thelerner

I'm good, and don't want to derail this thread too much. I didn't say most, I said many. Similar, but lower threshold of proof required. My thinking comes from my mother in law who saw a recommended healer and died. Years of reading Skeptic Magazine and solid articles debunking some healers and noting the chaos they caused. I don't want to impugn the whole field of chi medicine, but it must acknowledged there are charlatans and there are practitioners and patients who fool themselves. Take a character like John of God from Brazil. I saw a long relatively neutral on him and people have so much invested in the whole process of seeing him that they leave the hall, claim they're cured. In the documentary some were others died soon after coming home. But in John's followers eyes they were part of another long string of success. This is the dangerous aspect I'm talking about. You have people who assume a healer has godlike powers. Call, pay your money and poof everything is fine. In some cases it may be. In others the patient is riding on combination of psychological and maybe chi energy for a while then die or the illness reappears.

Thing is, most of these healers don't keep tabs on who they cure or not. No survival rate information. For many there is zero checkup on there 'patients'. I don't mean to demean the whole of qi gong style healing, but when it fails I think people accept it and move on. I think the healers only know there success rates. People are led to believe its a magic cure all, and that is simply not true.

Eh, we used to play around with that in ki-aikido. I don't know the woman, but anyone here can set up a similar act with an hour or two training. The set up is important, you fool people into thinking you're 'stronger' then 6 or 7 people when the truth is you're only tipping one person over. She did it the same way we did in Aikido. Took up slack on the first guy, ie pressing against him firmly but gently, then release a little bit so they rock forward an inch an two (its on the video) then follow there natural instinctive backward movement with a light push of your own. Quite simply standing is hard, there's complex neuro-muscular work going on. Its relatively easy to brace against an oncoming force, but if the object yields or isn't there, there's a moment of disruption and imbalance. It works the exact same reversed, if she was pushing the 6 or 7 men. Thats a harder trick, but again a timing one, learned in a day or so, and not necessarily an amazing chi achievement. Maybe the woman is very spiritual and skillful but what I saw was an easily replicated set up to fool rubes.

I'm sorry. Many of us here have lost grandparents, its very sad. Yet it provides an opportunity for the family to get together and get closer. To kindle the memory of our lost one.

I've heard about cheap huts in India, Nepal, Cambodia, that are cheap and you can even arrange for some rudimentary food every few days. Does anyone have experience with them? For example, how much is 80p? Thanks Michael

Ofcourse the person with a gun, knife or wet folded towel standing behind "the one with the strongest mind" is no slouch either . I'm more impressed with results then potential. Brains don't mean nothin unless they're actually producing somethin. Ideas used to be a dime a dozen, now you can get a gross for a nickle. If I want great thoughts I'll open up a book of quotes. If I want something done, I need a (wo)man of action with balls (gina) and proven track record. (damn you political correctness)

You guys are good. Thank you very much. I hope people realize some of the best, calmest, deepest discussions are going on in the PPD section. Now about the 4 cents a word.. <later edit> Now that I've looked at it, I'm even more impressed. Its so much easier to follow. & I hope many of the quality 'Sleepers' are brought back to life.

If you have to ask in public then a big part of you has already decided against it and is looking for reasons to justify a decision already made. Whatever reasons mentioned here are things you've already thought of. STD's, emptiness of the experience etc., We're not going to come up with anything ground breaking.

What's exactly is your practice these days? What exactly is your diet like? Can you list everything you ate yesterday? Have you begun learning the dialect of Chinese you'll need?

I'm sorry and hope he gets better. I'm not the praying sort, but when trouble happens its good to keep in touch with the rest of the family, giving and getting sympathy, supporting each other. Taking turns between emotional sorrow and strength. Spending time telling stories, the good, the bad and the funny of memories and family history.

Growing up I was shy and ran with a pretty straight group. No drugs, very little drinking even coffee, no clubbing. I always preferred a get together with a few friends over big crowds. I'm a late bloomer finding my vices later in life.

Naja had some good suggestions. Hmnn, how would this work (& where) I'm feeling a little slow, I know PB&J. Personal Practice J(ournal)? and as long as its a wish list, I'd like 5 cents for every word I write and $40 for each hour waste on the bums! . just kidding I don't waste time on the bums, i wu wei it awai

So it is. Thank you powers that be. Next couple nights I'll try to take advantage of it. I find the best way is to make a 'I'm heading to Chat Now' post. Otherwise people probably won't know you're there.

