Asian Traditions of Meditation
Page 32
PROPER POSTURE
An aligned sitting position for body and limbs is frequently recommended. While the most famous example of this is the renowned passage in Zhuāngzǐ 6 in which the leading disciple of Confucius, Yánhuí, teaches the Master about how to attain the experience of “merging with the Great Pervader” (tóng yú dàtōng) through the practice he calls “sitting and forgetting” (zuòwàng). It is in this sitting posture that Yánhuí is able to accomplish the following: “I let organs and members drop away, dismiss eyesight and hearing, part from the body and expel knowledge, and merge with the Great Pervader. This is what I mean by ‘just sit and forget.’”8 To let “organs and members drop away” (duò zhī tǐ) means to lose visceral awareness of the emotions and desires, which, for the early Daoists, have “physiological” bases in the various organs. To “dismiss eyesight and hearing” (chū cōng míng) means to deliberately cut off sense perception. To “part from the body and expel knowledge” (líxíng qūzhī) means to lose bodily awareness and remove all thoughts from consciousness. These are basic apophatic techniques found throughout the textual sources of this tradition. Notice that the ultimate result of these apophatic practices, to “merge with the Great Pervader,” implies that, as a result of sitting in a stable posture and following these practices, Yánhuí has become united with the Dào. In many ways this passage contains a succinct statement of “inner cultivation” practice and its principal goal.
Other important passages detailing posture are found in “Inward Training,” in the notions of “aligning the body” (zhèng-xíng) in verse 11; aligning the four limbs (zhèng sìtǐ) in verses 8, 14, and 19; and keeping the body calm and unmoving (xíng’ān ér bùyí) in verse 24.9 For example,
When your body is not aligned
Potency will not come.
When you are not tranquil within
Your mind will not be in order.
Align your body, summon potency
Then it will come cascading on its own.10
… When the four limbs are aligned
And the blood and vital breath are tranquil,
Unify your awareness, concentrate your mind,
Then your eyes and ears will not be overstimulated.
And even the far-off will seem to be close at hand.11
BREATH CULTIVATION
Cultivating the breath or vital energy (qì) is a foundational practice in all of the major sources of “Inner Cultivation.” It is often spoken of as concentrating or refining the breath (zhuān qì), as in this locus classicus from Lǎozǐ chapter 10, but is given a fuller expression in the “Inward Training” verse 19 that is found in five other early sources:
Amidst the psychic turmoil (of daily living)
Can you embrace the One and not let go?
In concentrating your breath can you become as supple
As a babe? (Lǎozǐ chapter 10)
By concentrating your vital breath as if numinous
The myriad things will all be contained within you.
Can you concentrate? Can you unify?
Can you not resort to divining by tortoise or milfoil
Yet know bad and good fortune?
Can you stop? Can you cease?
Can you not seek it in others
Yet attain it within yourself? (“Inward Training,” verse 19)12
Thus breath cultivation is essential to all forms of higher cognition and to the attainment of the Way. “Inward Training” contains a variety of phrases dealing with similar aspects of concentrating on one’s breathing. In verse 5, we read of having “patterned breathing” (qì lǐ); in verse 8, having guided breathing (qì dǎo); in verse 24, we read about relaxing and expanding the vital breath (kuān qì ér guǎng). The famous “fasting of the mind” narrative in Zhuāngzǐ 4 gives the following advice involving breathing:
Unify your attention
Don’t listen with your ears, listen with your mind;
Don’t listen with your mind, listen with your breathing.
Listening stops at the ears; the mind stops at what it can objectify
As for your breathing, it becomes empty and waits to respond to things.
The Way gathers in emptiness.
Emptiness is attained through the fasting of the mind.13
The Zhuāngzǐ also contrasts the deep breathing (“from their heals”) of the Genuine (zhēnrén) with that of the common people, who breathe from their throats.14 All of the passages affirm the importance of concentrated breathing in the “Inner Cultivation” tradition.
