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Daoist Meditation

This paper presents the short analysis of the Daoism Meditation on the basis of the book by Thomas Cleary "Vitality Energy Spirit". We are going to answer some simple basic questions, like: What is Meditation? What are its goals? How are the goals accomplished? What do Daoists mean by immortality? And some other.

Let's start with the definition of the notion - meditation, according to the encyclopedia "Meditation usually refers to a state in which the body is consciously relaxed and the mind is allowed to become calm and focused. Several major religions include ritual meditation; however, meditation itself need not be a religious or spiritual activity. Most of the more popular systems of meditation are of Eastern origin, though there exists also various forms of Christian, Jewish and Muslim meditation."

First of all we would like to mention that Daoism (Taoism) is a Chinese religious tradition. "On the most basic level, "Daoism" refers to an indigenous Chinese religious tradition(s) in which reverence for and veneration of the Dao (Tao), translatable as both the Way and a way, is a matter of ultimate concern". According to Daoists - Dao is the Source of all that is and all-pervading mystery, and the cosmological process which is the universe. The Dao is impersonal and immanent and transcendent. The point of a Daoist way of life is to cultivate alignment and attunement with the Dao.

Daoism originates from Chinese religion and it is understood with the help of Chinese language and views of being. It is both the "religion" and the "tradition" first of all because it is dealing with sacred notions and second because there is a community of people connected to each other thanks to historical and energetic continuum.

As time passed Daoism became not simply a Chinese tradition, it is at the moment a global religious and cultural phenomenon, existing in Brazil , Canada , Denmark , England , France , Italy , Korea , Singapore , Thailand , and Vietnam and practiced by people of a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. It is also becoming established in the USA as well in different forms with different degrees of connection with Chinese culture and religion.

The Daoist master Ren Farong from the Louguantai temple says: "Only he who has much greed will reach the Dao. "The word "greed" here means some force which is strong enough to make the person reach the highest goals. The highest goal in Daoism is to fully unify with the Dao. A person would need a lot of energy to go the path to his highest goal till the end, but the same energy would be needed to realize some earthy goals, like a career now, a marriage, many children, luxury or even what we actually understand by the term of greed, that is: the negative, the never ending thirst for power.

There are four traditional postures for meditation and Daoist meditation may refer to all of them, i.e. to walking, sitting, standing or lying down. Daoist meditation uses a lot of methods and practices, such as observation, visualization, concentration, alchemy, and so on. Foundational Daoist meditation centers on clarity, stillness, and emptiness.

There is a certain explanation of immortality in Daoism. Master Geng said: "The Way of the wise kings Wen and Wu has not yet collapsed; it is in people. It was not only in the people of the past; it is also in people of the present age. It is not only in people of the present age; it will also be in people of the future." So, a person is born with only one body, and thus every body has a real human being in it. The spiritual subtlety of a real human being communes with heaven and earth; the clarity and calm of a real human is free from dust. The real human has never grown more or less; the real human being has never died or been born.

There are the three treasures that human being in reality have: Vitality, Energy, and Spirit. When a person gets old he has little of any of them and thus he dies. Then a question arises whether and how it is possible to avoid exhausting vitality, energy and dissociation of spirit. The Daoist offer their answers to these questions: "By being careful of your speech you can replenish your lungs. By moderating food and drink you can replenish your stomach. By stopping worry you can replenish your heart. By getting rid of anger you can replenish your liver". In this case they turn to the example of plants in the nature, a tree has time to flourish, then later, when autumn comes it returns to its roots, thought it doesn't die, it only regenerates for the spring time, this regeneration is endless and it is means the Way of nature and according to Daosists: "Those who know the inherent pattern and do not violate the Way are real people. That is why real people breathe from their heels."

In this paper, we tried to present the answers to some main questions concerning the Daoism meditation and philosophy in a condensed form.

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