Taoist Meditation Pdf

[Yaima President]

TraditionalChinese 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"

Cun 存 usually means "exist; be present; live; survive; remain", but has a sense of "to cause to exist; to make present" in the Daoist meditation technique, which both the Shangqing School and Lingbao Schools popularized.

It thus means that the meditator, by an act of conscious concentration and focused intention, causes certain energies to be present in certain parts of the body or makes specific deities or scriptures appear before his or her mental eye. For this reason, the word is most commonly rendered "to visualize" or, as a noun, "visualization." Since, however, the basic meaning of cun is not just to see or be aware of but to be actually present, the translation "to actualize" or" actualization" may at times be correct if somewhat alien to the Western reader.[5]

Four chapters of the Guanzi have descriptions of meditation practices: Xinshu 心術 "Mind techniques" (chapters 36 and 37), Baixin 白心 "Purifying the mind" (38), and Neiye "Inward training" (49). Modern scholars[8] believe the Neiye text was written in the 4th century BCE, and the others were derived from it. A. C. Graham regards the Neiye as "possibly the oldest 'mystical' text in China";[9] Harold Roth describes it as "a manual on the theory and practice of meditation that contains the earliest references to breath control and the earliest discussion of the physiological basis of self-cultivation in the Chinese tradition".[10] Owing to the consensus that proto-Daoist Huang-Lao philosophers at the Jixia Academy in Qi composed the core Guanzi, Neiye meditation techniques are technically "Daoistic" rather than "Daoist".[11]

Neiye Verse 8 associates dingxin 定心 "stabilizing the mind" with acute hearing and clear vision, and generating jing 精 "vital essence". However, thought, says Roth, is considered "an impediment to attaining the well-ordered mind, particularly when it becomes excessive".[12]

If you can be aligned and be tranquil,

Only then can you be stable.

With a stable mind at your core,

With the eyes and ears acute and clear,

And with the four limbs firm and fixed,

You can thereby make a lodging place for the vital essence.

The vital essence: it is the essence of the vital energy.

When the vital energy is guided, it [the vital essence] is generated,

But when it is generated, there is thought,

When there is thought, there is knowledge,

But when there is knowledge, then you must stop.

Whenever the forms of the mind have excessive knowledge,

You lose your vitality.[13]

Neiye Verse 18 contains the earliest Chinese reference to practicing breath-control meditation. Breathing is said to "coil and uncoil" or "contract and expand"', "with coiling/contracting referring to exhalation and uncoiling/expanding to inhalation".[14]

For all [to practice] this Way:

You must coil, you must contract,

You must uncoil, you must expand,

You must be firm, you must be regular [in this practice].

Hold fast to this excellent [practice]; do not let go of it.

Chase away the excessive; abandon the trivial.

And when you reach its ultimate limit

You will return to the Way and its inner power. (18)[15]

When you enlarge your mind and let go of it,

When you relax your vital breath and expand it,

When your body is calm and unmoving:

And you can maintain the One and discard the myriad disturbances.

You will see profit and not be enticed by it,

You will see harm and not be frightened by it.

Relaxed and unwound, yet acutely sensitive,

In solitude you delight in your own person.

This is called "revolving the vital breath":

Your thoughts and deeds seem heavenly. (24)[17]

"I venture to ask what 'fasting of the mind' is," said Hui.

"Maintaining the unity of your will," said Confucius, "listen not with your ears but with your mind. Listen not with your mind but with your primal breath. The ears are limited to listening, the mind is limited to tallying. The primal breath, however, awaits things emptily. It is only through the Way that one can gather emptiness, and emptiness is the fasting of the mind." (4)[27]

Yen Hui saw Confucius again on another day and said, "I'm making progress."

"What do you mean?"

"I sit and forget."

"What do you mean, 'sit and forget'?" Confucius asked with surprise.

"I slough off my limbs and trunk," said Yen Hui, "dim my intelligence, depart from my form, leave knowledge behind, and become identical with the Transformational Thoroughfare. This is what I mean by 'sit and forget'."

