You are living in two dreams. One belongs to you and the other does not. In both dreams you feel that everything you see is real, as a matter of fact it deceives your feeling. All you see around you including you yourself are really not formed of “matter”. By “matter” here I mean it is in terms of absolute reality. In the dream that belongs to you, you can do anything regardless whether it is right or wrong and you will not receive any reward or punishment for the deed. But in the other dream which does not belong to you, you will get the reward or the punishment from the owner of the dream. And who is the owner of the dream? It is God.

God created the universe from nothing. (  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV6aQbnHSRo )

When He decrees something He just says “Be” and it “Is”.

To Him is due the primal origin of the heavens and the earth: When He decreeth a matter, He saith to it: "Be," and it is.  (Qur’an  2:117)

What comes from nothing must be nothing.   

Clearly we do not exist at all but our perception says we do.     

Zero = 0

YOU'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE UNTIL YOU LOSE IT

This happens in real life, parents neglecting their children or husbands ignoring their wives. They are busy amusing themselves with things they rarely get, or spending too much time chasing what they haven't possessed. But the most frequent thing happened to people is they don't pay enough attention to their health until their bodies suffer from sickness particularly diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and stomach disorder. These diseases don't kill them instantly but when the ailments get to the stage where they can't enjoy life anymore they begin to realize how important the good health that they were once blessed with. They are not aware that itching skin can be a sign of diabetes and headache is related to hypertension or poor liver. They procrastinate checking their health as they think those things can be cured by scratching the skin and taking panadol. This is bad. It is better to take a preventive measure than to cure a disease.

Prevention can be done by keeping our immune system in good shape. Our body is protected in two ways, physical barriers and army of white blood cells. The physical barriers include the skin, mucus linings, tears, saliva and earwax. They serve as the first line of defense. They protect like a wall, trap like a mouse trap, immobilize and expel the intruders. In the case where the germs are able to penetrate the barriers, the white blood cells come into play. These cells are unique. There are several types of them, some are able to differentiate and multiply in fantastic numbers and speed. They are highly organized, work synergically, some play the role of informants, other as motivators, instructors and combatants. They are Macrophages, T Cells, B Cells, antibodies and other killer cells. These cells require to be nurtured, we need healthy diet for that. They also need good transportation systems.

The best way to protect us against diseases is to use an integrated system. Our immune system can be affected by various conditions. One can weaken the antibodies, other limiting their production, still other obstructing their mobilization and supply of nutrients. Therefore all factors that can boost the immune system have to be utilized.

The system should composed at least of the followings:

1. Control of emotions.

2. Exercises

3. Healthy diet

4. Proper sleep

5. Leisure times

6. Mind relaxation

7. Tuning up of body organs

Why do we need to control emotions?

Emotion is a feeling that arises when we face an event whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. It is usually accompanied by physiological changes in our body such as laughter, crying, changes in heart beat etc. Emotions make our life interesting and more colorful. However, when they go to an extreme or occur for a long duration, in Traditional Chinese Medicine they are considered as the major internal causes of all diseases.

There are five pairs of major organs in our body that are associated with emotion. Each pair is associated with one or more of it. Joy and mental restlessness are associated with heart&small intestine, worry or excessive mental work is with spleen&stomach, sadness is related to lung&large intestine, fear to kidney&urine bladder and anger is associated with liver&gall bladder.

Emotion produces stress in our mind causing brain to order endocrine system excreting a hormone called cortisol. At a certain level cortisol can motivate to perform better at our jobs. This is the good part of the hormone, the bad side is it suppresses our immune system and makes us susceptible to diseases. Therefore it is important not to let our emotions go to an extreme pushing down our immunity beyond tolerable point.

Take care of your body organs and they will take care of you in return!

Exercises can boost your immune system

There are 206 bones in adult body. One bone to another is joined by ligaments keeping them secure in place. Why does The Creator provide us with so many bones? The answer is to make us different to robots. We can move or flex our body to adapt numerous conditions we require. If we don’t utilize them God will take back the benefit and downgrade us to a robot-like human being.

My mother-in-law had an experience about this. She was lying on bed for three weeks. No one moved her because two of her daughters who attended her were busy with their job workloads. My wife flew to her home town to visit her. When she tried to make her mother sit by lifting the body she found out that her mom’s head, neck and backbone stiff like a piece of wood. The bones were fused together and stayed like that till the end of her day. She passed away a week later.

