Taoist Meditation And Longevity Techniques Pdf

[Tammara Freimark]

Inreligious Daoism[broken anchor] and traditional Chinese medicine, yangsheng (Chinese: 養生; lit. 'nourishing life'), refers to various self-cultivation practices aimed at enhancing health and longevity. Yangsheng techniques include calisthenics, self-massage, breath exercises, meditation, internal and external Daoist alchemy, sexual activities, and dietetics.

The specialized fourth meaning quotes Zhang Yu's (張預) commentary to The Art of War that says, "An army ordinarily likes heights and dislikes depths, values brightness and disparages darkness, nourishes itself on vitality and places itself on solidity. Thus it will not fall prey to a host of ailments and may be declared 'invincible'."[4] The Hanyu Da Cidian also gives a definition of yngshēng (養生), see the Mencius above:

Donald Harper translates yangsheng and changsheng (長生, "long life") in the Mawangdui Silk Texts as "macrobiotic hygiene" (2009). Changsheng is used in the Mawangdui medical manuscripts to designate "a somatic form of hygiene centering mainly on controlled breathing in conjunction with yogic exercises", comparable with the classical Greek gymnosophists.[13]

Information about yangsheng "nourishing life" health cultivation was traditionally limited to received texts including the Chinese classics, until this corpus was augmented by some second-century BCE medical manuscripts discovered in the 1970s.

The Zhangjiashan cache of manuscripts written on bamboo slips were excavated from a tomb dated 186 BCE, and contained two medical books. The Maishu comprises several texts that list ailments and describe the eleven (not modern twelve) meridian channels. The collection is closely related to the Mawangdui meridian texts and both briefly describe yangsheng practices of nourishing life. The Yinshu (引書, "Book on Pulling") outlines a daily and seasonal health regimen, including hygiene, dietetics, and sleeping; then it details fifty-seven preventative and curative gymnastic exercises, and massage techniques; and concludes with the etiology and the prevention of diseases. The text recommends various therapies, such as breathing exercises, bodily stretches, and careful treatment of the interior qi. It says: "If you can pattern your qi properly and maintain your yin energy in fullness, then the whole person will benefit." The Yinshu considered longevity techniques as limited to the aristocracy and upper classes, and makes a distinction between "upper class people" who fall ill owing to uncontrolled emotions such as extreme joy or rage, and less-fortunate individuals whose diseases tend to be caused by excessive labor, hunger, and thirst. Since the latter have no opportunity to learn the essential breathing exercises, they consequently become sick and die an early death.[19] The Yinshu manuscript is the "earliest known systematized description of therapeutic exercise in China, and possibly anywhere in the world."[20]

The cook replies, "What your servant loves is the Way, which goes beyond mere skill. When I first began to cut oxen, what I saw was nothing but whole oxen. After three years, I no longer saw whole oxen. Today, I meet the ox with my spirit rather than looking at it with my eyes. My sense organs stop functioning and my spirit moves as it pleases. In accord with the natural grain [依乎天理], I slice at the great crevices, lead the blade through the great cavities. Following its inherent structure, I never encounter the slightest obstacle even where the veins and arteries come together or where the ligaments and tendons join, much less from obvious big bones." ... " "Wonderful!" said Lord Wenhui. "From hearing the words of the cook, I have learned how to nourish life [養生]."[21]

The latter story concerns the Lord of Lu (魯君) who heard that the Daoist Yan He (顏闔) had attained the Way and dispatched a messenger with presents for him. Yan "was waiting by a rustic village gate, wearing hempen clothing and feeding a cow by himself." When the messenger tried to convey the gifts, Yan said, "I'm afraid that you heard incorrectly and that the one who sent you with the presents will blame you. You had better check." The messenger went back to the ruler, and was told to return with the presents, but he could never again find Yan He, who disliked wealth and honor. "Judging from this, the achievements of emperors and kings are the leftover affairs of the sages, not that which fulfills the person or nourishes life [完身養生]. Most of the worldly gentlemen of today endanger their persons and abandon life in their greed for things. Is this not sad?"[23]

Three Zhuangzi chapters mention yangxing (養形, "nourishing the body"). One has the earliest Chinese reference to ways of controlling and regulating the breath.[24] It describes daoyin ("guiding and pulling [of qi]") calisthenics that typically involving bending, stretching, and mimicking animal movements.[6]

