Develop Good Visual Habits

Develop good visual habits to have better vision. Vision deterioration is a result of bad visual habits that have accelerated vision deterioration over the years. It is like bad posture that affects shallow breathing, resulting in many health issues. Over time, many of us have formed bad visual habits that affect how we see, leading to many vision problems.

Blinking: Blink constantly to relax the eye. Blinking has to be soft and complete, not rapid, movement of the eyes. To relax your eyes, imagine you were using your eyelashes to gently open and close your eyes. Make sure your movements are slow, gentle, and complete.

Shifting: Shift your eyes constantly (the healthy eye sends more than 50 images per second to the brain) and rapidly by changing your eye focus frequently. Your eyes move more rapidly when they are relaxed.

Blink and shift your eyes as often and as much as possible. Just be more aware of the need to blink and shift constantly and consistently.

Peripheral vision: Be aware of your total field of vision whenever you focus your eyes. Use BOTH central vision and peripheral vision at the same time. That is, don’t STARE! When you are looking at something, try to look at other things on the side. Cultivate this awareness.

Natural sunlight: Spend more time outdoors instead of indoors to reap the health benefits of sunlight in nourishing your visual system. Warm sunlight early in the morning or later in the afternoon is beneficial to your eyes. Form the habit of not wearing sunglasses, unless the sun is too strong for your eyes.

Palming: Relaxation of the eye cures all vision problems. The eye rests completely only in total darkness. Practice palming and visualize blackness even for as little as 1 to 2 minutes per session. Of course, the longer you palm, the more relaxed your eyes become. In addition to covering your eyes with your palms, you may also cover them with eye patches (obtainable at pharmacies). Don’t close your eyes tightly; instead, gently look and visualize the blackness in front of your eyes.

Vision without glasses: See without glasses to bring back your eye’s natural “accommodation” for better vision. However, remember not to strain to see without glasses. Reduce your time of wearing glasses, and delay the time you put on glasses in the morning. Use under-corrected prescription to slowly and gradually wean yourself from wearing corrective lenses.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© Stephen Lau

Drinks to Heal the Immune System

Drinks to Heal the Immune System

Burdock and daikon drink

Burdock root has been used as both food and medicine in Asia and Europe for thousands of years. Recently, it has been used as a nourishing tonic for cancer, liver disease, and rheumatism. Burdock root is a staple diet of the Japanese, who are among the people with the longest lifespan in the world.

Fresh burdock root is available at many greengrocers, Asian supermarkets, and natural food stores in the United States.

Daikon is Japanese radish. Its phytochemicals have well-recognized healing and anti-carcinogenic properties:

It cleanses the blood (the kidneys).

It promotes energy circulation.

It increases the metabolic rate (a weight-loss remedy in Asia).

It treats hangovers.

It decongests the lungs, clears sore throat, colds, and edema.

The burdock and daikon drink can be taken any time, and as much as you like.

Ingredients

One burdock root (about 24 inches long)

One daikon with green tops

One small carrot with green tops.

Preparation

Cut all ingredients into small pieces.

Place them in a pot with water double the volume of the ingredients.

Bring to a boil.

Pour out the content, and drink it.

You can repeat the process one more time. This time, after bringing it to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer it for another 20 minutes. Let the ingredients steep in the hot water for another 20 minutes before drinking it.

Four greens drink

Bitter melon, a popular Asian vegetable, is well known for blood glucose control. It contains a substance similar to bovine insulin, which has been shown in experimental studies to achieve a positive sugar regulating effect by suppressing the neural response to sweet taste stimuli.

Celery is a good source of insoluble fiber as well as essential nutrients, including vitamin C, calcium, and potassium. In addition, it may reduce blood pressure, and block cancer cells.

Cucumber has been associated with healing properties in relation to diseases of the kidney, urinary bladder, liver, and pancreas. In addition, cucumber juice is an excellent skin tonic.

Green pepper is loaded with vitamin C (a potent antioxidant) and beta-carotene (to prevent cataracts).

Make the nutritious four greens drink by juicing them in approximately equal portions. Drink immediately.

Pine needles drink

Pine needle drink is a perfect drink made from evergreen pine needles. Select your pine needles by picking the newest green ones from a pine tree. Wash the pine needles thoroughly. Put them in a cloth bag, and steep it in a pot of boiling water—if you don’t use a cloth bag, then strain the needles before drinking. Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.

Pine needle drink is loaded with vitamin C and other nutrients to offer the following benefits: eyesight; fatigue; heart disease; kidney ailments; sclerosis (inflammatory nerve disorder); and varicose veins.

 Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The 3Ds in Faith

Faith demands 3Ds from anyone who wants to live by faith. To believe in God and to live in faith, the 3Ds are denial, devotion, and doing. 