 I'll continue elaborating the integrated system on next blogs.

PS :  Read the links for additional information!

I was trying to write a blog to fulfill my promise to  Anele about writing on the best way to stay healthy when suddenly Jihan jumped on my back and her hands choked my neck : “Where is my Dora?” she yelled.

“How should I know?” I replied.

“Where is my Doraaaaaaaaaa?” she sceamed again.

“I don nooooo.”  I shouted.

Then I smelt something bad. “You fart?”

“No,”  she said.

“You poop?”

“Nooooooooooo,” she denied but her eyes couldn’t tell a lie.

I stood up to take her to the washroom, but she ran away like mad to the kitchen not knowing my wife was in there and got caught but kicking struggling to get loose.

I was safe for a while from her menace but all of sudden Kevin came back from school.

Yeaaaah, another bad day for me ....... no time to write a blog.

Diseases are all over around and inside our body. Bacteria, viruses, pollen grains, fungal spores, wind, toxic materials, metabolic wastes are only a few of the examples. We cannot escape from their attacks unless we have something to protect us. Fortunately God has provided us with a system that guard against such hazardous objects.

In it we have bone marrow that contains stem cells which are capable of becoming any other type of cells including antibodies. The system can also supply nutrients and absorbs waste products, filters out and eventually send to excreting organs. Many other activities are performed by this system and we didn't realize how useful it was until we encountered a disease. Yet quite often we neglected it.

It is the lymphatic system. Let's take good care of it!

Question: Why does the earth orbit the sun?

Answer: It's the Law of Nature.

Question: Who made the Law of Nature?

Answer: God made it. He is the Most Powerful, The Almighty, The Creator of Everything.

Question: Who Created God?

Answer: ???????

BEWILDERED, AREN'T YOU?

Jihan was stunned, speechless for about five minutes as our pajero zigzaging along the sandy path off road about 50 km from city of Dubai. It was the first time her father allowed her in such a tour as she was too young for a tough journey. Her laughter exploded when Kevin and me were shouting amusingly every time our bodies were shaken by the rough trail. “It was nothing to be scared after all”, I guessed Jihan thought.

Alfred, her father, asked me: “How do you like it Dad?”

“Yeah, I enjoy it very much Fred,” I replied, “first time I experience this kind of thing.”

Alfred: “This is a mild one Dad, I wouldn't take Jihan along with us if it was for a rougher off-roading. I used to bring Kevin for the more adventure trips like dune-bashing, driving over a sand dune. We can hire a local off-roader Dad, if you want an extreme one.” He seemed very pleased to see me happy.

Me: “Which one amuses you more, driving the car yourself or hiring an off-roader?

Alfred: “Of course I like to drive by myself Dad, I enjoy the thrill.”

Me: “If so, don't use an off-roader!”

I was asked by a friend of mine to join him traveling abroad and I always refused except once, to Hong Kong. He was my play-mate when we were kids. He brought his wife and I brought mine. We rode a cable car at Ngong Ping, the tram at The Peak, visited window of the world at Shen Zhen, and other interesting places. We enjoyed the tour, but what they enjoyed was not the same as what my wife and I did. We enjoyed seeing them happy.

You know, whatever games you are playing apparently it doesn't matter much, but seeing other people happy is more pleasurable.

When my children were 4 years and 2 years old each month I had 2 weeks off, didn't have to go to office except for delivering a report. During the weeks off  I did the baby sitting of my children while my wife was doing the cooking, washing and house cleaning. I tried to shape my children by applying strict rules. I pinched their bellies whenever they made mistakes, and sometimes I hit their legs with belt if their misbehavior became intolerable.

I was quite satisfied with the way I raised my children. No one could interfere how I lead my family, even my parent in laws. I was pretty tough on that. Now I enjoy the results. Thank God, my children now become well behaved grown ups, whilst four of my neighbors' children died due to narcotic addiction.

Now comes my second life event, my daughter in law is expecting a new baby and she needs my wife and me to take care of the children. So we become baby sitters for them, haha. The elder, Kevin is 4 years, and his sister, Jihan is two years old. They are cute kids really but their behaviors are nerve racking.

