CLEAN YOUR KIDNEYS WITH LESS THAN $1.00

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CLEAN YOUR KIDNEYS WITH LESS THAN $1.00

Years pass by and our kidneys are filtering the blood by removing salt, poison and any unwanted entering our body. With time, the salt accumulates and this needs to undergo cleaning treatments.

How are we going to do this?

It is very easy, first take a bunch of parsley and wash it clean

Then cut it in small pieces and put it in a pot and pour clean water and boil it for ten minutes and let it cool down and then filter it and pour in a clean bottle and keep it inside refrigerator to cool.

Drink one glass daily and you will notice all salt and other accumulated poison coming out of your kidney by urination. Also you will be able to notice the difference which you never felt before.

Parsley is known as best cleaning treatment for kidneys and it is natural!




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'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"

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'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"



'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE.
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE
MADE OF PLASTER AND STONE.

I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.

I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS.
NOT EVEN A TREE.

NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS

WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS.
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.

FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.

THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING.
SILENT, ALONE.
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.

THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.

WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I'D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?

I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.

SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.

THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THEY YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.

I COULDN'T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE.
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.

THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE.
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.

THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
"SANTA DON'T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;

I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON'T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY COUNTRY, MY CORPS."

THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN'T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.

I KEPT WATCH FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT'S CHILL

I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE,
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT.
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.

THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, "CARRY ON SANTA,
IT'S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE."

ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT,
"MERRY CHRISTMAS, MY FRIEND,
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT."




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This poem was written by a Marine stationed in Okinawa, Japan. The following is his request.......

PLEASE, would you do me the kind favor of sending this to as many people as you can? Christmas will be coming soon and some credit is due to our U. S. servicemen and women for our being able to celebrate these festivities. Let's try in this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. Make people stop and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed themselves for us.

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Soap making class in DDMBA

Dear Friends,

As part of the Green Program, DDM Ontario is delighted to bring you an Introduction to Soap Making Class! In this class, Ms. Yuki Tanagawa will share the secrets of making natural and environmentally friendly soap through a step-by-step demonstration of basic soap-making techniques. In addition, she will share with you recipes for making various types of soaps. You will also get to take home a couple of mini soap samples.

The class will be conducted in English, with Mandarin translation.

Registration is mandatory. Please do sign up early, as the class size is small. To register, please email weilin_ho@yahoo.com.

Date/Time: Sunday, Jan 24, 1:00 – 3:00pm
Location: DDM, 154 Poyntz Avenue, Toronto M2N 1J4
Cost: $15/person (all proceeds go to DDM)

About the teacher:
Ms. Tanagawa started experimenting with homemade soaps several years ago, after developing a skin allergy when she moved to Canada. She is so pleased with the results that she is now making soaps regularly for herself, as well as her friends and family. She looks forward to sharing her joy of soap- making with DDM friends!

Join Palms,
DDMBA Ontario

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WINTER FLAMES and FIREWORKS in Toronto!

WINTER FLAMES and FIREWORKS!

Celebrate the Flame at Nathan Phillips Square tonight as the Olympic Torch Relay stops in Toronto before continuing the journey across the country leading up to the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

This weekend! Don't miss the final Cavalcade of Lights Saturday concert featuring Faber Drive, plus fireworks and an outdoor skating party at Nathan Phillips Square.

Start planning your WinterCity Festival and Winterlicious outings now. All details are now available online. If you're looking for the perfect gift for the "foodie" in your life, tickets are now on sale for Winterlicious Culinary Events.

Read all of the details below.

====================================
TONIGHT!
Celebrate the Olympic Flame in Toronto
Join in celebrating the Olympic Flame and showing support for our Canadian athletes. The Community Celebration at Nathan Phillips Square runs from 6 to 8 pm on Thursday, December 17 and showcases a number of special performances by dancers, musicians and acrobats. Toronto's Final Torchbearer, Olympic medal winner Vicky Sunohara, will light the cauldron. The evening will conclude with an amazing fireworks display.

For a detailed program and performer biographies, visit:
http://www.toronto.ca/mie/olympictorchrelay/NPS-program.htm

====================================
CAVALCADE OF LIGHTS
presented by Scotiabank
Saturday Night Concert & Fireworks
December 19
7 - 10 pm
Nathan Phillips Square
FREE!

The final Cavalcade of Lights outdoor concert features Faber Drive and a spectacular fireworks show! Bring your skates and take a spin around Nathan Phillips Square's famous ice rink to music by popular Toronto DJs.

Find more details at: http://www.toronto.ca/special_events/cavalcade_lights/2009/festivefireworks.htm

====================================
Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel
Cavalcade of Lights Fireworks Package

The holiday season is a magical time to visit Toronto. The city is aglow with lights and celebration and, with some of the best retail offerings in North America, Toronto is the perfect holiday shopping destination.

