ion

Be real careful using a continuous brew set up. Make sure any plastic and rubber fittings are chemical resistant and be sure to make SURE all the metal is stainless steal. Otherwise I hate to tell you but your also drinking plastic, plasticizers, rubber, and metallic compounds all of which would out weigh any benefits of the tea. Edit-meaning if you buy an inexpensive apparatus that is sold as a drink dispenser that is intended for using for iced tea or lemonade than it is not likely made for holding alcohol and strong acids. HDPE, and PP are OK plastics. I believe that those are marked #2, and #5. A stainless steal dispensing spout is essential with the right kind of rubber gaskets. If you buy everything at a homebrew shop they use all the right plastics, rubbers, and metal. Even if your not using a continuous brew set up up, make sure the container is made of real glass, and just glass, not like a glass vase or something that might be leaded.

They can't really cone to anything concrete about homebrew cultures of synergistic cronies of MO's that aren't continuously kept in sterile conditions. Its the same thing with the system of agriculture I practice called Natural Farming. Its macrobiotic farming or biological horticulture. Every practitioner collects and cultures MO'sfrom forests local to them and ends up with different organisms. kefir and kombucha, Jun, ACV, yogurt and whatever else are all different. Kombucha Tea is super potent and by far the most acidic. It is known for alkalinizing the digestive tract, detoxing, joint relief, and killing and displacing pathogenic MO's like candidia yeasts. KT containing beneficial wild yeasts, some lactic acid bacteria, acetobacter. The high sugar co,tent favors the yeasts whose, byproduct(alcohol) favors acetobacter whose products favor other acid producing bacterial. Kefir is more loaded up with lactic acid bacterias, different ones than in KT or yogurt. Lactic acid bacteria are good for diversionary can colonize the digestive tractors pathogens wont. They all have similarities and differences, and if you can you should use them all. After making KT for a while in any new region the brew will start to select native microorganisms from that area. Mostly local lactic acidbacterias and wild yeast strains. KT contains a bacteria that is only found in kombucha. It came into existence or evolved into existence in the micro environment of a kombucha brew. Its not found anywhere else except in KT. I forget the name of the organism. But each is also different because of the substrates they are made from. Milk is full of a different mix of compounds that are going to be converted into different things. It's difficult for yeasts to metabolize the lactose and proteins in milk, and the by product of lactose (milk sugar ) metabolization is lactic acid, not alcohol. With no alcohol, no acetic acid is produced so the end concoctions are way different. Btw. Homebrews of any of these are farm more effective and potent than the stuff you can buy at the market. I used a bottle of Dave's KT to use as starter to brew a batch. It produced a scoby but never produced alcohol or got sour. Leads me to believe that they pasteurized it killing everything benificial off, and then they add a certain amount of certain bacteria back, but not each type and none of the yeasts before selling it. Nothing made me more healthy and clean feeling than a yogurt I made, but yogurt from the store never makes,me feel healthy and clean. I've looked at my yogurt under the microscope and it was teaming with life. I looked at some store bought yogurt, Brown Cow was the brand and there was hardly any activity. The bacteria I saw were few and comparably lethargic seeming.

I brewed both Jun & Kkombucha for a while and would like to again. I was really into it for a while, consuming from 1 quart to a gallon of finished product a day. I needed it, It was good for me. I started a sitting mediation practice shortly after I started brewing and might not have gotten far with that had I not started cleansing with the KT & Jun, not to mention the yogurt that could also convert into analogues of either KT or Jun that I originated out of "thin air" using my newly discovered intuition that I was able to better get in touch with thanks to the probiotic beverages. I have reason to believe that these beverages help in demineralizing neurons along with conditioning a clean and healthy enteric system. My daughter removed a wart on her finger in a matter of days. We watched it shrink into oblivion noticeably smaller everyday until it was gone forever within a week. I gave her an eye dropper full of KT which she diligently used to apply a couple of drops a few times a day. She kept it under a bandaid that had K on the pad. A word of caution- rinse your mouth with water after drinking KT or Jun. Your teeth will start breaking off in chunks. KT is a highly acidic solution containing a wide variety of organic acids perfectly capable and proficient at dissolving calcium based compounds into solution, and from my OWN experience that includes teeth. It is almost as acidic as Apple cider vinegar. If you let your brew go to long it will essentially become vinegar. I've used old KT to dissolve thick abalone shells that I could hardly break to size with a rock. Both KT & Jun vinegar made short work of dissolving the shell. I use the resulting water soluble calcium rich solution diluted in water to give to plants. Point being it's very easy and effective to rinse and swallow a couple of mouth fulls of water after you're done enjoying your sparkling beverage. "Jun" bevarage for those of you who don't know is a kombucha like beverage that some say was originated by Laozi himself. Maybe, or maybe not? We will never know but it's pretty yummy as well as good for you. Its made with a Jun scoby, green tea, and honey instead. Brew time is shorter, the fizz is more of a champagne like fizz than KT and the taste is noticabley different.