These passages also affirm that another dimension of breath cultivation is to unify or focus one’s attention. As we see above in “Inward Training,” verse 19, “Can you concentrate? Can you unify?” (Néng zhuān hū? Néng yī hū?). Elsewhere, in “Inward Training,” verse 24, we read of the advice to “focus on one thing and discard myriad disturbances” (shǒuyī ér qì wànkē). While it is difficult to say if all subsequent uses refer to precisely the same practice, this is the oldest extant example of this phrase that refers to a contemplative technique that became so important in later Daoist and Buddhist meditative practice.15 In classical Daoist sources it seems to refer to concentrating attention on one thing: the cycle of inhalation and exhalation that is natural to all human beings. We read in “Inward Training,”
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 the practice].
Hold fast to this to this excellent [practice]; do not let go of it.
Chase away the excessive [perception]; abandon trivial [thoughts].
And when you reach its ultimate limit
You will return to the Way and its potency.16
These passages discuss concentrating or cultivating the qì, which is often translated as “vital energy” in some contexts, but is best rendered as “vital breath” or “breath” in those most relevant to meditation. Any doubt that qì means “breath” in these key passages is dispelled by clear references in some of the less philosophical and more practical works that have been unearthed by archaeologists at sites such as Mǎwángduī in Húnán Province. For example, in a medical text discovered in a tomb that was closed in 168 BCE, the Shíwèn (Ten Questions) we read, “The way to inhale qì: it must be made to reach the extremities so that essence is generated and not deficient…. Breathing must be deep and long, so that new qì is easy to hold. The old qì is that of agedness; the new qì that of longevity. One who is skilled at cultivating qì lets the old qì disperse at night and the new qì gather at dawn.”17 Furthermore, in the entry in a work on demonography unearthed in the tomb at Shuìhǔdì, on the ominous circumstances when the members of the household cannot breathe, we read, “when the people in a household all do not have qì to breathe.” (yí shì rén jiē wú qì yǐ xí).18 There are many more examples in this excavated literature of qì meaning “breath,” and these serve to support the numerous references in the extant classical Daoist literature in which qì clearly means “breath” as well.
APOPHATIC PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES
In addition to proper posture and concentration of breath and attention, these “inner cultivation” texts also present a wide variety of techniques that have the effect of emptying out the normal contents of consciousness and hence approaching the Dào by apophatic means. Principal among these is the very frequent admonition in “Inward Training” to restrict or eliminate desires (jìng yù, jiéyù; e.g., verses 25 and 26), which occurs in similar form in the Lǎozǐ as “to minimize or be without desires” (guǎyù, wúyù; chapters 1, 19, 37, and 57). The Zhuāngzǐ, the Guǎnzǐ (“Techniques of the Mind” 1), and the Lǚshì chūnqiū also contain similar and identical phrases.19 Other related apophatic techniques include restricting or eliminating emotions, a staple of “Inward Training” (see verses 3, 7, 20, and 21), as in verse 25: “When you are anxious or sad, pleased or angry, the Way has no place to settle
within you.”20 Discussion of the deleterious effects of the emotions are absent from the Lǎozǐ but present in the Zhuāngzǐ in such well-known passages as the dialogue between Zhuāngzǐ and his Logician foil, Huìshī, about how sages (shèngrén) do not have the essential responses of human beings (rén zhī qíng): “These people inwardly do not wound their being by likes and dislikes but they constantly go by the spontaneous and do not add anything to the process of life.”21 Restricting or eliminating thought and knowledge is also commended in “inner cultivation” texts. This is prevalent in “Inward Training” (e.g., verses 5, 8, 20, and 23): “Whenever your states of the mind have excessive knowledge, you have lost your vitality.”22 It occurs as well in more general phrases in the Lǎozǐ, such