Taoism > Meditation
The Art of Meditation in Taoism
The word "meditation" is very popular in Western culture. The main source of its popularity is based on the yoga practices and philosophy. In Taoism, meditation doesn't have anything in common with yoga practice. There are no postures (asanas), nor inner concentration or fusional feelings. In this respect, Alan Watts wrote:
Contemplative Taoists will be happily to sit with yogis and Zennists for as long as is reasonable and comfortable, but when nature tells us that we are 'pushing the river' we will get up and do something else, or even go to sleep.
(From Tao: The Watercourse Way).Basically, Taoist meditation is more like a sort of wisdom achieved by close observation of the things and phenomena in the world surrounding us. Such wisdom should help us go alongside with things and not against them, and is surely related to the wu-wei (nondoing) concept.
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"I have a method" says Yen Hui. "What is this method of yours?", asked Confucius. "I just sit and forget everything", continues Yen Hui... There are a lot of Taoist texts pointing to the mediation technique. I'll quote only a fragment from a dialogue between Master
Lieh-tzu and one of his disciples:At the end of seven years, there was another change. I let my mind reflect on what it would, but it no longer occupied itself with right and wrong. I let my lips utter whatsoever they pleased, but they no longer spoke of profit and loss. (From Taoist Teachings Translated from the Book of Lieh Tzu, 1912, Lionel Giles vesion).
The phrase "no longer spoke of profit and loss" points to the complete detachment of the Taoist from all contingencies of human ethics and morals.
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