From my perspective one of the fundamental aspects of Buddhist meditation, focus on the breath, is synonymous with diaphragmatic breathing which keeps a large portion of my field of attention/concentration on the lower dantian .

Have intensity, but keep it subtle. Be what the world naturally goes to, and comes from.In this way what is naturally human doesn't vanish. Be as you were born. Know the brightness, but keep being soft and easy. Be what is compared to "not natural"; being natural, the power of nature does not stray. Know where pride is said to be due, but remain humiliated. Be what the world returns to; remaining as you we're born, not lacking in anything you are perfectly sufficient. Be un-efected; the effected are easily exploited and used.The wise do not exploit, or use, so it is good to be as you were born.

What is a river without two banks, or a crashing wave without the ocean floor?

Exactly, empty and emptiness. It seems too simple to say that a square is empty of corners, that a thing is not it's very own self independently existing with or without its defining characteristics. But when you realize the significance, you realize how delusional the common view of existence is. That an evergreen Bush has leaves is to say there is something independent of the leaves that is in the activity of having leaves. It is to say that it may or not have leaves but no matter it is still an evergreen bush, and that is an incorrect view of things.

Look at a perfect glass window. Does it "have" glass? No, a glass window doesnt have glass, a glass window IS glass. "That glass window doesn't have any glass right now." Does the perfect gentleman have good manners? He is only called a perfect gentleman because of his manners. Is the perfect sage an independently existing entity that may or may not have wisdom? No, they are only called the perfect sage when they have "attained" "perfect wisdom" Remove the "perfect wisdom" and the sage is no more. There is no spirit of square that exist bodiless in heaven without its 4 corners, but only needs 4 corners cost in the realm of mortals. A square exist only as the meeting of 4 equal corners. It is not an independent entity in possession of its characteristics. It is those characteristics. "What happens to my fist when I open my hand?"

Simply wrong about what, and GS, if you read what you quoted and called wrong again I think you'll see that as an independent statement, to call what you quoted wrong is pretty silly You'll both need to provide examples, or is this just two examples of cognitive dissonance?

You can't rightly say that a perfect square is missing it's four corners, nor can you rightly say that a carriage is missing it's wheels. The carriage is the wheels, without them the assemblage would,make a better raft or barndoor than a carriage. Shapes forms and objects only are what they are by conceptualization of their utility but have no actual, let alone, self existence. So how could one exist as a thing in possession of characteristics, and how could it exist as what it was conceptualized without the features/characteristics that meet the criteria of the conceptualized thing?

How on earth would a square ever come into being in possession of corners or anything at all? In Buddhism is called shunya/emptiness. An object or form is not a self in possession of its very own characteristics. The objector form is at best it's characteristics, not a self existing thing that has possession of its characteristics. My body has no features; my body IS its features. In other words, a perfect square IS it's four corners. What is it Laozi says ? Remoe the hub and the whole assemblage is no longer a carriage? Something like that. To paraphrase again it amounts to that if a carriage is missing it's wheels which are a defining characteristic of it being a carriage, than it can not rightly be called a carriage at all.

I know what you mean OP. Same with Buddhism. It's called religion. Although I still follow my understanding of both Taoist and Buddhist doctrines my experience after years of doing so, even after Retreating to the wilderness/entering homelessness, was that when confronted with the real life religious institutions was WTF? Both institutions have strayed from the original truths, and ways described by the originators f the ancient doctrines. The tao that can 've taoed is not the eternal Tao. The Tao is not Chinese in origin, nor is the Dharma a product of Asia.

Further more, a tree can not fall. A tree has no ability, and nothing has ever made a sound. A tree is being a tree, falling is falling. Tree faller; Forest floor.

