Daoist Meditation and Qigong

#meditation #qigong #daoism

Way-Making and the Dào 

This entry is the second post in a series on studying Daoism. (The first post, which provides a list of essential readings, is at this link.)

This entry will cover strategies taught by Daoist philosophers for ways to connect personally with the Dào. And that's not metaphoric: As mystical as it sounds, these time-honored strategies actually facilitate bringing the presence of Dào into your awareness. They work.

But the operative word is "work." The term "Way-Making" implies your participation: Way-Making is active--in fact, interactive--rather than passive, requiring commitment and persistence to practice regularly two kinds of activities: meditation and Qigong (breath exercises). Neither are difficult to practice, but both require perseverance to master.

Let's look at them individually.

Meditation

No less than Daoist sage Laozi himself set the tone for Daoist meditation over two and a half millennia ago in Chapter 16 of his Daodejing:

    致虛極，
    守靜篤。

    "Devote oneself to utmost emptiness, 
    Every earnest stillness."

        (my translation)

And in the Twenty-First Century, that advice still applies:

    "Enter stillness. This is the ultimate goal of meditation."
    (Ming-Dao, Scholar Warrior, Chapter 19, "Meditation")

    "If we still ourselves, we can mirror the divine perfectly,"

    (Ming-Dao, 365 Dao, Chapter 4, "Reflection")

    "[W]hen I was learning meditation, ... I came to appreciate that to empty my mind is to align it with
    the will of the Divine." (Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching, 15)

My best advice is to read Chapter 19, "Meditation," in Master Daoist Deng Ming-Dao's The Scholar Warrior (linked above). Ming-Dao offers great guidance for learning this technique, giving valuable tips for wading into the shallow part of the pool with visualization exercises before leading you smoothly into the deep end.

Qigong

Qigong consists of breath exercises that teach you how to cultivate the body's internal energy, qi ("chi"), the vital force within us which the Dào manifests.

The concept of qi is fundamental to Daoism's earliest origins, and Laozi's Daodejing directly addresses the importance and role of this vital force in Chapter 42, which begins with the Daoist Creation Story:

    道生一，  
    一生二，
    二生三, 
    三生萬物。
    萬物負陰而抱陽，
    沖氣以為和。

    The Way begets one,

    One begets two (i.e., yin and yang) 

    Two begets three (i.e., Heaven, Earth, humanity),

    Three begets everything in the cosmos.

    Everything in the cosmos carries yin and embraces yang,

    using the flooding force of vital breath (qi) to facilitate harmony.
         (my translation)

As part of the cosmos, we are animated by this same "vital breath"--i.e., qi--as well.

Zhuang Zhou's ancient Daoist text Zhuangzi concurs:
    "All under the sky there is one breath of life. The knowledge of all creatures depends                              on their breathing." (translation by James Legge)

And that tradition continues in Twenty-First Century Daoism as well: 
     "The esoteric secret of Taoist meditation is watching—watching the breath, or the flowing of 
       energy" (Alfred Huang, The Complete I Ching)

Chapter 4 of Deng Ming-Dao's The Scholar Warrior provides an excellent resource for explaining and learning how to perform Daoist Qigong exercises, providing useful illustrations and clear instructions on how to energize and control the qi in your body. I was amazed how quickly these exercises made a difference in my own energy level as well as the impact it has on the quality of my meditation sessions.

The next post explores how to apply what you learn in study and turn that knowledge into Daoist strategies that interact everyday with the Dào in order to "make life significant" on a personal level.