One day Kevin asked me to play BenTen with him, I didn't know what it was, besides I didn't have a mood to play such a game anyway. So he played alone and I played cooking with Jihan, but after several minutes she got bored and took Kevin's toy gun and started shooting at me. Kevin was quite egoist, he didn't allow his sister to play the gun so he snatched it from her hands causing her to cry. I told Kevin to lend it to his sister since he didn't use it and he was playing the BenTen. But Kevin wouldn't listen to me so I took the remote control. He got mad and started throwing everything. I couldn't resist the urge of pinching him on the belly. I guessed I pinched pretty hard and her mother saw it. Kevin screamed out loud and her mother took him to her room. She was quite upset I supposed.

It is true that Kevin is her son, but he is also my grandson. Don't I also have a right to shape him?

When you sit more than three hours you begin to feel your butt getting sore, the waist stiff, sleepiness starts creeping up to your head, memory goes down and your chances of getting diabetes and heart attack become greater. This is the time when you can’t tolerate any longer for not doing exercise. 20 minute workout per day is enough to keep your body fit.

Do you know how exercise can help you to stay healthy? In your body there is a transportation network called lymphatic system. It contains valves that allow fluid to flow only in one direction. The system does not have heart of its own, but the fluid will flow better when the vessels are squeezed by muscle contractions. That is why exercise is very important to maintain better circulation of the lymph fluid.

There are a lot ways to do the exercises and you can find them easily in the internet but my method is very simple. I just shake my bone joints for 5 minutes every hour or two in addition to 20 minute exercise when I have time to do it.

Try it! So far it works well for my health.

Vocabulary

HOW  DO  I  SAVE  THE  LINKS  TO  MY  FILE  ?

When you browse the internet you will find lots of interesting pages. What would you do with them ? ….. save the page or copy the URL ? I would rather copy and paste the URL, because it will make me easier to find the right page I want.

Here how I do it.

1. Open a Microsoft Office Excel file.
2. Write the name of the web page on the first column.
3. Copy and paste the URL in the second column

Click any cell in the first column, and then go to the toolbar on top of the page and click AZ Sort Ascending. You will get the following display:

Click the link twice then press Enter Button in order to operate.

There you are. It is easier to find the page now because they are arranged in alphabetical order.

Cosmos is the term applied by Phytagoras to describe the universe. It consists of galaxies, stars, planets, moons, energies and lots of other matters. Similar to the universe we have the living beings that composed of organs, molecules, atoms, electrons, and energies. The term macrocosmos is applied to the universe and microcosmos is for the living beings.

Now let us see a human being. Why do we call a human being a microcosmos ?

Imagine ourselves as very tiny beings that are observing from the surface of a nucleus of an atom in a human body. We will see the electrons orbiting as if they are moons. Then the next atoms around us will be seen as the stars, the molecules will be observed as the solar systems and the body organs will appear as the galaxies. So we will realize that our body is not a solid matter after all. There are empty spaces in between. That is why rays with very short wavelengths such as x-rays are able to pass through them easily.

All heavenly bodies stay in their orbits and move around in harmony because the gravitational forces that keep them that way. Variations in distance and strength of the forces enable them to orbit accordingly. All of these of course have been set in order by The Creator of the universe.

In our body, the balance can be disturbed by us or by our environment  such as bacteria, accidents etc. as we and the environment have the capabilities to do so. God allows us to do it but the risks have to be taken into our own accounts of course.

In the case the balance is disturbed we call our body unhealthy.

VOCABULARY

We have four kinds of networks in our body

            Blood Vessels

            Lymphatic System

            Nerve Network

            Acupuncture Meridians

The Blood Vessels and the Lymphatic System are pipe-like networks used for transporting nutrients and other substances to the entire parts of the body. The other two are for conducting electrical impulses serving as messages from the stimulated points to the associated organs.

The Nerve System works just like a cable telephone system, the signals are transmitted through identifiable pathways. The Acupuncture Meridians, on the other hand, do not exhibit any real channels. The Meridians operate analogous to wireless telephone network; the messages from one point to another are delivered through the medium of flesh. No real passages are detected. Pressing one point on the foot can send the message to the kidney or other organs in the body. Isn’t that fantastic, before the wireless devices were invented our body had already performed such function. No wonder, our body is called a microcosmos.

