"The genius of Tulku Urgyen was that he could point out the nature of mind with precision and matter-of-factness of teaching a person how to thread a needle and could get an ordinary meditator like me to recognize that consciousness is intrinsically free of self ... I came to Tulku Urgyen yearning for the experience of self-transcendence, and in a few minutes he showed me I had no self to transcend ... Tulku Urgyen simply handed me the ability to cut through the illusion of the self directly, even in ordinary states of consciousness.  This instruction was, without question, the most important thing I have ever been explicitly taught by another human being.  It has given me a way to escape the usual tides of psychological suffering - fear, anger, shame - in an instant. "


Posts tagged with 'diet'

Vitamin D - time to take action!

1st October 2008

I final got round to visiting Oliver Gillie's campaigning website "Health Research Forum" yesterday. It's well worth having a look at. At first glance I thought he might just be a bit of a cranky campaigner using the internet to have a louder shout about his pet subject. Not so. …

Folic acid – should we take supplements?

19th April 2008

A GP friend recently asked me about taking folic acid supplements. He said that in a discussion about supplements with a knowledgeable medical colleague, he'd been told that "there is good evidence to show that we should all be taking ... folic acid." The friend apparently takes 800mcg/day. This is …

Eat 5 to 9 portions of fruit & veg daily

10th February 2008

There's a helpful editorial in last month's American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) - "Fruit and vegetables: think variety, go ahead, eat!" As with many journals, one doesn't have to pay anything to look at the full text of AJCN editorials. It's a good read. It comments on a paper …

Does healthy lifestyle really make much difference?

8th January 2008

In an earlier post (January 3, 08), I looked at how common sense isn’t common, at least for healthy behaviours. Only about 3% of the population are ticking all the right boxes for non-smoking, alcohol use, exercise, weight and diet. This is interesting and maybe surprising, but does it really …

Common sense isn’t common

3rd January 2008

Common sense isn’t common, at least with healthy behaviours. The vast majority of us know that we should eat sensibly, be a reasonable weight, exercise regularly, not abuse alcohol, and avoid smoking. Do you know what percentage of people actually follow all this obvious advice? A survey (Reeves and Rafferty …