Take advantage of the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel package starting at $195.
http://www.toronto.ca/special_events/cavalcade_lights/2009/hotelpackages.htm

====================================
TORONTO's WINTERCITY FESTIVAL
presented by RBC
January 29 to February 11, 2010

Toronto's award-winning WinterCity Festival returns for its seventh year, offering a city-wide celebration of culture, creativity and cuisine. Ignore the cold and snow and get out and celebrate all that Toronto has to offer in the winter. The city will be bursting with culinary experiences, fantastic free entertainment at Nathan Phillips Square and a showcase of Toronto's vibrant arts scene.

Full event details are now available:
http://www.toronto.ca/wintercity

====================================
WINTERLICIOUS
presented by American Express
January 29 to February 11, 2010

The WinterCity Festival wouldn't be complete without Toronto's favourite winter gastronomic celebration. Now in its eighth delicious year, Winterlicious again offers two popular programs for you to savour.

One hundred and fifty of Toronto's restaurants will be offering three-course prix fixe menus at one of three price point categories, and Winterlicious again shines the spotlight on Toronto's unrivalled culinary industry with a series of 10 mouth-watering culinary events. These unique experiences make great gift ideas!

Purchase your Culinary Event tickets NOW by calling the event venues directly. Prix Fixe reservations begin January 14th.

All details are now available:
http://www.toronto.ca/winterlicious

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The Greatest Christmas Decoration Ever!!!!

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Fantastic.. Greg sends along this DIY FYI:

"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."







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More: friendship & cheerfulness

Lan wrote:

"Hi :

Thank you all for contributing to a stimulating discussion. By now, I think we all agree on the relationship of desires and emotions. Whether it's "trimming desires" or "controlling desires" .... is only a matter of semantics. If we continue to split hair, it'll become a futile exercise.

I think what is important is to put the theories into practice. That's what Buddhism teaches us: It's a way of life, not just a theory. That's what Lung Zhi did. Prior to opening A.K.'s attachment, she already felt happy. The fact that Anthony felt cheerful on a sunny Friday morning and wanted to share it with us and meanwhile attempted to enlighten us with the Yogi's teaching is very noble and admirable. It's only a small brain like mine which had been trained to analyze everything to death became reflexive and reactive (to borrow a phrase from Stephen).

Anthony, thanks again to provide us the opportunity to dialogue. Since so many of us like to philosophize, perhaps we should start a "Shooting the Breeze Club"? :)

Cheers and Happy New Year! (No pun intended.)

Lan"

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Re: friendship & cheerfulness

A.K. wrote:

"I like lkw’s story about trimming your desires. Enlightenment is a never ending process.

Stephen was right. Our desires are intimately linked with our instincts, or life impulses. In the animal world, it is fairly straightforward. Desires are instincts, without which life would be impossible. But human is a more complex animal. Besides our animal instincts, we also have our human needs which evolve over tens of thousands of years and are deeply influenced by culture and conditioning. Not only do we live a life governed by our animal instincts but also a life governed by man made concepts and language.

So when we talk about desires, we are referring to both our animal needs as well as cultural conditioning. For example, human beings are prone to excessiveness and addictiveness which are not prominent features in the animal world. It is these human qualities that land us in trouble. Our need for more, which underlies greediness, is definitely a human quality, and it is a double-edge sword. It allows us to build up excess capital which makes culture possible, but also becomes a human vice if left unchecked.

I sometimes feel that the Ch’an practice of seeing our original face seems to be talking about reclaiming part of our animal nature.

A.K."

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Friendship & Cheerfulness

Stephen wrote:


"Dear Lung Zhi, Lan, A.K. & Kwok-wai,

Thanks for your comments and KW's powerpoint. They're all inspirational.

There are a few things worth mentioning:
- thanks for your friendship, it is a "root cause" of my cheerfulness;
- as shown in KW's powerpoint, the guru agreed that desire cannot be suppressed but can only be "trimmed;"
- unsurprisingly, even the guru/sage has desires and needed to be tempered from time to time. We don't know what those desires are, we can only guess considering he has to trim a big bush to a tiny circle, consistently and continuously...

Kwok-wai, do you know something we don't, since you've brought this up to our attention?

Stephen"

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Kept the cheerfulness...

Hi Stephen & A.K.:

Just received a power point from K.W.L., it is along the same line of thought:


LWK wrote:
"some always thought Shen-xiu was the realist;
神秀说他的树和镜子，有灰尘就檫，该怎么做就怎么做嘛；

his master's favorate, Hui-neng, was the idealist.
惠能说树和镜子都没有，一了百了，别人捧他贬他都欢喜！

one picks what one likes to be, of course,
这里面学问实在太大了，当然不能简单说：一位大师现实、一位理想；

call me dumb or lazy, but
when there's a knoll, then there's a knoll.
我笨也好、懒也好，总不能说山不是山吧。

lkw"



I am not good at rationalization, all I can feel is that I was very happy to receive the first message sent by A.K. on Friday Nov 27, without even opening the attachment or spending time to find out what the supposition was.

