Jennifer: Drug Abuse

Knowledge of Life: Tales of an Ayurvedic Practitioner in Malaysia

‘To cease and abstain from evil forbearance with respect to intoxicants, and steadfastness in virtue. This is the highest blessing.’

Gautama Buddha, Manggala Sutra

Jennifer Tan who came to see me knowing she had a drug problem. She first came to see me eight years ago. 21 years old, she was barely five feet tall, very thin and frail. Her lips appeared dry; her skin was sallow and lifeless. When she stepped on the scales, she weighed 42 kg.

She was accompanied by her boyfriend, Adam.

When she finally settled into the chair, I asked her, “What’s the problem?”

“I have to lose weight.”

I thought she was joking. But her tone was resolute and I could tell that she meant every word.

“I want to be 35 kg. I have to be 35 kg.”

I

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Five Easy Steps to Your First 100 Facebook Page Fans

By Dr. Rohi Shetty

Setting up your first Facebook Business Page to promote your blog or freelance writing is fast, easy, simple, and free.

The next step is to use your Facebook Page to deliver awesome content to your target audience. Your first target should be to get 100 fans to like your Facebook Page.

Here is a step by step tutorial to gain your first 100 Facebook fans:

Publish at least 5–10 posts before you invite anyone

These posts may be links to your articles and blog posts. However, you should also share links to interesting and engaging content by influencers in your niche.

Pro tip: Add attractive images, funny quotations, and short videos that are more likely to be shared. Also, use Emojipedia to help find the right emoji for your posts.

Update your Page regularly

Ideally, you should add at least one new post daily.

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Over the Bridge

This is a surprise. Climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge. You’re living the high life, I see.

This was the whatsapp message I received from a relative. What was she surprised about? That I was in Sydney? That I didn’t tell her I was on holiday? Or that I was on holiday at all. It had to be the last one.

That tinge of envy in the message aside, I admit that I told very few people about this desire to climb the bridge. The only ones who knew were my friends in Sydney, my mother and some very close friends. Also, I got the feeling that some didn’t think I was serious about it. In fact, my editor wasn’t interested in a story because she felt that there was nothing unique about climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The first time I thought about climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, it wasn’t even possible to

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating Your First Facebook Page

By Dr. Rohi Shetty

“I’m going to open a new Facebook account named ‘Anonymous’
so all the cool quotes will be attributed to me!”
~Clinton Thomas

”

Your Facebook Profile is your personal account; your Facebook Page is your business account. Ideally, you shouldn’t mix the two because your Facebook friends may not be interested in your writing activities and your readers may not be fascinated by your cat.

I confess I didn’t have a Facebook Page until I was forced to create one last week. (Because you need a Facebook Page to create Messenger chatbots.) That’s when I realized that the unbelievable benefits that writers can gain from a Facebook Page.

The good news is that it’s surprisingly easy to create a Facebook Page. It doesn’t take much time either, and best of all, it is completely free. You can create as many Facebook Pages as you like for different

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Are You a Writer Without a Chatbot?

By Dr. Rohi Shetty

When Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, was 24 years old, he owned a company in Manhattan. The rent for the office space was a cool $1.2 million. One day, Andrew invited a direct mail marketer (let’s call him Johny) to his office to see what he could learn from him about direct mail that could be applied to email marketing.

When Johny saw that Andrew had a whole floor as his office in midtown Manhattan, he said, “Wow! Email built all this?” Later on, he admitted, “I missed email.”

Johny was great at direct mail marketing and he made a whole lot of money at it. But he got lazy and didn’t pay attention to email. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. He was too far behind. After he left, Andrew’s CFO said, “That was a splash of cold water. We could

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The Biggest Obstacle to Meditation (And How to Overcome It)

By Dr. Rohi Shetty

“The opposite of insight is excite.”
~Ajahn Brahmavamso

A meditator went to a spiritual teacher and asked for his advice. “My mind is never free from thoughts, though I’ve been trying really hard to get rid of them since several years. Please guide me. How do I get rid of these thoughts?”

The teacher said, “Continue your practice as usual but with one change—avoid all thoughts about monkeys while meditating. Come back after one week.”

After a week, the meditator returned and reported, “Before I met you, I never had any thoughts about monkeys during meditation. But after you advised me not to think about monkeys, I can’t stop thinking about them. The more I try not to think about monkeys, the more thoughts I get about them. I’m totally stressed during meditation.

“And this stress has affected my peace of mind. I’ve lost my appetite and I can’t sleep properly.

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Canopy of Peace

Sometimes, a conversation with a friend is comforting, enlightening and entertaining in equal measure.

”

The decision is made. Instead of taking a rickshaw or the car, we’ll walk. Rohi will lead the way to Shreyas restaurant (http://www.hotelshreyas.in/restaurant.php) that serves a Maharashtrian Thali. Although it is January, the mid-morning sun warms my back as we walk along Prabhat Road in Pune, India. As we amble along, cars, scooters, cycles and pedestrians race past. Perhaps, ‘race’ isn’t the right word. At most, they’re all going at 15 km per hour because the road is congested and choking with people, noise and smells.

There are squeals of laughter from children nearby. One man is selling vegetables by the roadside. A young girl on a scooter wraps one end of her dupatta around her head then expertly covers her nose and mouth. Once she puts on her sunglasses, there’s nothing of her face that’s visible

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Arun: Diabetes

Knowledge of Life: Tales of an Ayurvedic Practitioner in Malaysia
“The abundance of cheap food with low nutritional value in the Western diet has wreaked havoc on our health; in America, one third of children and two thirds of adults are overweight or obese and are more likely to develop diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”

Ellen Gustafson

In Ayurveda, diabetes comes under the broad heading of ‘Prameha’. This word is said to be derived from the root ‘Mehi Sechene’ meaning watering and, in this context, it means passing urine. As such, in Ayurveda, diabetes is defined by excessive urination, both in quantity and frequency. The other signs and symptoms of diabetes are excessive sweating with foetid odour, flabbiness of body, sedentary habits, excessive mucosal discharge, obesity and flabbiness, rapid growth of hairs and nails, thirst, sweetness of mouth, burning sensation

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Asha: Rheumatoid Arthritis

Knowledge of Life: Tales of an Ayurvedic Practitioner in Malaysia
“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

In general terms, the primary manifestations of Rheumatoid arthritis are in the peripheral joints, but there is a wide systemic involvement in the body. Asha Nair was one such patient. By the time I met her, she’d been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis for the past five years.

When she first walked into my room, the first thing I noticed was what I call a ‘moon face’. Her face was swollen and this told me that she was probably on steroids. Her gait was so unstable that even at that young age, she was using a walking stick. After introducing ourselves, she took a deep

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The Five Enemies of Meditation (and How to Overcome Them)

By Dr. Rohi Shetty

During the ten-day Vipassana retreat, we learn how to practice three different meditation techniques. First, we learn how to concentrate the mind using awareness of respiration. Next, we learn how to develop mental equanimity based on awareness of physical sensations. Finally, we learn the practice of metta, in which we share our positive feelings of love and goodwill with all beings.

During the meditation course, we also come face to face with the five formidable enemies of meditation. These are mental obstacles that hinder the practice of meditation. After the course, during our daily meditation practice at home, learning to deal with these five hindrances becomes a part of our meditation practice.

The Buddha called them nivarana—mental factors that hinder our progress not only in meditation but also in every worthy endeavor that we may choose to undertake. So they are enemies not only of meditation but

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