Healthy Longevity and Taoism

Copyright (c) 2007 Stephen Lau

TAOISM

Taoism, cultivation of the self, provides guidelines to health and longevity. According to Taoism, you are in control of your own life, in particular, your healthy longevity.

Taoism is a way of life. It encompasses everything from the universe and nature to the human body. Essentially, it focuses on harmony of “yin” and the “yang.”

Zen (which I have mentioned in several of my previous articles) is a “practice” of Taoism, and is sometimes interspersed with Buddhist teachings. Unlike Buddhism, Taoism believes in the value of life, but does not focus on life after death. Taoism is not a religion.

Taoism was initiated by Lao Tzu, a contemporary of Confucius (both were among the greatest philosophers in ancient China).

Lao Tzu says, “The highest virtue is achieved through non-action. It does not require effort because virtue is natural to people.” In other words, the wisdom in doing things is innate in every individual.

You act without doing and work without effort. You prevent trouble before it arises. You put things in order before they exist. The giant pine tree grows from a tiny sprout (like the Biblical mustard seed). The journey of a thousand miles begins with your first step.

Taoism offers a much broader concept of health and longevity than contemporary Western medicine.

For example, most of the forms of sport and exercise practiced in both the East and West today are highly competitive. They emphasize strength and quick reflexes, with strenuous training (and sometimes reinforced with drugs) designed to increase strength and stamina for ultimate success. If you cannot complete successfully, you are out of the game. Taoism, on the other hand, offers spontaneity. You do what you can, and do the best of what you can.

Another example, many people today tend to think of health only in terms of curing sickness, and longevity only in terms of avoiding fatal diseases. Taoism, on the other hand, focuses on the art of living longer and healthier, not merely surviving into old age. The Yellow Emperor of ancient China once asked his sage how he could live long. The sage replied, “There is nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard. Just hold your spirit in stillness, and your body will be healthy. You must be still. You must be pure in mind and spirit, not subjecting your body to toil, not disturbing your vital force. Then you may live for long.” This succinctly expresses the art of living well according to Taoism.

The Chinese have an ancient tradition that does not share the limitations of the Western approach to cure. Taoism health and practices, which affect all aspects of life, should be embraced at an early age, and healthy longevity is not just a problem for elderly people.

HEALTH REJUVENATION FOR HEALTHY LONGEVITY

Lao Tzu has this to say about the attainment of longevity through the process of rejuvenation: “The way of Tao is like a newborn baby. . . .The baby’s bones may seem weak and his sinews soft, yet his grasp is strong. He knows nothing about sexual conjugation, yet his penis may sometimes be erect, showing the perfection of his vital essence.”

According to Lao Tzu, when you were born, your body and mind were in natural harmony. However, as you grow up, you become subject to pressures and worries, undermining the flexibility of your body and the openness of your mind; as a result, there is disharmony.

Healthy longevity is the attainment of harmony of the physical and spiritual aspects of human life. When you concentrate your attention on fasting the spirit to the body, as well as on correct and healthy breathing, your whole being becomes flexible just like that of a baby. This flexibility and suppleness of the body and mind are achieved in Eastern forms of exercise and meditation, such as Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and Yoga.

Lao Tzu also comments: “There is no mistake greater than that of being ambitious; there is no calamity greater than that being discontented; there is no fault greater than the desire for riches. Therefore, true contentment is an enduring and unchanging happiness.”

Keeping up with the Joneses, attractions and distractions of contemporary society, personal ambitions and desires often create tension between your physical and spiritual aspects, making your body rigid and your mind unyielding. You begin to lose the original integration of the body and mind of a baby, and you deteriorate and die. This is the way of all flesh.

Lao Tzu says, “When a man is alive, his body is soft and flexible; when he is dead, it is hard and rigid. So it is with all things. Trees and plants are soft and pliant when they are growing; when they die they are dry and brittle. Thus, to be had and rigid is the way of death; to be soft and yield is the way of life.”

