Daoist Meditation for Beginners: a Historical Overview
My rationale of Daoist Meditation/Energy Cultivation practice is that it is broadly broken into three categories:
1: Physical practices such as Dao Yin and Breath Work,
2: Mental Practices such as Visualization and Mental Guiding practices,
3: Seated Meditation practices which strongly emphasize the realization of the original Three Treasures through reversion to a natural state which touches the Dao.
In this context Daoist energetic practices can be cataloged according to the times of their greatest influence and can be seen as follows:
1: Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties:
During these times practices such as Dao Yin movements and Tu Na Breathing practices were most popular with some minor records such as Zhuangzi making mention of “Zhai Xin” or Heart Fasting as a form of seated apophatic meditation.
The key emphasis of this time period was on extension of life through adjustment of the physical exterior of the body with stretching and postural exercises as well as adjustment of the body interior with breath work and fasting combined.
The prominent idea at this time in history was that it because food born illness was prevalent it was possible to use Qi obtained through breath work to fill the abdomen, thus replacing the need to eat.
At the same time Dao Yin exercises such as those found in the Dao Yin Chart at the Ma Wang Dui Funerary complex show various methods of stretching and opening the body for purposes of health preservation and medical intervention.
During this period Daoist health practices and Chinese Medicine Dao Yin seem to have been closely related and much of this time was still during the formative stage of Daoist thought when Daoism was largely the domain of the political elite and literati.
These practices reached their peak in the Han but continued to be popular throughout Chinese history, eventually making a strong comeback in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the context of increasingly modern Qigong practices.
2: Jin – Sui/Tang Dynasties:
during this long stretch of dynastic history Daoists began to develop a propensity for visualization mainly consisting of two kinds:
1: Visualization of Inner Body Deities: the Shang Qing tradition mainly practiced inner visualization of body deities relative to the organs of the body with the goal of combining all deities within the body into one in the practice of “Protecting the One.” Early Shang Qing texts such as Huang Ting Jing emphasize the use of these practices for health while later generations strongly indicate invocation of deities through prayer, incense burning, and individual and group chanting and visualization in order to generate a “real” image of the deities and their relative qualities for religious purposes.
2: Visualization of Cosmic Entities: the Ling Bao school emphasized the practice of visualizing cosmic bodies such as sun, moon, stars and constellations as well as various complex energetic practices which were contextually paired with things like Talisman writing as a means of incantation.
One current academic consensus in Chinese Daoist research is that these visualization schools primarily worked in the development of strong sensations of Qi in specific parts of the body to open energetic pathways and fill the organs and cavities with Qi for the purpose of health preservation and spiritual illumination.
Many of these practices are still used by Daoists and in the commons today and I have personally met folk Daoist practitioners in China who use the Huang Ting Jing as a manual of energetic and spiritual practice.
During this time there was also an increasing understanding of the energetic structure of the body and rudimentary ideas about Qi circulation in the meridians as well as Embryonic Breathing began to become more popular, indicating a mixing of ancient breath work and Dao Yin with more recent methods of visualization.
These practices were reviled by late generations of Neidan practitioners who viewed them as “small arts” but were eventually partially implemented within the Neidan genre as a means to stimulate energy in meditation practice during specific important stages of study.
They are also a popular topic in modern Qigong and have highly influenced the development of diverse Qigong systems such as Zhineng Gong and various other schools. In our courses we will look at both ancient and modern examples of these practices and clearly show how some of the most popular contemporary Qigong practices are actually derived from ancient Daoism.
Toward the end of the Sui and the early Tang early variations of apophatic meditation such as Ding Guan, Zuo Wang, and even Proto Neidan began to emerge.
3: Tang Five Dynasties – Yuan Dyansty:
During this period the Neidan school began to develop during the Tang Five Dynasties.
The Meditation late Tang period is what I refer to as Proto-Neidan and constitutes a fascinating intellectual discussion about the nature of meditation in which multiple styles began to consolidate into one discussion of the Golden Elixir.
