Saturday, February 28, 2009

Rock Hard

Six packs…

Are these sculpted bellies just something else marketed to us like a cute pair of jeans or shoes? Is this fad, now so fashionable, harmful to our health? Perhaps this is something we need consider….

Consider the rest of the beings, is there another whose body is hard at rest, do lions, tigers, bears (Oh my) or horses have abs of stone? Do we find them in the fields and jungles on their backs doing crunches? No no no…. So why do we?

Now I admit and it is obvious that the populations of most western countries are overweight, that they do not move enough, eat way too much and not the right foods. But this fad is just as out of balance, an overreaction, a distorted view of who we are, just like the ubiquitous silicone filled beauties that seem more the rule than exception in most large western cities, even children asking for boob jobs for sweet sixteen gifts, and parent giving them, hmmmm… I’ll leave this is for another blog.

Qigong Master BK Frantiz teaches the 70% theory of movement (read about it)
http://www.subtlethings.com/mindful_exercise_yoga_chi_gung_qi_gong_chi_kung_qigong_nei_gung+tai_chi.htm

The exercises which result in Rock Hard Abs are excessive; take more than 70% effort. Such movements/exercises cause tension, stagnation, blockages… Please mindful of what you do and how you do it…

Consider what is under the skin of those hard, flat and perfect abs, there lies your liver, spleen, kidneys, intestines. These are the organs that offer us life, digest our foods and deal with the wastes. They require room to function, whether their space is restricted by fat or constricted by muscle the results are the same, loss of movement and blood supply, these are not good things, not natural, and should be avoided…

Please consider the state of a child, their sweet bellies, round, soft, yes still strong, nothing missing here, nothing lacking, they climb and run and play, all without rock hard ads, but yet in a natural healthy state of being.

I’m encouraging balance not fat untoned bellies, not rock hard, but natural. Just be a human being. That’s what we are… yes? We are not what marketers have invented in their 5th Ave offices…

Enjoy… Comment.. I like that…

Be well gi

http://www.subtlethings.com/

Evolve

Leave this place a better you

Before you begin, let me offer these words. I’m not apologizing, but I do realize many of you have and or are still working very hard for what you have and believe that it is a good thing to accumulate stuff, money, etc, to live a big life, have nice things and to leave your children with a fine inheritance… Good good…

These comments are not meant as an attack, but instead as commentary on American consumerism, something that has brought our country nearly to its knees and by extension has made others appear as competition, instead of our sweet brothers and sisters and fellow suffering beings. I ask you consider these things…. I wish you all only well… gi

My friends… If we don’t not evolve, then, we have wasted this precious life, if we stay as a human being, as an individual, stagnate, die the way we were born, then, this life has been lost.
I believe our lives, this precious opportunity, is a classroom for each one of us, but unlike school, we are not forced to learn, it is only done through our voluntary, intentional actions. We must evolve, little is learned when we just take this ride, when we just feed our base needs, desires, and lusts… In order to evolve, to raise up to a different level of consciousness, it takes practice, a practice of living awake, watching our minds as the stream of conscience passes before us, as we walk down the street, drive our cars, make love, to ask ourselves, what do we see, and how are we reacting to it?

Many of us live with a very reactive mind, like babies, Id-driven, we feel, we see, we do… Little comes before our eyes that we do not react to, always evaluating what things are, evaluating how we fit into things, it’s all ego, thinking it’s all about us, someone yells, “are they yelling at me?” cuts us off in traffic “dammed fool!”, she smiles “mmmm… she must like me, wants to make love with me”…

Living like this bring us nothing, not looking beyond ones nose, not seeing ourselves as interconnected with all things, not knowing how powerful we really are, not finding out what abilities we have, not seeing our potential. All these cause us to stand still, to end this life as we began it… as a child, one that came to this world with a karmic load, one who leaves it with an even greater one; one who has just sucked air for 70-80 years, consumed this earth resources, and returned nothing….