When Jesus called men to be His disciples, one of the fundamental qualifications was a "single eye"--the single vision that sees nothing other than the total commitment to achieve that single goal in life, which is to serve God and to spread His Word. In the Bible, when the disciples followed Jesus, they left everything behind and followed Him immediately without second thoughts.

"And another also said, "I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say goodbye to those at home." But Jesus said to him, 'No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'" Luke 9: 61-62

Looking back is a distraction, and no one could follow Jesus as a "distracted" disciple. Likewise, to believe in God, you no longer live a life of convenience but a life of denial, devotion, and doing. 

So, you must show your denial of attachments to the material world; you must demonstrate your devotion to your faith by reading and meditating His Word every day; and you must indicate your doing to prove that actions are louder than words. 

"Allow the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." Luke 9: 59-60

Denial means "dying to self" and allowing God to take complete control of one's life. Denial, which is the willingness to "obey" God, engenders devotion that entails loving God with one's whole heart.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment." Matthew 22:37

With denial and devotion, one can then put one's commitment into actions, choices, and priorities through one's doing.

"I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I do not seek my own will, but the will of the one who sent me." John 5:30

Living by faith: Just follow the 3Ds all your life, and God's Spirit will help you all the way.

Stephen Lau

Living By Faith Is Living In Miracles

 

The Paradoxes of Living by Faith

Living by faith, you must first become a believer in God. To do that, you must have your intent to believe, which begins with your thinking mind to believe the unbelievable—that is, understanding the many paradoxes of life and existence.

Well, what is a paradox? A paradox is a statement with two totally opposite meanings that seem contradictory to each other, and yet when they’re together, they not only are true but also make sense.

Believing in God has many paradoxes: the Creator becomes a human being; the Infinite becomes finite; the Eternal One enters limited time; and death is the only way to eternal life. The Presence of God is another paradox: sometimes humans see God’s love, forgiveness, mercy, and justice; other times humans see only His indifference, condemnation, and even injustice. So, knowing and understanding the presence of the many paradoxes of life is your recognition of your own imperfections, and thus turning yourself to seeking God.

Seeking God requires your humility, which is the opposite of pride. God is above, and you’re below. Humility opens the door to God, who never changes Himself but who forever changes those coming to Him with humility. 

So, your belief becomes your becoming, which is your self-transformation. Believing in God comes with free gifts—eternal life, hope, joy, and peace—and your free will—your freedom of choice to receive or not to receive those free gifts from God. Your freedom of will is based on three essentials:

Faith: Believing in the existence and the presence of God is your obeying His Commandments with your own accountability to God.

Trust: Trusting God is your believing in the veracity of His Word.

“so is my word that goes out from my mouth. 

It will not return to me empty

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah: 55:11

Obedience: Obedience is your doing all the right and the righteous things in your everyday life. This daily task is most difficult, if not impossible, while living in your flesh, already corrupted by your sins. But God provides a Helper, the Holy Spirit, to guide you along the difficult journey of obedience.

Living by faith: Believing in God requires understanding the paradoxes of life, which requires spiritual wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Living By Faith Is Living In Miracles

The Paradoxes of Life

The Paradoxes of Life

A paradox is a statement with two totally opposite meanings that may seem contradictory to each other and yet together they not only are true but also make sense.

Believing in God in itself has many paradoxes: the Creator becomes a creature; the Infinite becomes finite; the Eternal One enters into time; and death is the way to life. These are some of the paradoxes expressed in the Bible.

The presence of God is one of the many paradoxes of life. Indeed, sometimes we see God’s love, mercy, and justice, but there are also times we see only His indifference, condemnation, and even injustice. In fact, there are many times we are prone to asking the pivotal question: “Where is God?”

So, how do we explain this enigma and the paradox of God’s presence in human lives?

The reality is that God does not change. God is always and will forever be who He is: God is constant and present. It is only humans’ perceptions of God that constantly change under many different circumstances.

 

Believing in God is a tall order because we are living in a world not only of paradoxes but also of changes.

The paradox of two-in-one person

You are a two-in-one person. As a matter of fact, we all are, to a certain extent.

There are two persons living inside you: one is your ego-self; the other is your spirit. They co-exist: your ego-self is living in the physical or material world, while your spirit is living in a totally different environment with a different dimension. There is constant and continual contact and interaction between these two personalities.

Your ego-self is assertive, and even aggressive, always telling you that you are separate from everyone else. Your ego-self wants more of everything, not only to define who you are but also to separate you from others. Your ego-self is judgmental, not only self-evaluating but also assessing others through comparison and contrast with yourself. Your ego-self is constantly shifting and shuffling back and forth between the past and the future, instrumental in improving the ego-self in the past, as well as in enhancing the ego-self expected in the future. 

Your spirit is the other person living inside you. Your spirit, on the other hand, is gentle and submissive in nature, always nudging you to do what is right and to avoid doing what is wrong.

