way, and you will still get accurate results for this reason (of the fingers being able to pick up different levels of vibration). The absolute correct finger positioning isn't so important, as long as you can feel the pulse! Another reason this works: there is more fat tissue around the artery the further up the arm you go. At the lung 9 acupoint, at the wrist, the artery is closest to the skin. So basically, even if your fingers were all the same sensitivity, the arm itself causes this difference in sensation of vibration...the highest vibration will be felt closer to the wrist, and the lowest vibration will be felt at the most proximal position. Combine this fact, with the difference in what the fingers can pick up, and you have the reason why the pulse tells you what it does, and why finger positioning isn't something to get hung up on. I personally switch between Ayurvedic and acupuncturist positions...if I am having trouble feeling something, I go with acupuncturist, since the artery is closer to the skin and thus easier to feel. Anyway...if you learn the pulse and you ever think you have some sort of health problem, and you're clueless about the cause of the symptoms and are asking people about it, you'll know which answers are accurate and which aren't. For instance, there is the general advice that Taoists give to people that their kidneys must be weak... Mine were at first when I started taking the pulse. My pulse didn't have "root" which can mean that the deep ring finger pulses (pericardium and kidney) were missing or weak in comparison to the other pulses at the deep level. This basically means that the mingmen is dysfunctional and isn't a good pulse. I just worked on my kid3 acupoints (the yuan source points, which repair deficiencies in the organ/meridian)...not really intensively. After a few minutes I could retake the pulse and notice it slowly changing so that the kidneys felt even with the other deep level pulses. Well, today, my pulse has root...my kidneys are at least relatively strong all the time, and are not a problem. Not to say much pulse is perfect...I've got work to do. I've been journaling my pulse findings pretty much every hour, and before and after different activities, to see what changes happen from different foods or exercise, practices, sleep, times of day, etc. This is encouraged in this course, on Ayurvedic pulse diagnosis...which is a decent course, although expensive for what it is... Journaling is great...you truly begin to learn, and can continue to experiment based on what you find. This is how pulse diagnosis originally began, anyway...direct observation, and taking note of things. Instead of learning second hand knowledge of what works, by trusting someone's word, you can DISCOVER true knowledge, firsthand. I can pretty much tell when the kidney has been weakened from something and when it's strengthened. So you can know with pretty good certainty that various health advice for you would be incorrect...to truly know, you have to go off of diagnosis. Common health knowledge is irrelevant or the opposite of what you need, at times. Look at all the types of qigong out there that claim to do various things...now you can truly know if they work, or not. Is the kidney strengthening form, really working? Likely not. Or, for instance, snacking on some sugary things will boost the strength of the pulse (how hard it hits against your fingers). You can tell this by taking before and after eating the snacks, and trying to rate that quality out of 10...it will very likely boost slightly. This quality denotes literally how much strength you have left to expend, mentally and physically...if you're really weak (aka your pulse is weak and hard to feel it hitting the fingers), then you know it's not a good time to do a sprinting competition for instance, or something really stressful to the body or mind. We know that sugar feeds the brain...it temporarily makes us more capable of thinking, we feel better and more alert, etc. So you can actually feel this change in the pulse. And then to compare this knowledge....just look at what society thinks these days...that any kind of sugar or carbohydrate is bad for health. Tons of people try to avoid carbs completely as a diet. I think this is especially bad for a person with a qi deficiency...but the pulse could tell you. Maybe its quality would improve on that diet for some reason...who knows. You could find out. Then you could know what advice to avoid. In TCM terms, the strength of the pulse is what shows your level of qi. A person could have strong kidneys but weak qi. A person could have strong qi but weak kidneys. A person could feel a lot of changes in the nervous system which leads them to think they have tons of qi, yet in actuality have weakened qi. It's important to know what you're truly dealing with...and as a result of personal experience and second-hand learning, know what to do to fix it. This way you can truly help people, too...eventually. After you're capable of helping yourself. Everything in this thread is just very basic information on pulse taking...if someone thinks it's wrong, I welcome them to share what information they have, since I want to learn all that I can about this. I think everyone, especially cultivators, should know how to take the pulse. Later addition: Okay, I am enthusiastic about pulse diagnosis, and probably said things in this post that aren't entirely accurate. I'll just leave it as is...take it with a grain of salt.

Yes, I was in contact with the instructor in Canada...I think he got banned from the forum. It probably wouldn't have worked out for me personally, since he said that he does preliminary exercises for about 6 months with constant supervision, and then he isn't authorized to initiate anyone and would have to wait for someone from Russia to visit. So basically you have to live close to where he is or be capable of traveling often. I was also in contact with someone who speaks English from the WuLiuPai school, asking them to perhaps come do seminars in America...but communications died out quickly for some reason. The ideas I've read on the all-dao site (regarding jiuyangshengong, for instance) really interest me. Maybe some day the opportunity to learn will open up.

You guys should come to the US!

This subforum will contain all that you seek...the rest of the forum can discuss whatever they like. As great a book as it is, there's far more to Taoism than the Tao Te Ching. And this forum isn't strictly Taoist. Welcome.

Yup...accusing/punishing the accuser/punisher for accusing/punishing is kind of hypocritical.

American. lol

How does this relate (the idea that our ancestors gave us certain problems or bad karma) to the ideas of different cultures where their ancestors are spirit helpers?

Most likely paranoia and "synchronicity" (coincidences)...not attacks aimed directly at her. I'm 99.9999999999% certain. These types of occurrences can seem very real, but it's best to just take it easy and ignore anything that seems like people are out to get you...then time passes, and you see that no one has gotten you. Problem solved. Focus on things you enjoy, instead...it's your life. When I say "you", I'm addressing your female friend, or anyone who experiences similar paranoia and delusions. These are in fact delusions, not because you're crazy, but because you create a story based on random disconnected pieces of evidence...such as walking by people who happen to be talking about how single mothers are draining the system. The truth is: sometimes people just talk about these things! They don't know you and are not addressing your life, which they know nothing about. So, the story you create is false. It's just False Evidence Appearing Real. Don't live in fear...cultivate the life you want instead. Peace and calm is better. What's more likely: that secret government agents or something are threatening you in indirect ways (why don't they just come out and tell you to leave town), or that you're just being paranoid and misinterpreting things? You find what you look for...if you look for a dramatic story about how people are stalking you, you're going to start noticing all sorts of weird shit. Doesn't mean people are actually stalking you. These people don't know about you at all. Best of luck to your friend and maybe show this to her.

The teaching is that all beings have buddha nature.

A leader has a desire...which means they have motivation and reasons for motivation, to achieve a goal or many goals. Because they have integrity in this fashion, they lead, even with no followers. Without the desire, you can have reasons for doing something ("I should lose weight", for instance) but no fuel to get there. Without reasons, your desire lacks a foundation...it's like a car without wheels; you have the gas and some parts but you're not going to get far (the followers will ask "but why should we do what you say???"). And if you are lacking in a map, you might be able to go...but where are you going? So having a clear goal based on that reasonable desire, means you have directions, and the means to follow those directions. So that's what defines leadership...a motivation to achieve a goal for some reason. I also like the Army's acronym: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless service, Honor, Integrity, Personal courage. But I don't think leaders necessarily need character development. They just need a goal they want to achieve...the more in line with that want they are, the more people will feel it...and the more in line the followers are, the better a leader you are. There can be really developed people in terms of having a lot of honor, a sense of duty...but they might just be followers and not leaders. In fact, that's probably the case.

They believe in ATP, neurotransmitters, hormones, etc...