Please please my friends, realize that our lives are precious, our potential unlimited, and the harm immeasurable when we live this life just lusting to satisfy our needs, wants, and desires. Believe me. This life is soo much more... before my illness, I too was caught up in this rat race, my goals based on things to attain, things that would demonstrate how well I had done, things that would offer me access to people, places, and things I saw as valuable, things that I thought would bring me and my family joy. For me they brought little happiness, much misery, almost killed my body, and severely injured my mind. When I write I write what I know through experience, I don’t sit from afar and judge, I view myself and my life and say the things I’ve learned, hoping that by sharing these I might help some escape the suffering I have experienced…

Lately I see so much of this shrouded in spiritually… The Christians have the “name it and claim it” bunch, who believe god wants them rich, full of this world crap. The new age folks have “The Secret” another way to have what you want, just by placing your intentions there… All good, but it’s not what life’s about… Look at their videos, people standing in front of their BMW’s, big homes and boats … Is this it?

All that stuff rots away… It is a trap, a path to continuing suffering, for we get, it rots, we suffer, we try to replace it, if we can’t we suffer, if we can, we waste our resources doing so, just to find it loses it luster way too fast, then we suffer again. Round and round and round… Why even begin?????

Please ask yourself as I do… What do I value, what do I spend my time thinking of, working towards, what am I saying to my children with my consumerism, is this life to be used as such, is there no better use, no better focus?

When it’s over have I left this world a better place, are my children better prepared to live their lives than I was? Have I not only left them money and property, but an inheritance of wisdom, compassion and joy?

If you have questions, would like to talk, or just make a comment… please feel free to contact me… I won’t preach at u, I gave that up, but I will lovingly try to assist you in awakening…

I wish you all much joy… gi

http://www.subtlethings.com/

I can't put it in your pocket

It can’t be bought and I can't put it in your pocket

Our bodies have a very remarkable and wonderful innate ability to heal themselves if we simply stop doing the things that caused the disease in the first place and then feed them the fuel they require to do what they do naturally: heal.

So how do we stop the things that cause us harm? Just as important to understand is why we do these things to begin with. As a Buddhist I have been taught and know intuitively, that my gig is to relieve suffering wherever I see it. As human beings we all see this as our jobs, but many of us are so involved in relieving our own suffering that we are incapable of helping others. But all’s fair, we are the ones most prominent in our consciousness. So ok: carry on…

The problem lies in how we perceive our suffering, the lengths to which we are willing to go to feel good, or at the least to feel nothing (also better than pain). Now some take drugs (both legal and non), others smoke tobacco, many eat their way to joy, or just to fill the emptiness that eats away at their gut. Still others just become convinced it will never leave, therefore giving up, just living day by day, keeping their heads just above water with any and all means necessary and or found.

So what I see and hope those blind to such may see, is a twofold problem and therefore a twofold answer.

First to recognize the suffering and second to find the relief needed. When these two are accomplished the path to healing will become clear and the methods will arise. For the truth is, healing is not difficult; the hard part is getting people to do the work, both spiritually (mind work) and physically (eating and doing).

I speak daily to both doctors and patients and I hear the same story from two different perspectives. Doctors say, “I’ve done what I can, offered my advice and techniques and yet healing does not arise.” And patients say, “I’ve been here and there and no one has healed me.” Both are wrong, for doctors are trying to heal their patients, and patients are wanting to be healed by doctors.

As healers we cannot heal anyone; we cannot put a healing in someone’s pocket. As patients we cannot go to the healer like going to the grocery, with a pocket full of money and expect to buy a healing with no other effort other than coming, buying, and going. It does not work and will not work.

In order to be truly healed the cause must be removed. Even more important the reason the cause arose must be removed. The suffering that opened the door to the cause of suffering needs to go. The root must be cut!

All this requires work and forced and unmovable intention, the development of such is as difficult as the work itself. Often we need a guide, a coach, someone we trust with whom we can walk the path to our healing.

Some of you are saying “he hasn’t told us how, he’s just left us with more questions” exactly. I want my words to offer you opportunity to ask yourself questions, questions when answered will be as a mirror, something to see yourself in, the rest will then be clear. Still you may need some assistance, but now you will know who to ask, what to ask, and have the strength to do.

I wish you well…gi

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Something good

A friend gave me a few coconuts from her chemical free garden, so I milked one of those suckers and made this concoction. It was very good!

