Wishes for Christmas

Flickr Photo Deborah Swain
Used with pemission

Tai chi offers Groundedness

T'ai Chi offers a groundedness and body sense to people who have been intellectuals and spiritual aspirants all their lives. People tell me that for the first time in their lives, they are really aware of their feet and how they are connecting with the earth. They begin to notice the subtle shifts in their bodies from day to day and from moment to moment. And--they begin to become more accepting of these variabilities in their bodies and they begin to celebrate the subtle changes that herald new awareness and new flexibility.

Pam Kircher, MD

Tai Chi, How to Breathe & Get More Energy

"Breath is the link between the inner and outer worlds."
-- Alice Christensen

John Crewdson is another enthusiastic T'ai Chi Blogger. He recently posted about how most people have forgotten how to breathe properly. He points out that we all knew how to breathe as children, but that we forgot as we became adults and that we struggle because of it.

John writes that breathing "wrong" is bad for us over the long term. Because of the way most of us have learned to breathe we slowly loose lung capacity over the years. Our lungs stop working as well because we only use part of them, and as John points out, what we don't use, we lose.

To improve your breathing use your stomach to pull down on your diaphragm so your lungs can fill up with air. Let your ribs expand naturally. Don't lift your chest. Sometimes it's easier to do this lying down until you get the hang of it. Soon this way of breathing will become more natural to you again as you begin to feel the benefits of filling your lungs with more air. You will have more endurance, more energy, be more relaxed and think more clearly.

Regular T'ai Chi practice helps you do this naturally.

T'ai Chi For Athletes

For students who have been athletes and body centered, T'ai Chi often offers them a window into a stillness and a focus that they have not experienced previously. For the person who has primarily lived in their body, tai chi with its many steps and its attention to all aspects of the body in each move encourages them to really use their brains in a focused way. As they learn the form and begin to feel the flow of energy as they move through the form, there is a spiritual sense of total connectedness and completeness that is quite powerful. Body-centered people frequently tell me that they have never been able to sit still long enough to meditate but that they achieve a meditative state as they practice T'ai Chi.

Pam Kircher, MD

Tea Is Not Just Tea

Click to Order Lotus Tea Pot

In China, Tea was first introduced to common people as a medicine, and then a food spice, and later a new material for drinking. Tea was later introduced to the royal family, and then to the Buddhist monasteries.

When tea entered into common people's daily life, it became a part of Chinese traditional Daoism; when tea entered into royal family's life, the royal family branded it with Confucianism; when tea entered into the buddhist circle to help buddhist monks meditate, buddhists dissolved Buddhism into tea pots.

So, for Chinese, tea is not just tea, it is a combination of Chinese Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
apotoftea.com

Monkey-Picked Oolong

Meditating on this Yellow Liquor
pale and shimmering in a porcelain cup,
I become liquid myself,
poised on nothingness,
a quiet monk in a forgotten valley.

Marc E. Hofstadter
From Steeped in the World of Tea

Remain Conscious Of The Center

The Chinese Taoist tradition has a method known as "Tai-Chi".
It is a method of centering, a method of witnessing.
They say do whatsoever, but remain conscious of the center at the navel.

Walking, be conscious of the center at the navel.
Eating, be conscious of the center at the navel.
Fighting, be conscious of the center at the navel.

Do whatsoever you are doing, but remain conscious of one thing:
that you are centered in the navel.

Again, if you are conscious of the navel, you cannot think.
The moment you begin to think, you will not be conscious of the navel.

~~Osho

Tea Party

This is an entry for the Calm-a-Sutra tea awareness scholarship competition.

The videographer says: Strangely enough, the roof really is my favorite place to drink tea now!
Enjoy...




Lyrics:

I'm drinking my tea
So you know I'm for real.
I'm drinking my tea
And here's how I feel:
I'm waking up, I'm shaking up
This is the way I take it up
No-DOWN (stir it round n' round)
This is the way I BREAK it down!

Tea (x7)

[Yo Feminem up in da house]

Tea (x7)

[Y'all know what she's about]

Made from black tea
With a blend of Indian spices
This chai is so fly
And here my advice is:

Drinking this tea
Can wake you up
Without those caffeine jitters
In a java cup.