Lao Tzu has shown you the wisdom of living a life of healthy longevity. It is all within your control.

(More on Taoism and longevity living in articles to follow)

Frbiz.com Reports Tea, Drinks Of Human Longevity

Department of Pharmacy, Okayama University, Japan, Austria by the formation of genetic male professors and Japan’s National Institute of Dr. He Tian are all right in tea polyphenols in anti-aging properties of the tests and studies found that tea polyphenols is a powerful anti-oxidant substances, the sudden variation of the cell has a very strong inhibition. Vitamin E has been the medical profession recognized as anti-aging drug, but the tea in the tea polyphenols on the human body produced by oxidation of fatty acids had inhibitory effect of vitamin E than the nearly 20-fold stronger, with the role of prevention of human aging. In general the concentration, each for about 100 milliliters of tea contains 120 ~ 250 mg of polyphenols.

Tea on the longevity to make when you play a good assistant. China’s Tang Dynasty, Liu Yuxi, Po Chu-Song Su, Lu You are all well-known ancient writer; they not only has written many tea-related poetry, and all love tea. Interestingly, science developed in ancient times, low levels of material, the average life expectancy was short cases, they have a longer life: live to 70-year-old Liu Yuxi, Po Chu-i live to 74 years, and Su Shi live to 65 years old, Lu will live to be 85 years old.

Old people in the modern age, many people have the habit of tea drinking. Shanghai had more than a hundred of Zhang Dianxiu boss too, should wake up every day to drink a cup of black tea fasting, her children since the age from 20 to cultivate a habit. Daba Wanyuan County, Sichuan Province, deep blue and white village known as “Bashan birthplace of tea”, because the people there have grown tea, the habit of drinking tea, so the township 10000 people have so far not found a case of cancer patients . Where there are more than 100 elderly people, average age is 80 years of age, the largest more than a hundred. According to an eight ten days old, said he began to drink tea since the age of two, and so every day. Depending on where people drink tea for the meals, they would rather eat a meal, or drink less cup of tea. Old Aliyev, the former Soviet Union live up to 110 lots, his secret of longevity is not drinking, not smoking, like tea and a walk in the place where the air is fresh. Egypt’s Nile Delta province of Beihai La Di Michal was a farmer living Sapporo 130 years old, he never smoked, drink six cups of tea every day. Lu Dingyi comrades were hailed as “modern sage,” old Mr. Wu Juenong a lifetime study of tea, love tea, live to 92-year-old longevity. China’s famous tea expert, security and so the Department of Tea Agronomy, two revered tea industry veteran Professor Wang Zenong and Professor Chen Chuan are not happy with the tobacco, alcohol, love tea, though now has reached 85 years old, But the body is still in good health.

Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine Nutrition and Food Hygiene Institute study confirmed that 145 kinds of tea, tea really prevent nitrosamine synthesis in the human body. Japan Cancer Society also believes that green tea’s tannic acid to control the proliferation of cancer cells, long-term tea drinking, especially drinking green tea, there are pairs of anti-cancer effect of longevity. A recent Japanese study also shows that: Tea for promoting longevity is indeed a great barnyard cover the tea ceremony in Japan, people tend to study more than longevity.

Aromatic substances contained in tea, alkaloids, flavonoids and other ingredients can reduce the human body, cholesterol, triglyceride levels and lower blood lipid concentrations, with a strong solution of fat effect; the same time, the material in tea reduce the radiation lipopolysaccharide harm the human body; of hematopoietic significant protection for the same In addition, an important component of tea polyphenols in tea is a natural high-quality anti-oxidation, anti-radiation, anti-mutation, anti-cancer biological active substance. Tea has been proven to be human longevity drink, normal adults develop a reasonable and if the scientific habit of tea drinking, which is anti-cancer, fitness, longevity will be very beneficial.

Thus, to some extent, said: “Changyin tea and aid longevity, longevity benefits of tea,” there is some reason.