4 oz of coconut milk
4 oz of my “Rudy Reds” (powdered berry blend) spiked reguvelac
I tsp for Matcha
1 tsp of raw honey
Whipped frothy in the Vitamix… Yum… Enjoy!

Reguvelac recipe
http://www.subtlethings.com/rejuvelac_ann-wigmores_fermented_drink.html


Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver~

www.subtlethings.com

Little Blessings for my friends

Little Blessings for my friends

For those of you who don’t know, I am a rebel. Trained in the 60’s on the streets of NYC, purified by disease and pain, educated by my need to survive, I sit here today writing you out of pure stubbornness and a knack for research. This is what I’ll share with you, my intuition, my knowledge and the words of others’ I’ve found foolish to duplicate, for they are just too good…

Like these…

The Seed of Kindness
When we come in this world, we're given seeds.
There is the seed of anger, but there is also a seed of kindness.There is a seed of love and a seed of understanding.
Whatever seed you have sown in your garden of life is what you're going to sit under to rest.
You have the intelligence to choose what will benefit you the most.

~Prem Rawat~


Why we are unwell

Everything everywhere is going round and round and round, spinning in circles, forever turning... There is nowhere we can look where this is not true; things that were once thought static, when investigated have been found to be moving, moving in circles round and round... Now some because of pressures are less round, but still going round and round…
Besides going round, balance is the rule… and when not found, the universe is always in the process of returning, repairing, and renewing, left to itself homeostasis is the place it wants to be... balanced... In harmony…

My understanding and belief is that we are sick because we’ve lost balance, all medical modes agree. I make it simple… although some may disagree on how that comes about.

I believe… We are sick because of…
· An Excess
· A Deficiency
· An Exposure

My colleagues in oriental medicine will agree, and the answer is to return to balance, and once accomplished wholeness will return…

Some think “this is too easy” it’s not, few are able, even more important, willing to do so, but I can tell you and promise, it is possible… I’ve proven it in my own body; I have the evidence right here in my own flesh suit…

Now since we are more than flesh and blood we need to understand, not only with our intellect, which is highly overrated in my humble opinion, but in our heart of hearts, the part of us which offers intuitions, the part of us which recognizes our true nature, the part which will explodes into the blinding light of enlightenment when that realization occurs, when all our charkas light up, when we see ourselves as we are… and all things “they way things are”.

What I’m saying is both sickness and health both reside in the subtle planes of our existence, that if one decides to be well, it shall be, and that if one ignores their life, that life will die…
One of the blessings and curses of this body of ours is its resiliency, that is often takes so damn long to kill it, if it were not so we would get the idea right away… Who would feed their favorite orchid a diet coke tonight and expect to see in alive and well in the morning... The idea, the lesson would be a quick one... If we feed living things dead shit, they will not survive… PERIOD!

Most Americans live on product, not food. A product is most any packaged crap us humans eat... Anything that is unrecognizable, distinct from its source is product, and human beings are not meant to live on such, will not thrive on it, it will kill you, not today, not tomorrow, but slowly, slowly it will deprive you of every sweet thing this life has to offer. Sex (wonder why I put that first hee hee), the gift of walking, dancing, playing, seeing, touching, breathing, and smelling... you get it... Your life will become shit! We see these folks every day, still young, yet unable to climb a flight of stairs, get out of their own cars, or play with their sweet precious children…

If you’re one of these I’m sorry... I don’t mean to attack you, nor do I wish to cause you pain... It is out of great compassion that I write these things… Because I love you all... I truly do, you are me and I you… We are of one source; we are truly the same... I cannot push to the left without being pushed back from the right, round and round...back to the beginning.. Circles... All circles… we now find ourselves back to the beginning…

So my friends... Don’t believe anything I say, just as advised by the Buddha, not if it does not agree with you, not if it does not make sense... but I also encourage you to view why you believe what you do, to see if it is because of preconception, or a stiff mind… If so, let go... see what comes of it... You may be pleasantly surprised what you may see, do, find out… Boo!
Be well... big smiles… gi

www.subtlethings.com

subtlethings@bellsouth.net