[draft] Taichi, Zen, and traditional Chinese healing, they all have the Chinese origin, some practices date back thousands of years. Through the history, much of the knowledge were not only preserved but further developed, and widely practiced in Chinese society today.
This website is on its mission to introduce things of this nature, in English, especially of those practices that are known to improve one’s health, longevity and wellbeing for the body and mind.
We strive to dispel the myth but deliver the essence. We invite qualified practitioners to explain the ideas, concepts and techniques in an understandable way. We intend to bridge the language and cultural divide. This is a long journey and we are taking our steps forward.
Taichi, Zen, and Healing
Taichi
Taichi may be spelled in different ways in English: Tai Chi, Taiji, or Tai Ji; the full name is Taichi Quan. Originated as a martial art, it is widely known in China from centuries ago that it has health benefits. In recent years, the West started to look into this phenomenon, please see post: “Benefits of Taichi…” words from the Health Authorities
Our website will focus on “health benefiting” aspect of Taichi and health Qigong (a specific practice for health), their forms, techniques, concepts…etc., these may overlap with other schools of martial art teaching, but overall, this site would leave the fighting aspect out from its focus.
Zen
The word Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word 禪 (pinyin: Chán), which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as “absorption” or “meditative state”.
Buddhism originally came from India, Chán was developed in China during the 6th century, blended with Taoist concept; Taoist emphasized Buddha-nature to be found in “everyday” human life, just as the Tao.
D.T. Suzuki calling Chán a “natural evolution of Buddhism under Taoist conditions.” From China, Zen spread south to Vietnam, northeast to Korea and East to Japan.
Today, Zen is seen as a collection of Eastern/Chinese philosophy, directly related to Taoism and Buddhism.
In this website, we recognize Zen as more of an attitude than a believe, we will focus on the everyday wisdom that Zen can bring to us – such as the concept of Tao, but leave the religious portion out. However, we do find many great teachers themselves are religious practitioner, we have great respect for their learnings and teachings, and appreciate when they share their wisdom with us!!
Healing
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has thousands of years of history; was applied to millions of people throughout China and East Asia since ancient times. Many of TCM theories are fundamentally different from the Western medicine. This site is intended to introduce practices that based on or derived from CTM, especially in the preventive, personal well-being and longevity (养生) related areas.