These period is fascinating since the rules of Neidan were not yet established and as a result there were many competing theories such as the Seven Treasures, many of which were not to survive on their own in later generations.
During the Song Dynasty the terminology of Neidan was officially codified by Zhang Boduan and later Bai Yuchan of the Southern school and Internal Alchemy according to the principle of “First Cultivate Life and Late Cultivate Nature” became the most popular method of Daoist Meditation.
This Song Dynasty approach to Neidan is the most standard way to practice and although lacking the more advanced energetic terminology of later schools is still considered to be essential to the study of all aspiring Neidan students.
During the Yuan Dyansty the Quanzhen School flourished under Wang Chongyang and his seven disciples. This was the period in which Neidan accorded to the concept of “First Refine Nature and later Refine Life Energy,” and when Sun Buer's Nv Dan defined the female practitioner's approach to Internal Alchemy, ultimately becoming the standard of the style.
4: Ming and Qing Dynasties:
Neidan reached its height during the Ming Dynasty with fully developed theories being espoused by multiple schools according to two prominent approaches:
1: Emphasis on Post-Heaven Markers in Practice: Schools such as the Southern and Northern Combined School of Chen Zhixu and the Wu Liu Combined Buddha and Immortal School emphasized the use of more intentional practice which resulted in the early development of Internal Energy along the path of the Ren and Du Meridians, later refining the energy into a more Pre-Heaven approach during the Large Orbit and Refining Void levels of practice.
2: Emphasis on Pre-Heaven Methods: schools such as the Middle School and Eastern School emphasized profound meditation on stillness as a means of cultivating the Pre-Heaven Three Treasures in order to open the “Mystery Gate” early in practice so students could advance to the Spiritual Level of practice while the energetic level was still becoming mature.
These two streams of Internal Alchemy continued to develop until the early 20th century when they ultimately became two significantly different traditions in a spectrum of varying practices.
5: Late Qing and Republic:
This period marks an increase in interest in all forms of Daoist Health Nourishing practices both within and outside the Daoist tradition. Dao Yin, Breath Work and lifestyle were codified into various texts including the Lu Di Xian Jing and Yi Jin Jing as methods of practice to achieve physical longevity while other ancient texts such as the Xiao Yaozi Dao Yin Jue and Yang Sheng Shi San Ze were unearthed as a renovated attempt to frame Daoist energetic practices in the context of step by step energy collection and leading methods.
Daoist Post-Heaven Neidan also reached peak development during this era with the Qian Feng School of Zhao Bi Chen which combines intentional energy movement and meditation to create a synthesis between something approaching Qigong and traditional Daoist Methods.
This period also saw the rise of attempts to create scientific and modern theories for Daoist and Buddhist Meditation such as Jiang Weiqiao's Yin Shi Zi Jing Zuo Lun and the early work of Chen Yingning who sought to merge Chinese traditional ideas with Biomedicine.
6: 1950 -1990s:
during this period many Daoist practices were absorbed into the nascent Qigong movement and Chen Yingning led the development of Daoist Jing Gong (stillness practice) within the Qigong community.
The Daoist Research Association of China was also founded as a means to research and develop Daoist practice.
After the Cultural Revolution Daoist Temples began to reopen and monastics began to interact with the lay community in a period where there was a significant profusion of traditional Daoist Energetic Methods and Internal Alchemy.
During the 1980s Qigong reached a fever pitch and many new styles combining Daoist, Buddhist and Chinese Medicine concepts were developed.
Many of these styles directly borrow from ancient Daoist methods and Neidan to establish their theories and the bulk of common Qigong ideas like Small Orbit, Three Dantian etc are directly borrowed from Daoist Internal Alchemy.
5: Post 2000:
Daoist practice is now flourishing in both secular and monastic communities in China and the diaspora as well as behaving as an emergent phenomenon in the West and around the world.
