Taoism > Meditation

About the Realization of the Celestial Mind

Peace of mind - picture

By Jhian Yang

The realization of the Celestial Mind (or the Great Ultimate) is a must for the Taoist disciples. There are many texts, more or less confusing, teaching about this matter. The following one is extremely simple if we take into account the difficulty of such a goal. Let's see what is about.

Quote:

The reason this Way is not operative is that the Way is not clearly understood. At first the work is a matter of extinguishing emotionalism and sweeping away miscellaneous thoughts. This is the first step, building the foundation and refining the self. Once the human mentality is set aside, the celestial mind come back.  Once human desires are purified, then the celestial design is always present.

Commentary

This quote is from Master Zang Safeng's teachings about the Taoist alchemical work. The text is translated by Thomas Clearly in his book on Taoist meditation*.

Let's try to seize its meaning.

- "The work is a matter of extinguishing emotionalism…" - that is, it is about what happens when we contemplate a beautiful landscape. Something moves our hearts and we feel completely submerged by our intense feelings. This is wrong, according to Master Safeng.

- "… and sweeping away miscellaneous thoughts" - that is, what we think about the Way, without having a concrete, direct experience of the matter.

We rather choose to think than live the experience of meditation. Westerners cannot do without first thinking about what it means to do something…

But we must forget our prejudices (aka the human mentality), and empty our minds of whatever we think in order to realize the Celestial Mind, the Great Ultimate (we can call it the Tao).

Moreover, from the moment we leave the common thinking, we may see the design, meaning the Real as it is (Buddhist Suchness).

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*Thomas Clearly: Taoist Meditation. You may order this startling book from Amazon.com:
https://amzn.to/30CXwgn.

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