Bodhidharma at the Shaolin Temple

For many of us Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the season of fun and celebration and over indulgence of food (I write this having just returned home from such a gathering). It is a time when we tend to abandon our healthier routines.

I stumbled onto a website that reminds us how helpful tai chi can be this time of year, as some studies show that tai chi practice can lower blood pressure and even decrease cholesterol. 

Actually, tai chi as a way to mend our unhealthy ways may go back to the Shaolin Temple in Hunan, China, a Buddhist Monastery that is often credited with being the "birth place" of tai chi.

The story goes (whether fact or legend) that sometime around the year A.D. 525 an Indian monk named Bodhidharma visited the Shoalin Temple and found the Taoist monks there to be in pretty bad shape... not getting exercise, eating and drinking indulgently, living a pretty undisciplined life.

Bodhidharma was pretty appalled at what he found and began to "whip them into shape," introducing a form of "boxing" or qi gong that led to early forms of tai chi. These monks eventually became a formidable fighting unit who helped defeat invaders on the Song Mountain (one of China's "sacred" mountains). 

Chinese history is fascinating with layers and layers of interpretation and mythology. Speaking only for myself, I find it inspiring to remember that these movements I do nearly every day have been done by generations in China and around the world, deriving the same benefits both in mind and body (because humans haven't really changed much over those centuries).  

But for today, relax. Happy Thanksgiving.