Prunes

[Thunder_Gooch]

I thought this forum needed more disccusion on prunes, they are high in antioxidants, and fiber, and promote a healthy colon.

 

Edited December 1, 2012 by More_Pie_Guy

[Protector]

Right, everyone forgets about the importance of root chakra and just go for the third eye stuff and super powers, but guess what, nothing happens while you're still holding onto stuff and don't want to create a new you, that's what it's all about, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang

[Taomeow]

I'd rather discuss macaroons. A taoist on an Abstaining From Grains regimen will find that macaroons can successfully replace cookies. Prunes, runes, or any other dietary or spiritual devices just fall short.

.

[Ish]

A taoist on an Abstaining From Grains regimen

 

Beneficial for all cultivators? I kinda love rice too much to give it up =[

[Eskrimador]

Like me, my grandmother is a very short lady.

Prunes go through her pretty darn fast.

[Taomeow]

Beneficial for all cultivators? I kinda love rice too much to give it up =[

 

I don't know if it's beneficial for all cultivators -- depends on what they're cultivating. Spiritually, rice is the base of a pyramid, with rice farmers on the bottom and spirits and deities feeding off their life energy on top. In between you have steadily narrowing down layers, each sitting on top of the lower ones -- rice eaters, rice merchants, rice corporations, Chinese emperors, Monsanto, steadily narrowing down to the guy on top, the God of Slavery. So anyone cultivating a hierarchical paradigm of any kind can eat rice with impunity. It is gluten-free.

 

But if you cultivate against the pyramid, toward an influx of nourishing qi from the top to the bottom, not to attain a higher state but to correct the draining of energy from the base toward the top, if your cultivation aims to revert the flow -- shen to qi to jing, spirit to life, mind to matter, yang to yin, heaven to earth, ruler to subject, rich to poor, disembodied spirit to immortal body, etc. -- then Abstaining From Grains is a big help. If you don't eat rice, or any other grains, you haven't entered the pyramid on any level. Of course they are trying to make a pyramid out of everything -- successfully most of the time. I don't have a solution yet for not entering any pyramids on any level, which would be the Way, the royal road to the true and ultimate attainment of taoist cultivation. For now, I'm just avoiding the oldest, biggest, heaviest pyramids as much as I can, of which of course grain agriculture takes the cake, pun intended.

[Celestial]

I don't know if it's beneficial for all cultivators -- depends on what they're cultivating. Spiritually, rice is the base of a pyramid, with rice farmers on the bottom and spirits and deities feeding off their life energy on top. In between you have steadily narrowing down layers, each sitting on top of the lower ones -- rice eaters, rice merchants, rice corporations, Chinese emperors, Monsanto, steadily narrowing down to the guy on top, the God of Slavery. So anyone cultivating a hierarchical paradigm of any kind can eat rice with impunity. It is gluten-free.

 

But if you cultivate against the pyramid, toward an influx of nourishing qi from the top to the bottom, not to attain a higher state but to correct the draining of energy from the base toward the top, if your cultivation aims to revert the flow -- shen to qi to jing, spirit to life, mind to matter, yang to yin, heaven to earth, ruler to subject, rich to poor, disembodied spirit to immortal body, etc. -- then Abstaining From Grains is a big help. If you don't eat rice, or any other grains, you haven't entered the pyramid on any level. Of course they are trying to make a pyramid out of everything -- successfully most of the time. I don't have a solution yet for not entering any pyramids on any level, which would be the Way, the royal road to the true and ultimate attainment of taoist cultivation. For now, I'm just avoiding the oldest, biggest, heaviest pyramids as much as I can, of which of course grain agriculture takes the cake, pun intended.

 

2,500 years ago in China, what did the 'soon-to be-immortals' (aka on the path but yet not realized) eat?

Edited December 1, 2012 by Celestial

[Eskrimador]

Crocodiles.

We say sinan-buaya.

