Meditation in the Classical Daoist Tradition
Asian Traditions of Meditation October 31, 2016 DOI: 10.21313/hawaii/9780824855680.003.0010 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Key points | Argues that the classical Daoist textual corpus emerged from a tradition of meditative techniques and goals, not abstract philosophy alone. |
Abstract
The classical Daoist textual corpus, while often treated as abstract philosophy, emerged from a tradition of teachers and students that was primarily based on a common set of meditative techniques, and goals. These techniques emphasized proper posture (aligning the body and keeping it still), breath cultivation (concentrating, patterning, guiding, relaxing and expanding the breath), the use of attention (focusing on the one or on the center), as well as a variety of apophatic training regimes designed to restrict or eliminate desires, emotions, thoughts, knowledge and sense perceptions and reveal a deeper reality known as the Way, believed to underlie these faculties. With time, a tradition emerged for viewing these self-cultivation practices as particularly beneficial for rulership, connecting the ruler to a correlative web of cosmic energies.