And if you've had a long day
Looking for a soothing balm
This black tea here
Can help calm you down.

Green tea for you,
Green tea for me,
It's building up
Our immunity.

It's full of antioxidants
That shut down cancer cells
Lower your cholesterol
And even build heart health.

So if you're looking for a drink
That you know won't slow you down
Helps manage your health
And maybe lose some pounds,

Boil up some water
Choose some tight tea leaves
Put it all in a mug
And give it time to steep.

Tea (x7)
Tea (x7)

Thich Nhat Hanh: Doing Dishes

Do you enjoy doing dishes? You might think about this chore differently once you read the following article by the Vietnamese-born, American-educated monk who  teaches mindfulness for the Western world. Thây (as he is called by his students) is one of the best known and most respected Zen masters in the world today and  is perhaps most known for his prolific writings on meditation, mindfulness, and peace.

Thây writes "To my mind, the idea that doing the dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you are not doing them. Once you are standing in front of the sink with your sleeves rolled up and your hands in warm water, it really is not so bad. I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands. I know that if I hurry in order to go and have a cup of tea, the time will be unpleasant and not worth living. That would be a pity, for each minute, each second of life is a miracle. The dishes themselves and the fact that I am here washing them are miracles! Each bowl I wash, each poem I compose, each time I invite a bell to sound is a miracle, each has exactly the same value.

One day, while washing a bowl, I felt that my movements were as sacred and respectful as bathing a newborn Buddha. If he were to read this, that newborn Buddha would certainly be happy for me, and not at all insulted at being compared with a bowl. Each thought, each action in the sunlight of awareness becomes sacred. In this light, no boundary exists between the sacred and the profane. I must confess it takes me a bit longer to do the dishes, but I live fully in every moment, and I am happy. Washing the dishes is at the same time a means and an end that is, not only do we do the dishes in order to have clean dishes, we also do the dishes just to do the dishes, to live fully in each moment while washing them.

If I am incapable of washing dishes joyfully, if I want to finish them quickly so I can go and have a cup of tea, I will be equally incapable of drinking the tea joyfully. With the cup in my hands I will be thinking about what to do next, and the fragrance and the flavor of the tea, together with the pleasure of drinking it, will be lost. I will always be dragged into the future, never able to live in the present moment."

~~Thich Nhat Hanh

Click the image to order:

Global Awakening

'Tai Chi & Qigong will play an important role in global awakening.'
~~Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth

Yang Style T'ai Chi Chuan
Traditional Yang Style Long Form
Taiji Chuan 24

Practice Everyday

"If you practice for one day you get one day’s benefit, with daily practice you can steadily improve. If you don’t practice for one day you lose ten days of development.

So practice everyday without stopping! Western students must understand this clearly. Practice everyday!"
~~Chen Zhenglei, 19th generation of the Chen Family.

This is Grandmaster Chen Zhenglei's 2 disk introduction to the New Frame First Form Routine of Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan. This is a good starting point for people who want to study one of the traditional branches of tai chi for one of the most famous and high level masters in china.

Filmed in Chinese but has a resonably good set of English subtitles.

Drink your tea slowly

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,
as if it is the axis
on which the world earth revolves
- slowly, evenly, without
rushing toward the future;
Live the actual moment.
Only this moment is life.
~~Thich Nhat Hanh

edited 6/27/15

A String of Pearls

T'ai Chi Chuan has been compared to a string of pearls. A pearl is formed by an oyster out of a need to deal with an irritating object. For humans, this irritation can have a physical, mental or spiritual basis, maybe all three.

T'ai Chi evolved, like a pearl, to deal with these irritations. A grain of sand is surrounded in defense by the oyster to form a smooth pearl. A threat or need to our individual self is made into a movement of such beauty by the T'ai Chi principles that almost everybody feels a deep sense of awe. These separate moments are strung together to make T'ai Chi Chuan, as practiced by most people today."

From 108 Insights into T'ai Chi Chuan: A String of Pearls, a motivational Pocket Guide for T'ai Chi Chuan. "In Traditional Yang Style T'ai Chi , according to customary counting, there are 108 movements. So," says author and teacher Michael Gilman, "I have decided to use 108 as my String of Pearls."