Dead go on boat down river, crocodile sinan-buaya eat dead, immortal eats crocodile.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Eskrimador

[oildrops]

[Taomeow]

2,500 years ago in China, what did the 'soon-to be-immortals' (aka on the path but yet not realized) eat?

 

 

Who knows?.. Tao/Yami people from Lanyu (Orchid Island) may provide one of the last clues... Here's what a friend tells me who's been there:

 

"Lanyu is an island just off the coast of Southeastern Taiwan. There were many aboriginal tribes in Taiwan's main island, but the Tao/Yami were the least modernized till very recently due to their isolated location. Their entire culture was built on fishing, just one species -- the flying fish. To call if fishing may even be a little misleading. The flying fish season was not really all that long. They would row their canoes into the Pacific at night and light up the torches. The flying fish would get excited and start chasing the light. The Yamis will use nets to catch the fish while they are in mid-air instead of in the water. They will catch as much as they can and feast on them and dry the extra for the rest of the year. The government of Taiwan pursued 'modernization' very vigorously, so they aren't eating or living as simply anymore."

[chi 2012]

Right, everyone forgets about the importance of root chakra and just go for the third eye stuff and super powers, but guess what, nothing happens while you're still holding onto stuff and don't want to create a new you, that's what it's all about, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang

Pepto Bismol works....You don't need horse stance for prune gas.

Edited December 2, 2012 by chi 2012

[eye_of_the_storm]

Beneficial for all cultivators? I kinda love rice too much to give it up =[

 

One would have to decide... rice or immortality?

[eye_of_the_storm]

2,500 years ago in China, what did the 'soon-to be-immortals' (aka on the path but yet not realized) eat?

 

From my limited reading I believe

 

They would only eat things from trees

 

Seeds / Nuts / Herbs / Fruit / Vegetables and some Tree Saps (depending on climate/location)

 

Fresh Water + Fresh Mountain Air hmmmm

 

//

 

Agriculture they mocked / thought it to be slavery (somewhat in line the Taomeows post)

 

Which it is - The title of the article I am specifically thinking about is called >> Yoked to the Earth.

 

In terms of longevity + the "you are what you eat"

 

If you are eating acorns from an Oak Tree 1500 years old... or grain/crop that lasts barely a season (with constant intervention to sustain it)?

 

The oak tree genetically is far superior, the blue print of the food I think mixes with your own.

 

Another reason I would avoid eating meat // animal blood mixing with human blood.

 

I was reading an account from a South American Elder... he was speaking of Quinoa (The seed is eaten, in the past it was the foundation of their diet) he said the plant was good for the body and the spirit.

 

What is good for the body is good for the spirit.

 

If we see how devastating hard drugs are to the person at all levels...

 

The "food" we are consuming today is not much better.

Edited December 2, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Celestial]

So basically a vegan centric diet. Minus the Monsanto soy beans.

[C T]

Prunes are excellent.

 

So is Pumpkin seed oil from Austria (and Austria only).

 

Organic.

 

In mo de ration.

 

As with all things.

 

Pyramids included.

 

[Taomeow]

Absolutely not vegan, not even close. Our genes evolved during the Ice Age and haven't changed much since -- which is why eating grains and legumes has been such a devastating affair for the human genome. When I say "haven't changed much," I mean a thousandth of a percent! The only epigenetic change (i.e. modification of gene expression in response to changes of the environment) related to digestion I've been able to find that happened in the past 15,000 years is the appearance of a gene in the Japanese that signals producing an enzyme that enables them to digest seaweed. And that's all, folks!

 

During the Ice Age 95% of human food came from animal sources. During the Ice Age what we call "human" emerged. The diets were extremely high in animal fat. Humans all over the globe hunted the single fattest animal in their environment preferentially, both on land and on sea -- whale, seal, mammoth -- and prized the blubber above all other foods. Native American tribes fought wars over pemmican, a labor-intensive super food made of the rendered bone marrow of large animals -- bison, buffalo -- mixed with dried powdered meat and some small tart berries. Pemmican is something humans can live on indefinitely needing no other foods, which was well known, so every tribe tried to make as much as they could in a good hunting season to ensure survival through any environmental and hunting adversities. Innuits still have a term for eating low-fat species and vegetables, "rabbit starvation." Both eating the rabbit and eating what the rabbit eats is in this category. The human brain is 65% fat, all of it animal fat, all of it saturated fat.

