ShinNa: Spiritual Blog

It seems that spirituality becomes important to a human being at some point in their life.  Even if someone decides that there is no God, it seems they have to go through some deep thinking on the issues of life to come to that decision.  At least all the people that I have met so far seem to go through this.  Maybe it is just the crowd I hang out with. One thing that I often encounter is that most spiritual practice lacks a physical component, and I don’t mean rituals.  This beckons the question, can you have a spiritual experience without the body?  Even if you had an intellectual epiphany, don’t you still need the body to have the ‘Ah-Ha’ experience?  All that spine tingly sensation and the pleasurable joy you feel is a physical reality.  When we are seeking a spiritual experience, it’s not possible is it?    We’ve all had spiritual experiences by accident in some point in our lives.  We were either in nature and were captu...

Yesterday was the 5th Memorial of my teacher, Gabriel Chin.  We got together at The Cube at 4 o’clock to practice Tai-Chi and then we all went over to TK Wu for dinner (a Taiwanese Restaurant.  Gabriel was personal friend with the cook and owner of the restaurant.  He help the owner set up the restaurant.  They are family). It was great to see all the people.  Before we started the White Crane Chi-Gong and Tai-Chi, we were catching up with each other.  Before it was time to start, one of the original members came up to me and said “Isn’t it interesting that it been 5 years since Gabriel left us, and we are still getting together here to celebrate the legacy he left us.  Makes you think about what’s important in life.  I think you should mention that before we start.”  (This was Joseph Staron blaming the idea on Jeff Nofts.  Between the 2 of them, you can never know.).  It does make you think about life doesn’t it?  I was ch...

When you are in martial arts one thing becomes apparent to you very early on.  There are things that work and things that don’t work.  And there is a tremendous difference between doing it right and not right.  If you have the right leverage, and you have captured the opponents balance properly, it is effortless.  But even if you are off by a hair, if you don’t have it, you don’t have it.   I used to liken it to a house made out of a deck of cards.  It’s either standing or it’s not.  It’s all in the balance of things. This experience teaches us there is a proper way to do things and that if things are done in that manner things come to you in a rich and rewarding, but effortless way.  To me spirituality is recognizing and working on that effort to be in the flow with the guiding forces of life.  Often times, I think we make spirituality too difficult.  It becomes too abstract and too conceptual.  I think spiritual experienc...

3/24/10 Hello my fellow friends! For us, practicing Tai-Chi and using it to live out the Biblical principles as best as we can according to our understanding is a joy in our life.  For us Tai-Chi is our art of worship.  Some people use art, some people use music, we have learned Tai-Chi is a wonderful way to come closer to God.  This blog is intended to share our experiences with anybody who likes to see how we apply our understanding in our lives, and is in no way intended as a means to convince anyone.  Rather, we would like to spur ideas as to how you could utilize your understanding of your own spiritual journey of whatever your back ground you come from in tangible ways.      I have been having a real exciting spiritual journey recently.   I woke up this morning tired and groggy.  I could feel my whole body is off, and I could feel my meridians are not flowing and my energy was stuck.  Not getting enough sleep re...