Since research has been improved through the internet it is now possible for Chinese readers to access most documents in the tradition and make accurate historical research on even defunct schools of Daoism such as the Shang Qing and Ling Bao.
Although many original practices died with their lineages, they have also been preserved in various traditions including Daoist religious schools under the Quanzhen and Zhengyi banners as well as in the popular imagination.
There is a significant community of secular Internal Alchemy practitioners in China and Taiwan at varying levels of authenticity and connection to the broader Daoist community.
There are also many people trying to reinvigorate lost practices such as those contained in the Huang Ting Jing and other ancient manuscripts to varying degrees of success.
The earlier approach to Qigong has mostly been driven underground with followers of major traditions practicing in small groups but also organizing in larger movements such as Zhineng Qigong's center in Shanxi province among others.
Regulation Qigong has been placed officially under the department of sport within the Chinese government and this has led to a removal of energetic and spiritual practices in favor of a physical approach which mainly relies on standing Dao Yin and Taijiquan like movements as its key components.
Many diaspora Qigong teachers have carried more traditional methods outside of China and Qigong is now reaching a second wave of popularity in the West as the aging population looks for longevity practices to help prevent many of the common problems associated with aging.
Daoist Qigong and Meditation are still poorly understood in the West, especially from the perspective of how individual practices work and where the distinctions exist between Qigong, Meditation, Visualization, etc...
The Daoist marketplace in the West is extremely active with hundreds of different groups, each espousing contradictory ideas, not so dissimilar to the early development of Daoism in China.
Because of this massive confusion about the nature of Daoist energetic practices and meditation I've decided to open a new course to clearly illustrate how the practices developed and changed over the years and how you can gradually work toward integrating their ideas in a harmonious way in your own secular practice.
My view of Daoist meditation and Qigong is modernist in nature and my use of ancient texts while hopefully being accurate is geared toward the view of teachers such as Chen Yingning who sought to innovate ancient methods into a modern context, thus while we will not be learning a specific religious lineage of Daoism, the classes will include applications of practices originating both within the religious and secular environment.
Here is the original ad copy of the Three Month Program:
3: Daoist Meditation for Beginners:
Where and When: Zoom meetings each Tuesday evening in February, March and April from 5:30-6:30 PM EST (with video access for those who can't make the live class).
How Much: $150/Month or $300 for 3 months USD.
Summary:
Daoist Meditation is an interesting and effective field of study with a track record of 2000+ years of effectiveness, but it is also shrouded in obscurity and difficult to study without clear guidance.
In this three month series we will investigate the core ideas of each of the major Daoist Meditation traditions including:
- Zuo Wang/Sitting in Forgetting,
- Cun Xiang/Visualization,
- Tu Na/Breathing Practices,
- Neidan/Internal Alchemy,
- and other health cultivation schools such as Dao Yin.
This course will follow a chronological approach to show how Daoist self cultivation practices developed from the earliest philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi all the way to the contemporary intersection of Qigong, Taijiquan and Daoist Meditation practices while teaching you the essence of each of the major schools of thought.
The classes will be based both on primary source materials from the Daoist Canon as well as the contemporary research of scholars such as Chen Yingning and Hu Fuchen.
While not textual in nature, our classes will draw on a number of key texts from each of the major genres we cover and show not only how these important health and spirit nourishing methods are performed but also how to integrate ancient and medieval ideas into today's world.
This course is designed with beginners in mind, but it may also be interesting if you want to understand the differences between the categories of Daoist practice as well as their intersections.
Our classes will blend lecture and practice so you can get direct experience in class while receiving sufficient instruction to know how to obtain benefit from the practices in a clear way.
We will learn how modern Daoism uses each category of practice in both secular and religious contexts to clearly understand the teleology of different Daoist methodologies, since ultimately being clear about our goals can help us decide which part of Daoism to focus on in study.