 

I have a video of the Lanyu Tao/Yami which I didn't post to spare the vegetarian/vegan sensitivities, but I hope you can stomach a description. Before they launch a canoe to hunt for the flying fish, they consecrate it with fresh pig blood -- the pig is slaughtered right before the launch and the blood is smeared on the canoe -- whereupon they feast on the pig.

 

What did enlightened taoists eat? There were no vegetarians in China before the advent of agriculture, slavery, poverty, and finally Buddhism. So my guess is, taoists ate what all Chinese ate -- until what all Chinese ate deviated from the Way.

[C T]

 

 

What did enlightened taoists eat? There were no vegetarians in China before the advent of agriculture, slavery, poverty, and finally Buddhism. So my guess is, taoists ate what all Chinese ate -- until what all Chinese ate deviated from the Way.

 

Deviation is perhaps thru sheer happenstance.

 

That there were no vegetarians in China before the advent of this, and this, and this... how could you know this for certain? Any research notes to brighten the morning, dear?

 

Curious.

[Taomeow]

Deviation is perhaps thru sheer happenstance.

 

That there were no vegetarians in China before the advent of this, and this, and this... how could you know this for certain? Any research notes to brighten the morning, dear?

 

Curious.

 

What does "dear" stands for -- the fact that I'm dear to your heart or the belief that I'm patronizable?.. I sincerely hope it's the former.

 

I've been researching nutrition and its global history for the past 15+ years -- I happen to believe it trumps any other human concerns -- so I take the subject more seriously than all religions, philosophies, and cultural idiosyncrasies combined. This is one thing we all have in common. The great unifier originally... the great divider "thru sheer happenstance" (in which I don't believe... you can't change the fate of a planet that has been relatively stable for 3,5.000.000.000 years in some 10,000 by happenstance... and changing what humans on this planet eat did just that -- to us and everything and everybody else living and dying here.) So, research notes... where do I begin? With hunting scenes on objects retrieved from burial sites of all epochs all over China, with pre-metallurgic mastery of jade hunting axes and arrowheads, obsidian fish hooks, or with my teacher's lectures on taoist nutrition? Or my research into genetics and epigenetics, immunology in general and lectinology specifically? What would you like to see?

 

No wait... first I have to ask if you're a vegetarian. Talking about nutrition with vegetarians is a self-imposed taboo of mine. So if you are, I will just take the fifth.

[eye_of_the_storm]

Taoist mythology speaks of a Golden Age, they didn't consume anything except Pure Prana / Chi

 

An early Taoist text, the Taiping Jing suggests that early people who were living completely "as they are" (ziran) would not need food, but instead would live only by absorbing the cosmic qi of Yin and Yang. This ancient state has since fallen away, however, which is why the Celestial Master of the Taipingjing says that food is now one of two absolute essentials for human existence. (WIKI)

 

Humanity thinks that it is evolving...

 

The Taiping jing is a guide that reveals the proper methods to bring forward an era of Great Peace or Equality (an idea that probably dates back to the Warring States period).^[1] The idea of the Great peace became especially more prominent during the Han period.^[2] The main idea brought forward by the scriptures is that the world is in a terrible state of chaos. There is a loss of cosmic balance, and this is made obvious by omens such as droughts, floods, famines, epidemics and other natural disasters.^[3] There is also chaos in the courts of the imperial house (during the Han dynasty) proven by recorded events such as freakish births (perhaps a hint at the meddling of eunuchs), all of which demonstrate Heaven's displeasure towards the mortal realm.^[4] Humans have been polluted by their sins and their ancestors' sins (evil accumulated through many generations).^[5] The Universe reciprocates the mortal realm's condition; for there to be balance again, the people must heal themselves and cultivate their inner Dao. Salvation lies in the hand of great princes known as Celestial Masters. Chinese antiquity was divided into three eras: shang-ku (High Antiquity), chung-ku and hsia-ku, but it was only the shang-ku (High Antiquity) that contained a time of Great Peace,^[6] maintained with the collaborative efforts of the rulers of that era and the Celestial Masters. (WIKI)

