Meditation lies at the foundation of all spiritual
paths and it is the basic ingredient in Taoist practices as well.
In Taoism, meditation means not thinking, sometimes described as
stillness, no mind, or emptiness meditation. The various sitting and
standing postures normally associated with meditation aren’t really a
part of the non thinking aspect. Non thinking can be practiced in any
posture, and in day to day activities as well. The main purpose of the
postures is that each one accomplishes a certain energy task, and they
do have a synergistic blending with the non thinking aspect.
Some people think that focusing is thinking but it isn’t. Thinking means
the little trains of words that go through your head endlessly,
frequently repeating in a loop. For the untrained mind to stop thinking,
even for a few seconds, is sometimes very difficult. Focusing, however,
simply means observing, or watching, or listening, or feeling. You can
observe and feel your breathing; you can feel your energy, sometimes
called listening to the energy; you can listen to music; or you can
intently watch something, like for example a person doing tai chi in
order to study it.
Therefore in the beginning, to help stop thinking there are various
things that can be focused on, primarily yourself. You can focus on your
breathing, focus on proper and exact posture, focus on the feeling of
energy in your body, or focus on looking for where there is tension in
your body and then trying to release the tension. There are many layers
of tension, each going deeper internally. You must first release outer
tension to then find more inner tension. Releasing tension is an
imperative to success in meditation!
For outer focus some people will focus on a candle, or a mandala, or
listen to music; but listen to it as if it is coming from your head, not
'casual' listening,. In Taoism, however, the focus is usually internal.
Zen is similar to Taoism. In Zen meditations they sometimes focus on
ideas or questions. The idea is to stop ‘other’ thinking by thinking
about something specific and to help blow a fuse in the gray matter and
shut it down for a bit.
In the Taoist traditions it is generally preferred to focus internally
rather than externally, and they say that focusing externally causes
your energy to leak out but I think that mainly means focusing
internally can help amplify your energy while focusing externally
doesn’t do anything for it.
Later the act of focusing must also be dropped because that in itself
causes some slight tension. When you are able to sit for two hours with
no thoughts and no tension then you are really starting to get
somewhere.
No one can achieve extended non thinking at the start except for some
stone-age Bushmen; so it takes many years, decades even; but the goal
should be there to try to stop thinking. Little by little the spaces
between thoughts grow longer and they become more frequent. As this
progresses your sense of peace and wellbeing should increase.
Steve Gray is a Taoist sorcerer’s
apprentice and chi kung adept living in Seattle, Washington. He has been
teaching the path of the sorcerer, a Taoist health and spiritual
practice, for about fifteen years. He spends days at a time far from the
nearest road, deep in the wilderness in the nearby mountains, which are
the steepest in the world, to practice his arts, which include sword.
Visit his website here.
Copyright Steve Grey.