Another Zhuangzi chapter describes the limitations of yangxing (養形, "nourishing the body");[27] "How sad that the people of the world think that nourishing the physical form [養形] is sufficient to preserve life! But when it turns out that nourishing the physical form [養形]is insufficient for the preservation of life, what in the world can be done that is sufficient?"[28]

If you huff and puff, exhale and inhale, blow out the old and pull in the new, practice the Bear Hang, the Bird Stretch, the Duck Splash, the Ape Leap, the Owl Gaze, and the Tiger Stare: This is what is practiced by those who nurture the body [養形]. They are not the practices of those who polish the mind [e.g., the Perfected, 至人]. They make their spirit overflow, without losing its fullness. When, day and night, without injury, they bring the spring to external things [物], they unite with, and give birth to, the seasons in their own minds.[29]

This criticism "gives a fascinating glimpse into the similarities", perceived even in the second century BCE, "between the qi cultivation practiced for physical benefits and the qi cultivation practiced for more transformative and deeply satisfying spiritual benefits, which seems to have involved more still sitting than active movement."[30]

The circa first century BCE Huangdi Neijing ("Inner Classic of the Yellow Emperor") discusses varied healing therapies, including medical acupuncture, moxibustion, and drugs as well as life-nourishing gymnastics, massages, and dietary regulation. The basic premise of longevity practices, which permeates the entire text "like a red thread", is to avoid diseases by maintaining the vital forces for as long as possible.[34] The Suwen (素問, "Basic Questions"), section echoes the early immortality cult, and says the ancient sages who regulated life in accordance with the Dao could easily live for a hundred years, yet complained that "these good times are over now, and people today do not know how to cultivate their life".[35]

Wang Chong's "Taoist Untruths" (道虛) chapter debunks several yangsheng practices, especially taking "immortality" drugs, bigu grain avoidance, and Daoist yogic breathing exercises.[38]

The Yellow Emperor rose into the sky and became a genie after taking this elixir. It adds that by merely doing the breathing exercises and calisthenics and taking herbal medicines one may extend one's years but cannot prevent ultimate death. Taking the divine elixir, however, will produce an interminable longevity and make one coeval with sky and earth; it lets one travel up and down in Paradise, riding clouds or driving dragons.[46]

If you are going to do everything possible to nurture your life [養生], you will take the divine medicines [神藥]. In addition, you will never weary of circulating your breaths [行氣]; morning and night you will do calisthenics [導引] to circulate your blood and breaths and see that they do not stagnate. In addition to these things, you will practice sexual intercourse in the right fashion; you will eat and drink moderately; you will avoid drafts and dampness; you will not trouble about things that are not within your competence. Do all these things, and you will not fall sick.[50]

Dear's anthropological study of yangsgheng's popularity and commercialization in early twenty-first century China makes a contrast with Qigong fever, a 1980s and 1990s Chinese social phenomenon in which the practice of qigong rose to extraordinary popularity, estimated to have reached a peak number of practitioners between 60 and 200 million. While the Qigong fever had a "somewhat austere and Salvationist aspect", the more recent Yangsheng fever, "which covers so much of the same ground in the quest for health and identity, has a certain low-key decadence about it." For instance, using the term yangsheng to advertise deluxe villas in the suburbs, luxury health spas, extravagantly packaged expensive medicines like chongcao (蟲草, Ophiocordyceps sinensis), and tourism to naturally beautiful landscapes, "are some of the markers of the new Yangsheng."[62]

Traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese martial arts have adapted certain Daoist meditative techniques. Some examples are Daoyin "guide and pull" breathing exercises, Neidan "internal alchemy" techniques, Neigong "internal skill" practices, Qigong breathing exercises, Zhan zhuang "standing like a post" techniques. The opposite direction of adoption has also taken place, when the martial art of Taijiquan, "great ultimate fist", became one of the practices of modern Daoist monks, while historically it was not among traditional techniques.

Ding 定 literally means "decide; settle; stabilize; definite; firm; solid" and early scholars such as Xuanzang used it to translate Sanskrit samadhi "deep meditative contemplation" in Chinese Buddhist texts. In this sense, Kohn renders ding as "intent contemplation" or "perfect absorption".[2] The Zuowanglun has a section called Taiding 泰定 "intense concentration"

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