 

Every religious tradition on the planet advocates a vegetarian diet

 

Nearly every Sage, Saint and Avatar I can think of advocates a vegetarian diet

 

Greek mystics / philosophers 2500+ years ago advocated a vegetarian diet (of which all their students also followed) /

 

Who taught them?

 

Apollonius of Tyana

Empedocles

Plotinus

Plutarch

Proclus

Pythagoras

Socrates

Sotion (Pythagorean)

Theophrastus

Xenocrates

 

An interesting google search is: ancient vegetarian societies

 

Edited December 2, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Celestial]

I've been researching nutrition and its global history for the past 15+ years -- I happen to believe it trumps any other human concerns -- so I take the subject more seriously than all religions, philosophies, and cultural idiosyncrasies combined. This is one thing we all have in common. The great unifier originally... the great divider "thru sheer happenstance" (in which I don't believe... you can't change the fate of a planet that has been relatively stable for 3,5.000.000.000 years in some 10,000 by happenstance... and changing what humans on this planet eat did just that -- to us and everything and everybody else living and dying here.) So, research notes... where do I begin? With hunting scenes on objects retrieved from burial sites of all epochs all over China, with pre-metallurgic mastery of jade hunting axes and arrowheads, obsidian fish hooks, or with my teacher's lectures on taoist nutrition? Or my research into genetics and epigenetics, immunology in general and lectinology specifically? What would you like to see?

 

No wait... first I have to ask if you're a vegetarian. Talking about nutrition with vegetarians is a self-imposed taboo of mine. So if you are, I will just take the fifth.

 

I went from eating mainly processed foods and drinking sodas to purely organic whole foods and strictly water. The organic foods include vegetables (kale, carrots, red radish, baby spinach), fruit (wild blueberries, pears, apples), chicken, wild sockeye salmon, and on occasion I eat grass-fed organic beef. No farm raised crap nor corn fed anything. Very little grains. I'm allergic to wheat, gluten, and dairy.

 

Edit: I eat brazil nuts, walnuts, and kidney/black beans. All RAW and organic of course, not salted. For my salads I don't drench them in ranch dressing, instead I use organic extra virgin olive oil. Oh and I blend (not juice where you lose the fiber) all my vegetables with a tablespoon of extra virgin coconut oil.

 

If I do add salt on something, I use Himalayan salt.

 

Let me put it in perspective for you:

 

Before, I would get sick at least 3 times a year and of course the seasonal flu. My blood pressure was high, my stomach was bloated and in pain, and just overall didn't feel good. Mind you I'm in my mid-late 20s at this point.

 

After switching to my new diet (I hate the word diet, so let's call it LIFESTYLE) which includes eating the organic stuff listed above and exercising (including Qigong and weight lifting) 5 days a week, I have never felt better in my life. Everything I described to you went away. I haven't had even so much as a cold in TWO AND 1/2 YEARS since I made the switch.

 

Also keep in mind that I go to the doctor once a year to get blood work done. Before, I had problems, now everything is stabilized and perfect. Oh, and I'm in my 30s now.

 

I haven't done as nearly as much research as you have obviously, I simply used common sense and google.

 

So tell me, am I doing something wrong? Am I not following the "way"?

Edited December 2, 2012 by Celestial

[eye_of_the_storm]

You feel the Buzz?