It displays the truth that understanding that things are empty and are non-existing is not a bit of knowledge that leads to enlightenment. In fact because of what is called the law of attraction, it leads to loss, and annihilation. It is better for the "novice" to start off thinking that all is NOT void. That "nothing exists" is the shine on the Apple, and the Apple is the understanding of dependent arising. Many practitioners mistake the shine on the apple for the Apple itself. And then they grasp at the shine. An Apple in itself is not shiney. An Apple does not have the quality or characteristic known as "shine". The shine does not exist. There is no such "thing" as anything being shiney. Nothing is characterized as having a shine. By understanding dependent arising one understands that nothing ever arises, nothing abides, and nothing perishes. Arising arises but does not abide, abiding arises but does not abide, and perishing arises but does not abide. Things do not come and go, things do not ever come to completion or to any state that one can say, "there, the thing is now complete and is what it is and will be" What ever is appearing is apprehended by the mind as being. Whatever it is that is apprehended is not a container that contains. It is only apprehended by the mind as full and complete and as being itself being. The causative factors of its existence are unseen, yet as they Change, or come and go, the thing changes or comes and goes. When a fire is built, you can not say, "this morning we've built a fire, let's go do,our days work and when we comeback the fire will be here to keep us warm" becausea fire is not self existing. It exist only when the causative factors are present and intermingled. If it was decided that some one would stay to keep the fire going, to stay there to add would and to move logs and fan the embers, when you it back at the end of the day you could not rightly say "oh good, the fire is still there." It would not be the same object, unchanged, and it would not be the same object that had changed. Images and form are impermanent nothing ever changes. Whatever it is that is apprehended as an object that has changed into another object is only apprehended by the mind as such. Things do not change. What ever appears as being passes, ceases from moment to moment causing the illusion of change. If the fire keeper replaced the burnt wood with new wood, and the new wood was from a different tree of a different genus, than the characteristics of the fire would change and one could not rightly say "the same fire is still there, but it has changed." One thing can not change into another because if it ever was a thing than that thing would be it's own self. Its own self would be defined by the characteristics of that self. If the characteristics of that self changed into other characteristics, than the characteristics that were what was called self would be no more so that self would be no more; characteristics that were new could not be said "to used to be other and different characteristics" If the characteristics of a thing's/self's past are different than the characteristics of the thing's/self's, present, and in future the thing's/self's characteristics will differ from the past and the past that was that present than because there are three sets differing characteristics, there are also 3 different thing's/self's none of which came into existence as it's very own independent being. Looking at the stream of changing characteristics of the fire, and knowing that the change is due to the passing and replacing of the causative factors (change in heat, change of fuel, change of air) than it is seen that the fire is notit's very own self existing thing, and that it is not a thing.

I will say that I do not consider anything you can find on the internet on multiple websites/discussion boards to be truly esoteric by the strict and traditional definition. "Special interest" maybe, but esoteric? And I still stand by my conviction that those who know the Tao well enough to stick by it practice things that "make" them humble, not caught in self, and do not make assertions (especially) like "they're wankers, I know what's best". People who need to do all that energy work only need to do so because they do not "know the Tao well enough to stick by it" & "practice things that "make" them humble, not caught in self, and do not make assertions (especially) like "they're wankers, I know what's best". When the Dao is practiced asa way of life not only are some f the fruits in what I listed above, but some other of the fruits is that your energy work is done in the non-doing of what I listed above. To everything and everyone else; WOW! I'm done rationalizing my response to star jumpers claim, seriously.

That's not truly esoteric tan, I'm sorry and your taking the term "esoteric" out of the framework it was used in which was "all of them wankers who does the lotus doesn't know what I know" paraphrase It would be different (but equally stupid according to the way of the Dao )to assert you are the keeper of great secrets in to a different framework that doesn't place you higher than 10,000 masters past present and future.

I'd say that anyone who claims that the only reason anyone practices the lotus, which implies many past masters, is an ignorant walker that does not know better is implying they know something that all these practitioners, including all the masters past and present don't know. So yes you implied that you are the knower of a deep knowledge that you called "esoretic" and your implication is equal to boasting. And by being above the masters is not saying you have attained mastery? Ineresting? You may be a Daoist but it's clear that you don't know the Dao. Knowers of the way practice humility and appear humble, because they are humble not just pretending to be. What I beheld in you was neither mastery, nor simplicity; not the Dao. That's the final communication on the subject Take Care

...but than again I also whole heartedly agree.

I whole heartedly disagree. I think Buddhism is more "Shit is dependent in its arising; nothing happens without conditions, nothing is or happens of itself"

No of course I wouldn't ask you to ad any original ideas to the thread. I should see that you are a master by the pic in your avatar, and by the way when GSmaster gave a vague/generic description of a setting where he practices your ego immediately associated with self and what belongs to self. I should have just assumed that your arrogant remarks were backed up somewhere in your thousands of posts, searched them all out somewhere on this site, read everything you said and then commented. That is sarcasm btw, what follows is not. I have a lot of respect for the people who've made this site with their contributions. Respect has never been given to anyone anywhere by asking for it. Something I have not noticed is people clambering around you respecting you like the (self proclaimed) master that you claim to be. Nothing you've shown deserves respect, and nothing you've claimed is respectable, nor do you speak to others with respect, and you are disrespectful to an age old vehicle that most practitioners of which bow to. Your behavior doesn't live up to the self image you're promoting. Notice I did not call it the reputation you are known for? Yes you would have to ask for respect like a beggar begging because you sure have not earned it. Take care buddy.