as “exterminate sageliness, discard wisdom [juéshèng qìzhì], then the people will benefit a hundred fold” (chapter 19), and in the contrast in chapter 48 between the daily increase in knowledge during the pursuit of learning and the daily decrease in knowledge during the pursuit of the Way. Finally, in the Zhuāngzǐ, we find the phrase “part from the body and expel knowledge” in the “sitting and forgetting” passage already discussed. This indicates that both sense perception and knowledge are to be abjured. The admonition against sageliness and wisdom from Lǎozǐ 19 is repeated in Zhuāngzǐ chapters 10 and 11 and in several other related references, such as “excessive knowledge is ruinous” (duōzhī wéibài) from Guǎng Chéngzǐ’s teaching in chapter 11, and the advice to “discard knowledge and precedent” (qù zhī yǔ gù) in chapter 15.23
Finally, “inner cultivation” texts recommend in some cases restricting or completely eliminating sense perception. “Inward Training,” in verses 13, 19, and 24, recommends avoiding the overstimulation of the senses. Lǎozǐ chapters 52 and 56 give the advice to “block the openings and shut the doors [of the senses]” (sāiqíduì bìqímén), and chapter 12 warns against the deleterious effects of the five colors, tones, and tastes. Zhuāngzǐ 6 has Confucius singing the praises of those perfected people who “roam beyond the boundaries of the world” to his disciple Zǐgòng, and describes them as having “left behind hearing and seeing” (yí qí ěrmù); later the famous “sitting and forgetting” dialogue has Yánhuí teach Confucius about “Inner Cultivation” practices to “dismiss eyesight and hearing” (chū cōng míng).24
Taken together these passages recommend an apophatic regimen that develops concentration by focusing on the breathing and stripping away the common cognitive activities of daily life, something that must, of practical necessity, be done when not engaged in these activities, hence while sitting unmoving in one position. There are a wide variety of metaphorical descriptions of these apophatic regimens. These include the idea that following the Way involves “daily relinquishing” (rìsǔn) in Lǎozǐ 48, the Zhuāngzǐ’s famous phrases of the “fasting of the mind” (xīnzhāi) in chapter 4 and “sitting and forgetting” (zuòwàng) in chapter 6. Both Zhuāngzǐ 23 and Lǚshì chūnqiū 25.3 talk of “casting off the fetters of the mind” (jiě xīn miù). Another common phrase with a few close variations is “to discard (chú) / reject (qù/qì) / relinquish (shì) wisdom (zhì) / knowledge (zhī) / cleverness (qiǎo) and precedent (gù/gù) / scheming (móu).”25 Finally, who can forget the beautifully evocative parallel metaphors for these apophatic mental processes as “diligently cleaning out the abode of the vital essence” (jìng chú jīng shè), “sweeping clean the abode of the spirit” (sǎo chú shénshè), in “Techniques of the Mind” 1, and “washing clean the profound mirror” (dí chú xuánjiàn) from Lǎozǐ 10, a metaphor echoed in Zhuāngzǐ 5: “None of us finds our mirror in flowing water, we find it in still water…. If your mirror is clear, dust will not settle. If dust settles, then your mirror is not clear.”26
RESULTANT STATES
The direct results of following these apophatic psychological practices are remarkably similar across many early texts of the “inner cultivation” tradition, thus indicating a consistency of actual methods and some sharing of ideas and texts. It is useful to borrow an important contrast from cognitive psychologists and talk about these results in terms of “states,” which pertain to the inner experience of individual practitioners and tend to be transient, and in terms of “traits,” which pertain to more stable character qualities developed in interactions in the phenomenal world.27
Probably the two most common resultant states of “inner cultivation” practices are “tranquility” (jìng), the mental and physical experience of complete calm and stillness, and “emptiness” (xū), the mental condition of having no thoughts, feelings, or perceptions yet still being intensely aware. These are both prioritized in such well-known passages as this from Lǎozǐ 16: “Attaining emptiness is the ultimate result; focusing on tranquility is its central practice” (zhì xū jí, shǒu jìng dū). Tranquility is prized in “Inward Training” in verses 11, 16, 19, 22, and 25, and in these lines from verse 26:
When the mind can hold on to tranquility
The Way will become naturally stable.28
Tranquility is quite common to the Zhuāngzǐ, although the specific term is absent from the “Inner Chapters.”29 There are, however, a number of close synonyms for tranquility that do occur in them and in other “inner cultivation” texts that differentiate subtle dimensions of it, including “calmness” (ān),30 “equanimity” (qí),31 “balance” or “evenness” (píng), “repose” (níng), “stillness” (jì), and “silence” (mò).32
“Emptiness” as a specific term is absent from “Inward Training,” although it is certainly implied as the result of many of its apophatic practices. It is fairly common in both the Lǎozǐ and the Zhuāngzǐ. In the latter we find assertions such as this famous one from chapter 4: “The Way coalesces in emptiness [Dào jí xū]; Emptiness is attained through the fasting of the mind.”33 In chapter 15 we read these ideas linking emptiness with various aspects of tranquility: “Thus it is said that serenity and detachment [tián dàn], stillness and silence [jì mò], emptiness and nothingness, and Non-Action, these are the even level of Heaven and Earth, the substance of the Way and Potency. Therefore the sage finds rest in them and thereby attains balance and ease.”34 As these passages clearly demonstrate, states of tranquility and emptiness are both closely associated with a direct experience of the Way, perhaps the penultimate result of apophatic “Inner Cultivation” practices. There are a number of striking metaphors for this experience of unification of individual consciousness with the Way; three use the concept of merging to express it. Chapter 56 of the Lǎozǐ contains advice on apophatic practice (e.g., “block the openings and shut the doors [of the senses]”) and identifies the ultimate result as “profound merging” (xuántóng). Zhuāngzǐ 6 parallels Lǎozǐ 56; therein Yánhuí teaches Confucius about the apophatic practice of “sitting and forgetting,” the penultimate result of which is “merging with the Great Pervader” (tóng yú dàtōng).35 Chapter 2 also engages this metaphor for the Way, stating that the Way “pervades and unifies” (Dào tōng wéi yī) phenomena as different from one another as a stalk from a pillar, a leper from the beauty Xīshī.36
Other early “inner cultivation” sources contain similar descriptions of the direct experience of the Way. Lǚshì chūnqiū 3.4 links this experience directly to emptiness and speaks of “attaining the One”; Lǚshì chūnqiū 25.3 and its parallel passage in Zhuāngzǐ 23 talk of attaining emptiness as the penultimate result of correct sitting and attaining tranquility.37 Guǎnzǐ’s “Techniques of the Mind” 1 also describes aphophatic practices that lead to “attaining the empty Way” (dé xū Dào).38 “Inward Training” verse 5 speaks of using tranquility to “halt the Way” (zhǐ Dào): “When the mind is tranquil and the Vital Breath is regular, the Way can thereby be halted.”39 Here halting the Way is a metaphor that means stabilizing one’s awareness of it; obviously the Dào cannot literally be stopped, because it has the characteristic of being elusive to attempts to dualistically perceive it. Finally, there are a series of similar locutions in “Inward Training” and the
Lǎozǐ that evoke this experience of the merging of individual consciousness with the Way through the following pattern:40
Verb Object
hold fast to / embrace / focus on the One, the Way
zhí / bào / bǎo / shǒu
The conceptualizations of the Way in these various sources are quite consistent. As the major force or power that underlies the cosmos, it is responsible for the self-generation of all of its animate and inanimate constituents. It is this activity that leads to some famous metaphors for the Way in the Lǎozǐ and the Zhuāngzǐ, such as the “mother” (mǔ) and the ancestor (zōng).41 Because the Way can only be directly experienced but never completely understood as an object of perception or thought, its qualities can only be evoked. Verse 6 of “Inward Training” accurately captures the concept of the Way for all of the major pre-Hàn “inner cultivation” sources:
As for the Way:
It is what the mouth cannot speak of,
The eyes cannot look at,