[eye_of_the_storm]

In Europe during classical antiquity the vegetarian diet was called abstinence from beings with a soul (Greek ἀποχὴ ἐμψύχων).^[34] As a principle or deliberate way of life it was always limited to a rather small number of practitioners belonging to specific philosophical schools or certain religious groups.^[35]

 

The earliest European references to a vegetarian diet occur in Homer (Odyssey 9, 82–104) and Herodotus (4, 177), who mention the Lotophagi (Lotus-eaters), an indigene people on the North African coast, who according to Herodotus lived on nothing but the fruits of a plant called lotus. Diodorus Siculus (3, 23–24) transmits tales of vegetarian peoples or tribes in Ethiopia, and further stories of this kind are narrated and discussed in ancient sources.^[36] All of them, however, display legendary traits or appear in a mythical context; hence they cannot be regarded as evidence for the historical existence of such peoples.

 

The earliest reliable evidence for vegetarian theory and practice in Europe dates from the 6th century BC. The Orphics, a religious movement spreading in Greece at that time, and Pythagoras, a philosopher and religious leader in the area of Southern Italy colonized by Greek settlers, abstained from the flesh of animals.^[37] The followers of Pythagoras (called Pythagoreans) did not always practice strict vegetarianism, but at least their inner circle did. For the general public, abstention from meat was a hallmark of the so-called “Pythagorean way of life”.^[38] Both Orphics and strict Pythagoreans also avoided eggs and shunned the ritual offerings of meat to the gods which were an essential part of traditional religious sacrifice.^[39] In the 5th century BC the philosopher Empedocles distinguished himself as a radical advocate of vegetarianism specifically and of respect for animals in general.^[40]

 

There was a widely held belief, popular among both vegetarians and non-vegetarians, that in the Golden Age of the beginning of humanity mankind was strictly non-violent. In that utopian state of the world hunting, livestock breeding, and meat-eating, as well as agriculture were unknown and unnecessary, as the earth spontaneously produced in abundance all the food its inhabitants needed.^[43] This myth is recorded by Hesiod (Works and Days 109sqq.), Plato (Statesman 271–2), the famous Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 1,89sqq.), and others. Ovid also praised the Pythagorean ideal of universal nonviolence (Metamorphoses 15,72sqq.).

 

http://en.wikipedia....f_vegetarianism

 

So the West also makes reference to a distant "Golden Age"

Edited December 2, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[Taomeow]

The Golden Age may have happened, but if it entailed the absence of carnivorous species, it must have happened before multicellular organisms, many of which start out as carnivorous. I.e. it may have been reality anywhere earlier than 1 billion years ago, but not later. Here's the basic timeline of a 4.6 billion year old Earth, with approximate dates:

 

• 3.6 billion years of simple cells (prokaryotes),
  
• 3.4 billion years of stromatolites demonstrating photosynthesis,
  
• 2 billion years of complex cells (eukaryotes),
  
• 1 billion years of multicellular life,
  
• 600 million years of simple animals,
  
• 570 million years of arthropods (ancestors of insects, arachnids and crustaceans),
  
• 550 million years of complex animals,
  
• 500 million years of fish and proto-amphibians,
  
• 475 million years of land plants,
  
• 400 million years of insects and seeds,
  
• 360 million years of amphibians,
  
• 300 million years of reptiles,
  
• 200 million years of mammals,
  
• 150 million years of birds,
  
• 130 million years of flowers,
  
• 65 million years since the dinosaurs died out,
  
• 2.5 million years since the appearance of the genus Homo,
  
• 200,000 years of anatomically modern humans
  

[edit]

[eye_of_the_storm]

1 Billion... I am thinking before the "Great Deluge"

 

Or some other global catastrophic event (maybe like the ice age? //)

 

Not sure about the evolution theory / I don't give it much weight

 

I am thinking a lot sooner though, for there to be written records of it.

 

Especially considering texts both from the East + the West correlating such

 

Though that isn't overly important // the text themselves refer to a specific way of living in order to attain...? legendary traits / mythical

Edited December 2, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air

[eye_of_the_storm]

Even if one focuses primarily on density / frequency of?

Edited December 2, 2012 by White Wolf Running On Air