So you are backing up your statement with "I know because I know" And you avoided the question as to wether or not you've practiced and disciplined yourself enough to sit in the lotus comfortably, and then practiced it daily for a year or more. Instead you say you've been practicing a deeply esoteric method, one I gather you can not discuss or make reference to, so instead you talk Shit and call people who have a disciplined practice "wankers" offering no references to back up your opinion. I have no respect for people that say "you guys all suck because what I do is better, but what I do is an ancient secret can't talk about. You'll just have to take my word that,my ways are superior, even though I should not even comment if I'm not going to actually offer a reputable resource as evidence and example of my lofty claim". Paraphrase.

This seems a little bit of a ridiculous statement to me. Many of the people here that sit in the lotus ALSO have another practice. But more so, who here among us that sits in the lotus just decided before they started their practice that they would just sit in the lotus first off without trying anything else? Probably no one has ONLY ever sat in the lotus. Contrary to your view, to see someone sitting in the lotus position does not in anyway imply that the person sitting has a narrow mind. In fact if you see someone sitting in the lotus you can bet that it took them a long time, practice and discipline. If you see someone in the lotus you can almost bet your life that they started out with at least one other posture for probablly more than a year. So it seems to me that the opposite of what you are saying is true, that the person in the lotus likely has worked at and chosen the lotus after using other techniques. Edit- @Starjumper Have you ever practiced until you could sit in the lotus position comfortably and then let it become your daily practice for a month to a year or more? I'm wondering how it is you know that it is not so effective to sit in the lotus compared to other techniques, and where your insight comes from?

Is the suffocation response something you experience while sitting?

Ditto

Buddhism neither confirms nor denies the existence of a God. I think the Buddhists system Is one that makes very few proclamations at all because of the deeper understanding of the Dharma, which when you really come to understand you come to realize that there is nothing to proclaim. No matter what your beliefs are, Buddhism understand that beliefs don't save you and are not a road to ascension, but that Regaurdless of your beliefs all people suffer and are caught in the endless cycle of birth and death. So what a Buddhist believes is the 4 noble truths, and with that, in the 8 fold path. A deeper understanding of that entails an understanding of the 3 marks; everything suffers, nothing that exist has self, and that everything passes/nothing has permanent existence. A deeper understanding of that Is the understanding of the doctrine of dependent origins which is the understanding of emptiness/sunyatta. When a person realizes the noble truths and practices the 8 fold path, and truly comes to understand the 3 marks of existing and also the arising of mood, thought, and consciousness both by way of understanding the doctrine of dependent origination, along with a meditation practice then one begins to both lose attatchments to views and to see reality clearly, and to see how the reality they are apart of functions at the most fundamental levels. So many serious practitioners might argue this or that cosmology is true Buddhist belief, but Buddhism itself is only concerned with the extinguishing of suffering not cosmology. If their belief is not contingent to the three marks of existence, and the doctrine of dependent origins which implies that all things are empty than it is not Dharma. My understanding is that all things are awareness. So where there is creation there is the experience of being the creator, but the creator is not self existing, and as it would have characteristics as such than it would also be an awareness that has dependencies on other things for both Its existence and it's being as/or, the creator. My understanding also tells me that there are other awareness that preexist any state of existence that you could call creation or creator/God, and that any God would be dependent on these. But none of these could be called "God" or creator by any means. For instance the void. The void is not an object but rather a state of awareness where awareness exist without subjection to form (dimmension), phenomenon (activity/relativity), or anything to be aware of, and Is without beginning or end. This state of awareness would be independent of creation or creator, so could not be said to be a creation of any God, but any God or God would be dependent on the void as a condition or causative factor for their existence. Just like wood (void) is not dependent on fire for its woodiness, but fire (God) is dependent on wood for its existence and the characteristics of what/how, even how long it exists. So my understanding says that if God has any characteristic such as being infinitely powerful than it would be dependent on infinity or something infinite for that characteristic (just as I believe void is dependent on something for its quality of being absolute in what it is and AN for being a "circrumscribe infinity" in itself. I guess in summary my view the path and practice can illuminate your existing belief system to shed light on any reality it might have been based on. I think that a Christian an practice Buddhism, and that their Christianity will be improved on, but that if they practice letting go then their view to accept what is beyond their view than their view will become more and more clear to the point that they would be rejected by all other Christians. What your view of all that came into could not be called Buddhism or Christianity. Buddhism is really only concerned with the origins and cessation of suffering, and the path that leads to that.