Aetherous

This kickstarter project looks awesome for learning Chinese characters. Here is the website (click around on some of the pictures to get a quick idea of what it's like): http://chineasy.org/basics/set-1.aspx?set=1502

I had a chiropractor use it once with me. It told him I had herpes, which totally freaked me out...so later on I got tested just because of that, and didn't have it. lol There might be something to it, but it might be inaccurate or just fake too.

Ramana's eyes in that picture are great.

Try just having a mug of boiled organic milk, and see how that makes you feel...it's a totally different thing from having cold milk with cereal. Just a suggestion.

Meeting up with taobums is honestly one of life's greatest pleasures! You will remember it forever. When there's a midwestern gathering I'll likely be there.

opendao, Where do you get your information from? It'd be cool to read a book with the path more clearly laid out like this. effilang, Your descriptions of your path, and the picture you made, are both awesome.

This article is from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, showing what vegetarian diets might be missing in terms of nutrients. For vitamin B12, which is very important to have, you can try this transdermal cream. Sometimes nutrients don't absorb as well when taken in an isolated form (vitamin pills) or not a whole food form (when it's fortified in other things such as bread or cereal). The skin can absorb nutrients and bypass the impaired digestive system. There is also a plant that naturally contains B12, called ashitaba, but it's rare to find and you'd have to grow it yourself. A very good food if you're not lactose intolerant or something, is boiled organic milk. Or make your own paneer from it, for a healthy cheese. There are many things you can do with milk! Some people assume that the health food store types of milk like almond milk are better for you, but this is not true...while they might be somewhat good, they're less nutritious than regular organic milk. Boiling it makes it healthier. If you boil it with a little bit of spices, it will make it even better (for instance look up the Indian home remedy called "gold milk"). If you're going to be eating more nuts and seeds for protein, find out how to soak them to decrease the phytic acid...otherwise just eating them as they are will usually cause digestion problems. Good beans to cook with are lentils. Besides being a kind of filling protein, they also contain iron which is important to get for vegetarians. It's not that vegetarians tend to have iron deficiency, but it's that animal sources contain a more absorbable form of iron called heme iron. If you squeeze some lime juice onto your meals, which contains vitamin C, it will help absorb this non-heme (not from animal sources) form of iron, as well as add complexity to the flavor. You can also have salads with some lime juice (or lemon if you prefer) squeezed over, or as part of the salad dressing, to help absorb the non-heme iron in the leaves. Some ideas for you.

If you smile, problems under the eye aren't as noticeable....especially if you do a big smile. But then if you do an expressionless face, it's very noticeable. Check it out in the mirror. These issues could simply be due to spleen dysfunction...not transforming dampness correctly would cause the edema of the under eye puffiness...then the dark circle thing could be due to qi deficiency. The spleen manifests in the skin and muscle surrounding the eye. This is just my basic understanding and a half educated guess.

That's likely the "four gates" treatment...it works the large intestine point hegu, and the liver point taichong. It moves qi and blood through the entire body, clearing stagnations and wind in general, in addition to some other things. The third point may be stomach 36, zusanli...which is also a point that does many balancing things in the whole body in general. You should ask him the reasons behind his diet recommendations. I'm just guessing, but it could be that seafood contains too much salt, which is not good if the kidneys are weakened. Or maybe due to the higher amounts of toxins, such as mercury...with weakened kidneys you have trouble detoxing. And vegetables are alkalizing, nutritious, anti-inflammatory, etc. But maybe he has specific reasons.

In the heavens, the moon is yin and the sun is yang. Full moon means you're getting the most of the lunar energy, and new moon means the least lunar energy. This is going off of the energy we can access, rather than pure categorization. With categorization, the new moon would be most yin, and the full moon would be most yang...but the new moon does not mean we receive more yin. At least in my view.

Why not a full moon? You'll get more yin when it's full, even though in comparison, the new moon is "yin".

I read a women's neidan book...sorry don't recall the title...which said that women are better off using the middle dantian. Because it works with the shen and blood more than the qi and essence of the lower dantian. Could be something to that...but it depends on many things, such as the type of path you're on, the ways that path uses the dantian, etc. For instance, the immortal path of neidan is very different from the self healing path of qigong, or the martial path of neigong...they use the dantian in completely opposite ways sometimes. Basically, there are lots of ideas out there and who knows the complete truth? As for understanding 'yin and yang'...these are just categories to compare two things. We're trying to use it in the sense of yin energy and yang energy which we theoretically want to merge within. This could be the solar and lunar nadis equalizing and merging into the central channel, could be heavenly and earthly qi combining in the center of the body at the dantian, could be masculine and feminine qualities we want to balance, etc. So that is what we're trying to think of here... But my finger can be called yin in comparison to my palm, because it's smaller. It could also be called yang in comparison, because it can move around more and do things. So sometimes yin and yang are just ways of comparison, and are meaningless descriptors...they are often not indicative of energies we can use. And other times, they are...for instance, with the earth in mo pai. So women don't necessarily give men "yin energy" during sex, or increased essence...yin is just how they are physically in comparison to men (smaller, not as strong, no penis, can have babies, etc). It doesn't mean an energy, yin is just a category. They don't necessarily have more essence than men, and they don't necessarily have more capacity for sex than men. Ever see an older woman porn star? In my opinion, they appear to age faster than the average person. Both men and women can experience increased energy, or diminished energy from sex or simply being around certain people...it's a common occurrence, and is more about the quality of sex (is there true love?) and the individual involved...and I think not so much about the gender.

You can tell if something increases jing, by if your skin becomes softer like silk and subtly glowing kind of a more golden color. This is one way.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/10/18/boyhood-is-not-a-mental-illnes

Ah I see...thanks for the answers.

Are you two being serious? That seems so far from the usual description of bodhicitta...

White sage comes to mind immediately. Looking it up, one issue is that it contains some thujone...but I've had it and didn't notice any problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kRR3xwgLSU

I'm interested to hear.

No one is mocking Taoism like this here! I'm reporting your post because it's dragging things off topic even more, and you're just attempting to start a fight with another religion. In a thread about Jerry Alan Johnson.

Anyone read this? The hyperlink contains some excerpts which seem really clear and unique.

Got my copy today...it's mind-blowingly good! I feel excited, privileged, and grateful to be learning from this text, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Chinese medicine.

I'm with you and them on that...but look where it got you and them. You're in need of money and have back pain. They were almost completely destroyed. Sometimes you have to make a clear decision about how your life is going to go, then face and overcome the challenges that present themselves, no matter what they are, until you reach your goal. Not be swayed this way and that by every problem, or interpret the first obstacle as meaning it's the wrong path for you to take. This is your life. You decide what your path will be. Even if you decide this idea is full of shit...you will be deciding that and determining how things go for you. "It's up to you!" - the oracle at Caieta to Marcus Aurelius This is all only if you want to achieve your goals. There is also the path of being natural and going with the flow, which is pretty enjoyable and which you are good at...but sometimes can mean little to no money, people disgracing you, feeling aimless, etc. Any path you choose will have its downsides.