When I feel overwhelmed by something I'll listen to a guided meditation by Master Chen, his Wu Dang Emotional Peace audio. He's got a very relaxing vibe and old wise man accent . I like his Morning and Evening 30 minute meditations too. His site is: http://wudangtao.org/

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack. I quote: "Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with certainty: "This is the natural pattern." Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about. Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'. He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult. I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

I'm a fellow insomniac. I've found no long lasting solutions. Things work for a few days or weeks then stop . I have over 15 different insomnia guided meditations. The one that tends to work best is a free podcast from Meditation Station. Not the Zzzzz, but the one called Evening Inventory Meditation. Its counter intuitive, but instead of relaxing you and telling you to sleep, it relaxes the body then has you recall any mistakes done over the day and let'em go. I'll listen to it, then follow it up with a 20 minute 'natural sound of rain' program (I have several biaural rain style sounds). It worked for a few weeks, then occasionally, now only sometimes. I seem to gain resistance to any approach.

I'll be sure to visit it but its also too bad. You're experienced practitioner and the board could use your soothing voice to keep in balance. Whats nice about the Personal Discussion pages is that you can delete anyones comments in it. You are unapologetically in control, so if a discussion is hijacked, just trim and delete.

Nah, knives and such are too messy. I'm thinking old school, the best weapon is probably gas. I'm thinking laughing gas, both en masse and in personal hand grenades. There'd still be clean up of small yellow puddles, but it'd be easier to get out of the carpeting then red ones. <or maybe every gun should shoot both ways when the triggers pulled>

I originally down loaded another Couch to 5K app, but reading through its reviews I saw a couple saying how much more the enjoyed Zombie Run 5k. Zombie Run starts out slower and easier then the plain vanilla 5k app. It has more 'free' periods where you set your own pace between walk and slow jog. The intervals are heavily bias'ed towards walking, at least through the first few weeks. But it has fun moments such as when you're enlisted to see how close you can get to a Zombie who's chained to a stake in the ground, to see how close you get before he reacts, with each experiment he pulls the stake out a little more til he's free and after you. Making me think Runner 10 who set up the experiment is evil and the crook who's stealing supplies from the base. Hopefully that shows you the depth of the story lines you listen to. I can walk 3 or 4 hours without much effort, but somehow jogging, even slowly wipes me out. Still the 15 minutes of steady jogging done in week 4, I couldn't have gotten through 3 weeks earlier.

I think its something practitioners have to watch out for and guard against. I've seen very experienced teachers get into cycles of paranoia and messianic pretensions and because they regarded such things as signs of advancement, didn't seek help until they alienated there friends and family. When you first start meditating and experiencing a quiet mind, many people are amazed at how 'loud' paranoid and angry thoughts become. I think they were always there but once you begin quieting the mind, you hear them without the usual static. If you don't keep positive and grounded it can be a real problem. Delving into esoteric energy practices can exacerbate mental conditions. When I feel negative, its time to take a news fast. Stop reading newspapers and the like, such concentrated doses of everything wrong and nasty in the world is bad for ones psyche. More walking, more nature, more sunlight. More karma yoga, ie going out of your way to help others. Any mind state thats constantly indulged can become habitual. When its bad there are no easy answers. Sometimes talking to a professional is best.

Hey, I like my food to be like my woman; hot and spicy , by spiritual food I was thinking in terms of monastic faire. I just had something called a JB martini, vodka, elderberry liquor, sake, fennel bitters with a muddled seared jalapeno and cucumber in it. Spiciest martini I ever had, and damn good. They left the squashed jalapeno in the glass just to say, bite me; I dare you! After reading Taomeows write up on hot spices on the amygdala I'm sorry I didn't. Who'd of thought of muddling a seared hot pepper?

I agree with the spirit of this, but while most spout out there biased nonsense, we do indeed have some experts here. Genuine certified teachers, who are too often exasperated by the confidence rantings of newbies. I've been listening to Lin Aiwei's (from China) interviews and he's got my utmost respect as teacher. Maybe by giving heavy 'Likes' to the competent we can influence members towards learning from those w/ both personal as well as teaching experience.

I have a recipe collection in my Personal Discussion area, http://thetaobums.com/topic/26799-recipes-for-some-day/ . Nothing particularly spiritual there, though lately I've been experimenting with Curry in a Hurry type dishes. Things as easy as combining frozen dishes from Trader Joe's. I find spicy to be the most satisfying, healthy too. Though often vegetarian I get the feeling such busy spiciness is the opposite of a spiritual diet, where a quiet mind and simple plate of plain whole foods tends to be the rule.

By careless people I mean you and you and you Never me, not me

I purchased it because of Kunlun, but I really like having a small lamb skin under my zafu. There's a warmth and earthy vibe to it.