A.I.

it is always worth doing and never easy -dale

Some laboratory studies show rats overcoming their learned helplessness with nothing more than increased T3 (triiodothyronine), which is the active form of thyroid hormone. This might help you with the nerur-bio-chemical portion of your challenge.

it's only frightening if you feel powerless about it. it's empowering if you have control over it. we can only control things we understand. and by increasing our understanding, little by little, we are empowering ourselves. so it's not fear mongering and please don't call it that.

LaoTzu21, Hello. I am a Holistic Health Practitioner and i am going to give you some practical advice on how to seek and find help with your troubles. First: if you're not assessing, you're guessing. You need to find a practitioner that will assess you and your troubles and get to the root of the problem. You will be able to recognize a good practitioner because hey will ask you questions like: What are the symptoms that you have? (every "IBS" case has different symptom sets) How long have you had IBS symptoms? when were you diagnosed with IBS? When do you recall your first IBS symptoms occurring? what other events were occurring at that time in your life? Are you sensitive to milk-products? are they difficult for you to digest? How much gluten do you consume? Have you ever removed gluten and dairy from your diet for at least 6 weeks straight? Do you have mercury-amalgam fillings in your teeth? if so, how many? (colitis is one symptom of chronic mercury poisoning) do tomatoes and beans make your stomach appear bloated and constipated? do you have a histamine response to eggs when you eat them? do you consume many foods that contain processed cane sugar? (cane sugar contains a product called nextane) Does emotional and/or intellectual stress affect your digestion. if so, how? what kind of skin problems do you have? on what areas of your body? etc. those types of questions will go a long way towards helping you with your troubles because they will help you discover the source if your symptoms. you never want to treat symptoms, you want to treat the cause of the symptoms. I wish you the best on your healing journey! ~Dale

I'd like to add two cents here: the article you linked to, posted on the mail online, tip-toed around the high fructose corn syrup, which is the main cause of gout in this case and main ingredient in both soda and so-called "orange juice." high fructose corn syrup, which is not naturally occurring in oranges, but is added to juice and soda, leads to high uric acid levels (all fructose does really but high fructose corn syrup is the "evil" one) and high uric acid levels often lead to gout. so if you're going to have juice, make it organic unpasteurized or home-squeezed and you'll have far far less to worry about.

My understanding of the microcosmic orbit stems from my experiences with the red and white drops, amrita and soma. Are these the correct words to use with buddhists? My experiences cause me to distinguish what i'm moving through the orbit; is there much in buddhist literature that associates amrita and soma with this orbit and it's counterparts? if so, what are they? thanks.

are you willing to change your diet and your lifestyle permanently in order to overcome your addictions?

sorry for dredging up an old topic, however, this type of meditation is among my favorite type of meditation techniques. I'm curious - since it's been so long since you guys were toying with this practice, I'd like to know 1. if any of you are still using it and 2. what results, if any you got from it? thanks in advance. I'm absolutely fascinated with this topic right now.

Thanks for posting the link. the video and it's concepts are absolutely fascinating, although i'm only 43minutes into it. Did you finish the video? What are your thoughts on it?

aloha. I am finding the discussion in the thread "A question for Vaj the Buddhist" so engaging that I just had to join the forum. i will prowl around for a while and check out the threads. anyway, aloha for now!