"If you are identical," said Confucius, "then you have no preferences. If you are transformed, then you have no more constants. It's you who is really the worthy one! Please permit me to follow after you." (9)[28]

Roth interprets this "slough off my limbs and trunk" (墮肢體) phrase to mean, "lose visceral awareness of the emotions and desires, which for the early Daoists, have 'physiological' bases in the various organs".[29] Peerenboom further describes zuowang as "aphophatic or cessation meditation."

Sir Motley of Southurb sat leaning against his low table. He looked up to heaven and exhaled slowly. Disembodied, he seemed bereft of soul. Sir Wanderer of Countenance Complete, who stood in attendance before him, asked, "How can we explain this? Can the body really be made to become like withered wood? Can the mind really be made to become like dead ashes? The one who is leaning against the table now is not the one who was formerly leaning against the table." "Indeed," said Sir Motley, "your question is a good one, Yen. Just now, I lost myself. Can you understand this? You may have heard the pipes of man, but not the pipes of earth. You may have heard the pipes of earth, but not the pipes of heaven." (2)[31]

Victor Mair presents Zhuangzi evidence for "close affinities between the Daoist sages and the ancient Indian holy men.[32] Yogic breath control and asanas (postures) were common to both traditions." First, this reference to "breathing from the heels", which is a modern explanation of the sirsasana "supported headstand".

The true man [i.e., zhenren] of old did not dream when he slept and did not worry when he was awake. His food was not savory, his breathing was deep. The breathing of the true man is from his heels, the breathing of the common man is from his throat. The words of those who unwillingly yield catch in their throats as though they were retching. Those whose desires are deep-seated will have shallow natural reserves. (6)[33]

Some writing on a Warring States era jade artifact could be an earlier record of breath meditation than the Neiye, Tao Te Ching, or Zhuangzi.[36] This rhymed inscription entitled xingqi 行氣 "circulating qi" was inscribed on a dodecagonal block of jade, tentatively identified as a pendant or a knob for a staff. While the dating is uncertain, estimates range from approximately 380 BCE (Guo Moruo) to earlier than 400 BCE (Joseph Needham). In any case, Roth says, "both agree that this is the earliest extant evidence for the practice of guided breathing in China".[37]

Internal evidence reveals that the Huainanzi authors were familiar with the Guanzi methods of meditation.[40] The text uses xinshu 心術 "mind techniques" both as a general term for "inner cultivation" meditation practices and as a specific name for the Guanzi chapters.[41]

The essentials of the world: do not lie in the Other but instead lie in the self; do not lie in other people but instead lie in your own person. When you fully realize it [the Way] in your own person, then all the myriad things will be arrayed before you. When you thoroughly penetrate the teachings of the Techniques of the Mind, then you will be able to put lusts and desires, likes and dislikes, outside yourself.[42]

Now Wang Qiao and Chi Songzi exhaled and inhaled, spitting out the old and internalizing the new. They cast off form and abandoned wisdom; they embraced simplicity and returned to genuineness; in roaming with the mysterious and subtle above, they penetrated to the clouds and Heaven. Now if one wants to study their Way and does not attain their nurturing of the qi and their lodging of the spirit but only imitates their every exhale and inhale, their contracting and expanding, it is clear that one will not be able to mount the clouds and ascend on the vapors.[44]

The (c. 2nd century CE) Tao Te Ching commentary attributed to Heshang Gong 河上公 (lit. "Riverbank Elder") provides what Kohn calls the "first evidence for Daoist meditation" and "proposes a concentrative focus on the breath for harmonization with the Dao".[1]

Eduard Erkes says the purpose of the Heshang Gong commentary was not only to explicate the Tao Te Ching, but chiefly to enable "the reader to make practical use of the book and in teaching him to use it as a guide to meditation and to a life becoming a Daoist skilled in meditative training".[45]

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