There are many meridians in our body, but to master all of them before enabling us to do any treatment is not really necessary. I will start with the Spleen Meridian because this is the most essential thing to have our attention to. Most diseases are initiated from the negligence of doing proper maintenance of the organ. The Spleen is responsible for transforming food into nutrients and transporting them to every part of the body, with the help of blood vessels of course. Weak Spleen therefore will impede the functions of other organs and in return upset the balance of their teamwork.

Take care of your Spleen and it will take care of your health!

VOCABULARY

WORDS                        MEANINGS

entire                           whole

analogous                     similar

devices                         instruments

initiated                        originated

negligence                     neglect

impede                          obstruct

There are more than 5000 stars in the sky,

several of them are huge in size and radiate very intense lights,

but they are far away from earth,

therefore they look smaller and their lights are dimmer.

On the other hand our sun is closer to us;

we can feel direct advantages of her present.

She has given us warmth, vitality and cheerfulness.

Now she has gone, leaving us in darkness.

Is she seeking another world to shine?

Will she be back by tomorrow morning?

I hope there is still another day to come.

The story below was copied from this page

CONSTITUTION & DIET

Once there was a young wife who tried to send her very wealthy but much older husband to an early grave so that she could marry her lover. This pretty, young woman was a wonderful cook and she was especially good at making fried rice- which her husband, Mr. Yang, loved. Therefore, he frequently ate fried rice. The wife ensured his diet was high in ‘yang’ foods. There were a lot of fried food and meat, nourishing herbal meat soups as well as sweet desserts in his diet. Before retiring each night, she gave her husband either herbal tonic wine or ginseng chicken soup to improve his vitality. [Wine, Korean ginseng and chicken are ‘heaty yang’ foods].

Gradually, her husband started to suffer from frequent sore throat, canker sores, fever and headache. Hot weather made him break out in heat rash. He became impatient, irritable and short tempered. His blood pressure rose, complexion became ruddy and often fell hot. His gums, swollen and tender, bled easily . sometimes, there were nosebleeds. His urine was dark, stools hard and he was often thirsty. Mr. Yang also could not sleep well. His sleep was often restless and troubled by unsettling dreams.

He suffered from constipation, made worse by eating ‘obstructive’ or high-fiber food such as olives, guava and lotus root

Mr. Yang exhibited an excessively ‘yang’ constitution and ailments brought about by a lopsided, unbalanced ‘Yang’ diet.

Diet play an important role in determining our state of health. To maintain good health, there should be a balance of yin and yang as well as neutral food in the diet.

Since Mr. Yang’s constitution was in a very yang state, he should eat more ‘yin’ food to restore balance. Yin foods are often low in calories. Lots of fruits, vegetables and legumes are often in this category. He should eat more raw, steamed and boiled food to dissipate excessive heat in his body. Boiled spinach for example, is cooling and moistens the body. Raw cucumber, melons, tofu and many types of lightly cooked leafy green vegetables are beneficial in his diet. Wheat dumplings which is damp and cooling is preferable to fried rice. American ginseng tea, which is cooling, is a good substitute for Korean ginseng.

VOCABULARY

In my previous blog I have described a bit about Yin and Yang, but I’m sure that doesn’t explain much to make it more understandable. It is not very easy to define them in a quite accurate way, but I guess for the purpose of self therapy I can say that Yin is related to Weakness and Yang is to Strength. The table below may help you better grasp what Yin and Yang are.

When the condition of a body organ is weak, we tonify the acupuncture points that will cause it back to normal. On the other hand if the organ is overactive we will do the sedation.

Identify your health condition, then you can do a proper action!

VOCABULARY

Yin and Yang in the universe.

The universe consists of attractive and repulsive forces which create vibrations at various levels. Those that vibrate at very low frequencies eventually settle to form matter and those with the frequencies approximately the same as the light remain as energy. Matter and energy in ancient Chinese philosophy refer to Yin and Yang.

Although their characteristics are opposite to each other they are mutually dependent, there will be no Yin without Yang or vice versa. They form a unity in diversity.