I kept the cheerfulness sent by Anthony, the rest.............

Thanks, A.K., Stephen and Lan.

Lung Zhi

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RE: Is desire the root cause of ALL emotions?

Stephen wrote:

Dear A.K.,

With your encouragement, I would like to further address the little "issue" I see with the title of the article: "Desire is the root cause of ALL emotions."

Let's take a look at the definition: Desire, is "a conscious impulse towards something that promises enjoyment or satisfaction in its attainment;" while emotion, is "a psychic and physical reaction". (Merriam Webster's dictionary)

So desire is pre-eminently a conscious, obvious, insistent state that is hard to ignore and sometimes difficult to resist. It has a tendency towards "something that promises satisfaction in its attainment." But emotion, being a "psychic and physical reaction," like joy, anger or fear, may or may not have anything to do with enjoyment or satisfaction. Nobody in the right mind would 'desire' a pain by cutting his finger. Hence, I rest my case.

One comment you made is that philosophy should not be used to explain emotion. While both Lan and myself have been commenting from the psychological & physiological perspectives, I don't mind to add a philosophical perspective if that makes it more appropriate.

We are taught that unless we cultivate indifference to what happens outside our control in the world, while at the same time strictly governing our thoughts, desires and feelings that arise within ourselves, we will attain peace of mind. While I see there are certain merits in this austerely self-denying view, I think wiser reasoning may help to put the true and value of our desires and emotions in the right perspective, which in turn will set our mind free.

"Desire is nature's instrument of self-perpetuation." Without desire there would be no humanity.

Reasoning and emotions are equally great gifts, and equally important & necessary. Like many other things of life, we have to learn how to appreciate them. They exist for a reason. It is, therefore, like our reflexive and reflective systems, needed to be tempered by one another to achieve the best balance. If not, the result can only be spiritual and intellectual impoverishment, yielding a life, scarcely worth living.

May we all make our lives worth living.


Stephen

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More on: The root causes of cheerfulness?

A.K. wrote:

Hi Lan and Stephen,

The passages I sent to you was actually an excerpt from a book by a yogi, hence the argument appears incomplete. He did not advocate suppression or repression of our desires, but proper understanding and sublimation of our desires so we can have better control of our emotions. Happiness or cheerfulness could be attained only when we turn our negative emotions into positive ones.

We might assume that everyone desire happiness, but experience has shown that a lot of people are actually sabotaging their own happiness because they do not understand the dynamics of their emotions or why they are taking certain actions. Even though they yearn for happiness, their actions often speak otherwise. So when we analyze this issue from a philosophical perspective, it is not the same as when we analyze it from an existential or religious perspective. In philosophy we strive for rationality, but the human psyche is far from being rational.

What interested me about these passages was how the author analyzed the different emotions and how they were related to desires. There might be other ways of analyzing human emotions but this particular approach struck me as being quite insightful, hence my urge to share it with you on a sunny Friday morning.

Our minds are generally focused on external factors. It takes training, or shall we say wisdom, to be able to decipher the labyrinth of human emotions. It is one of those things where everyone has an opinion because everyone is experiencing it in different ways. And we have not even begun to talk about religious practices.

Thank you for the responses. Keep it going.
A.K.

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Re: The root causes of cheerfulness?

A response from Lan:

"Hi A.K.:

Never thought that your kindness to enlighten us will elicit such a debate?!

When I first read the article, due to time constraint, I sent you an instant teaser because I was not sure that I totally agreed with it. I'm glad that Stephen has further elucidated us on the subject.

My humble opinion is: "The root causes of cheerfulness" and "the pursuit of happiness" are profound subjects which can be viewed from different perspectives.

The article you sent is from a religious perspective, while Stephen's exposition is from a philosophical, psychological, and physiological perspective. And "The pursuit of happiness" is American's Constitutional right perspective.

As human beings, as long as we're breathing and alive, it's difficult to control all the impulses firing from our brain cells all the time. Desire is one of the impulses. Desire is the source of motivation. Be it good or bad, it's how our lives come to be.That's why we try to control the bad ones with all kinds of means, external means such as reward and punishment; internal means such as moral, ethics and self-discipline; and physical means such as meditation, focussing techniques, biofeedback,etc. Confucius says, "A sage has no dreams." because he/she has already achieved the art of controlling the firing impulses, I guess.

By the same token, I think in Buddhism, when you have no desires (even the desire to be cheerful or happy), you have achieved the no I-ness, leading to Nirvana.

Lan"

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