Tai Chi: The Bulimia of Aging

By Nobleman Nash Hollowhill - March 18, 2010 

Maybe this article’s title is a tad sensationalist, but I think it’s true. First of all, I find it almost impossible to do Tai Chi for an extended period of time unless I’ve already performed some strenuous, repetitive task. That doing work ages our bodies and minds doesn’t need any specific proof to be believed; everybody works, and everybody ages. If left to your own devices, you will do work, and your body and mind will both age. However certain spiritual practices have been shown to reverse the aging process. I am no longer in possession of the book by Walter K. Russell, the full title of which is The Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field: The Neurophysiology of Enlightenment, but it first gives an overview of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s explanation of the Unified Field (the Akashic Field, Zero Point Field, or God, however you want to call it,) and how this all-pervasive field of energy interacts with all matter and mind, and how reality can be generated by the almighty in the recitation of mantras. However this book then proceeds to give an unbiased examination of easily reproducible experiments that were performed on people who practiced the Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation technique, and TM Sidhi (Yoga), and among many other physiological, mental, metaphysical, and global benefits that were measured in correlation with these practices, were the promotion of longevity and various specific physiological indicators of aging in effect reversed.

Tai Chi, as I have been practicing it for a few months, seems to be just like Yoga, only much of it can be done while standing and in a fully or somewhat upright position. This places it in a level of difficulty above Yoga, for in order to maintain a flowing Chi for an extended period of time, it’s necessary to warm up first. Meditation, Yoga, and Tai Chi are all, however, effortless if done correctly. Regular Meditation can be done in various positions, most commonly sitting upright or laying down on the back. Yoga is a physically active meditation that can be done in both of these positions or in a more upright, horizontal, balancing, or other somewhat contorted position. Tai Chi is also active meditation which, like Yoga, maintains a constant flow of movement, and more often involves balancing for a way to focus the mind and center the Chi. Qi Gong is mostly a combination of Yoga and Tai Chi and I have done very little of this, but all of these practices and many, many more are often reported as reliable ways to make transpersonal contact with the spiritual realm and remove our attachment to the physical world through reversal of aging.

Apart from purely subjective physical sensations perceived in these states, there is the undeniable effect of feeling mentally rejuvenated through concentration on the present moment. The sensation of being reborn is possible with spiritual practice, entheogen use, and the two in combination. This generally occurs when thought patterns form independent of the previous patterns which predominated our sense of identity. If you feel as if you have just recently been born into your body, it is very difficult to imagine your mind is actually as old as your biological age. This has many advantages, which are too numerous to go into now. The bottom line is that in performing these actions, your body and mind show greater resilience in fighting off the negative impacts of time. I sometimes imagine that life means being catapulted through the center of a vast tubular machine designed to age our bodies and minds, which involves many repetitive actions, repetitive thought patterns, and tiring physical and mental processes. Meditation, Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Psychedelics and Shamanism all seem to infuse novelty into this habitual way of living, which gives me a visual of taking a step backwards and staring this machine in the face as a single point of awareness without a specialized identity that is characterized by the attachment to certain modes of operation and the aversion to others.

Finally, the reason I equate Tai Chi in particular (but not exclusively) to the bulimia of aging is because of another experience I regularly have while doing various exercises. Whenever I am at work, I can feel myself aging. My muscles get tired, and I feel them craving to stretch. So after a period of working, I give the muscles I’ve been using a stretch and if I have time, allow this process to flow through every area of my body that feels sore. After a relatively short period of doing this, I can resume my work with increased vigor, and a genuine smile on my face. This allows me to do about twice as much work as I could do in one straight attempt, and after I am finished, I usually still feel some residual tension. I use this as a starting point for where to focus my practice and assume as many different positions as I feel are necessary to target the area I'm having difficulty with.

The experience of doing Tai Chi is in some ways different from that of regular Meditation or Yoga, and I can often equate it to pushing a period of time off of my body. I get into a position that is difficult or awkward to maintain, and by slow, steady, balanced, and fluid movements, return to a position that is effortless, in the process losing myself in the timeless process of stepping through an area of space as an indeterminate interval of time passes. I am aware of the passage of time, and in fact may be very conscious of increasingly fine moments, but I am not confined to a single frequency for a basis of observation. For my body, this seems like I am holding the space I’m in steady as time moves in whatever direction is most natural, be it forward, backward, side to side, up or down, outward in all directions, inward from directions, tangent with my bodily movements, perpendicular, or counter to them. Time takes on a personal quality as this is happening and I feel, as my body is steadily shifting position, that it becomes more locally attached to me physically. I am the master of my reality for this section of the continuum, and I control the direction in which the experience flows, and the speed. This, to my body, after having binged on a repetitive task my ego may feel attachment to, feels like purging all of the negative, selfish, and temporal effects of this process. There is obviously some temporal residue left over, for my physical structure to sustain itself on and continue into the future with, but this is minimal compared to the amount that I would be left with had I not spent time increasing my longevity.