There are billions of stars, planets and moons in the universe. The forces acting among them vary depending on the distances that keep them apart. They move in their orbits, sometimes further and at other times nearer to their neighboring stars but the deviations are still within boundaries that permit them in equilibrium.. The dense part of the stars is Yin, while the light or the heat emitted is Yang.

Yin and Yang are fluctuating, always changing at a certain range as to keep them in a required balance. They are, within certain limits, constantly transforming and oscillating and put themselves in a dynamic harmony. When the yin gets bigger, the yang becomes smaller and so the other way around.

The qualities of them are relative. There is neither absolute Yin nor Yang, each contains a little bit of other. The sun, for example, has a huge mass therefore it is yin, but it also emits light and heat which are energy or yang. So the sun is yin that contains a little bit of yang. But when we compare the sun to the earth we will call the sun yang and the earth yin. However, the earth itself contains yin and yang, the fertile soil is yin and the desert is yang.

Yin and Yang in our body       

Parallel to the Yin and Yang in the universe, our body consists of Yin and Yang too. The denser parts of our body such as liver, spleen, and kidney are yin and the hollow ones such as gall bladder, stomach, and urine bladder are yang. In this case we compare denser and lighter organs as Yin and Yang. We can also make a comparison between organs and their functions, the organs are Yin and their functions are Yang. Other comparisons are inner-outer, lower-higher, weaker-stronger, cooler-hotter, physical-mental and so on.

In the Traditional Chinese Medicine, understanding the characteristics of Yin and Yang in our body will help us determine the organs that have caused instability.

The duty of a therapist is to put them back into the equilibrium.

   When you put yourself in the middle of a river your body will be carried away downstream to the mouth of the river where the water is polluted and stinks.

   To maintain the position at the same spot you have to do some swimming.

   An extra hard of swimming is required if you want to get to the purer, fresher, unpolluted water upstream at the head of the river.

Life is just like that, if you do nothing you cripple yourself physically, mentally and economically.

Wise men say : "No Pain No Gain"

Plants need water to grow.

When the water is abundant they grow more leaves and forget to produce fruits.

When the water is scarce they feel that they are going to die soon, they produce fruits to continue their generation. 

Just water your plants enough to keep their normal life!

“So”, my friend continued his story about the two scientists,

Indonesian : ‘What makes you think so ?’

American : ‘You said the content of the bottle was formalin.’

Indonesian : ‘I didn’t say so. I said that it was for Malin. You know in Indonesian untuk means for, so Ini untuk Malin means This is for Malin.’

American : ‘Let us check to the lab anyway.’

"It turned out to be orange juice." My friend ended the story.

Have a good time my friends!

   A folktale is often intended to start building up a personality of a kid. The story of Malin Kundang is to teach a child not to hurt his parents let alone to insult them. The following story tells what happened to Malin when he spat on his mother’s face. He wouldn’t admit that the poor woman was his mother, because he was embarrassed to have a mother a poor woman clad in rags.

   My grandma told me the story. “In a village hundred years ago”, she began, “lived a very poor family with a son named Malin Kundang.  In the attempt to change his fate Malin traveled to a city very far away from the village. To earn his living he started working as a labor, helping a merchant packing and unpacking the goods to sell in the market. He saved his money and after a year he was able to start his own business. He traveled from one city to another and several years later he became a very successful merchant and married to a beautiful young woman. He even owned a sailing ship”.

   “One day”, continued my grandma,” he came to his hometown for a business and one of  his village people recognized him and told his mother that Malin was at the harbor with his ship. His mother went to the ship and to her surprise she was forced to get off the board and was spat to her face. His mother was very sad indeed and prayed to God to curse him. The storm came, the ship and Malin turned to stone, and you can see it now at Air Manis the wreckage of the ship in the form of rock.”

   According to a friend of mine this was a true story not a legend. He said that a new evident had been found by an American scientist researching together with an Indonesian fellow counterpart. They dug the earth around the wreckage and found several empty bottles one of them still contained a few drops of liquid. On the label it was written UNTUK MALIN. The American scientist asked the Indonesian what it meant and he was told that the meaning was FOR MALIN. The researchers convinced that Malin corpse was preserved and not turned to stone as it was told.

   Hi friends, I hope you enjoy reading it. Please tell us yours.