The paradox is that both your ego-self and your spirit co-exist, and that each strives to dominate and influence the other.

The classic illustration of the two-in-one person is Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the story, both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have a dark side within them, where evil is always lurking underneath to surface anytime. In the end, it turns out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are actually one and the same person. 

Given that the ego-self and the spirit co-exist and that one can never totally get rid of the other, the reality is that the more control the ego-self has over the spirit, the more difficult it is to understand God’s presence, not to mention to attain His wisdom. To unravel the paradox of two-in-one person, let go of the ego-self, or at least diminish its control over the spirit, so as to feel more the presence of God in order to seek His wisdom.

The paradox of understanding

One of the reasons for the paradox of God’s presence is rationalization. Man is a rational being, and understanding is vital to believing.

According to St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo (354-430 A.D.), in life there are certain things we do not believe unless we understand them, and there are also other things that we do not understand unless we believe them first. According to St. Augustine, faith is not opposed to understanding, nor is it independent of understanding. His famous statement “faith seeking understanding” is an act of believing first, without which unbelief closes the door to further understanding. In other words, believe first, and understanding will follow. St. Anselm of Canterbury, a well-known Christian philosopher and theologian of the eleventh century, also echoed St. Augustine’s statement in his famous motto “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand.”

“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

(Hebrews 11:3)

The reality is that man has only limited power of understanding. Therefore, let go of any pre-conceived concept or rationalization in order to appreciate the presence of God, thereby opening the door to further understanding the mystery of His presence.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Chinese Wisdom to Succeed

The Chinese Proverbs

"Do today's work, today." Traditional

"A kind man sees kindness, the wise man sees wisdom." Book of Changes

"Practice makes for true knowledge." Tuotuo

"Failure is the mother of success." Traditional

"Wanting to know everything is the worst of follies." Zhuang Zi

"To fare well, a man must trust in his feelings." Zhuang Zi

"Better to display your ugliness than to hide your ignorance." Traditional

To succeed, you must set your goals and then take your appropriate actions with no delay and no procrastination. Your knowledge must be focused, instead of diversified, while your emotions must be positive due to anticipated failures.

 Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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Anything Is Everything OR Nothing

Anything Is Everything Or Nothing?

Living in this material world is all about struggling and surviving. The good news is that it is a human race in which there are really no real winners and losers in the end. But no matter what, we all have to finish that race somehow, with no exception. Just do your very best, and let the Creator do the rest to help you finish your own race with grace and dignity. The wisdom of your body, your mind, and your spirit may awaken and rejuvenate you along the rest of your life journey.

Living is always a discovery process. Life is a journey of self-discovery—finding who you are, why you are here, what you really need, and how you may meet your basic needs, so that you, like every one else, can fulfill some of your life goals and purposes that are exclusively designed for you. But to do just that, you need profound human wisdom and spiritual wisdom to continue that journey as if everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein once said: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is a miracle.”

Indeed, life is a miracle in itself. Being alive is a miracle. Having your breaths is already a miracle. Everything in life is a miracle.

To truly believe and appreciate the miracle of life, you need the wisdom to grasp the full meaning of anything is everything, everything is nothing, and nothing is everything—they may all ultimately lead to your self-awakening, without which you will continue to live as if nothing is a miracle.

What is meant by “anything is everything”? It may have different meanings and different interpretations to different individuals.

First of all, human perceptions are subjective and individualized: they are affected not only by the five senses, but also by the unique experiences of an individual, as well as by the indelible memories of those experiences retained in the mind of that individual. Therefore, what is important to you may not be as important to others, and vice-versa. For this reason, anything could be everything to you, but not to others.

An illustration

Near the end of 2016, a road rage occurred in Arkansas that ended in the tragic death of a 3-year-old child. 

A woman, with her 3-year-old grandson sitting at the back of her car, stopped at a stop sign. A man in the car right behind honked her for not starting her car immediately, but the woman honked back; thus the road rage began with the man firing a gun shot at the back of the woman’s car.

Stopping too long at a stop sign,  or wanting to get to a place on time might be everything to the man. Having the right to remain where she was might also be everything to the woman, so she naturally honked back.  

Unfortunately, that anything-is-everything incident ended in tragedy—the death of the woman’s three-year-old grandson being shot dead while sitting at the back of her car.

In real life, anything could be everything to real people—it all depends on their respective perspectives of anything is everything.

A frog in a well

In many ways, many of us are just like a frog in a well, looking up at the limited sky above, in that we see only ourselves, and no one else, and therefore anything is everything to us. In other words, we see only our own needs and desires that have to be fulfilled and gratified no matter how, but without seeing those in others.

Just like the man in the car rage who saw only his own need to get going, but without even considering why the woman might be stalling her car at the stop sign and not moving ahead right away.

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Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau