Daoism & enlightened sitting

Thank you Gaby Hock for your notes on enlightened sitting from 3 March:

Meditation or enlightened sitting can become another compulsion to be active, to look for some reward, a purpose, a goal.

A compulsion is to be doing. Do we have moments of just being present?

Moments without thoughts, and when thoughts arise, remember they have no substance, even if we like them.

Being present means you are not caught up with what arises in the mind. It doesn’t mean you suppress thoughts,  or concentrate by staying with breath. When  we think about the breath, by counting the breath or thinking about whether it is short or long, we think.

We all think that thoughts solve things, so how can we drop them?  Thought is useless, it just separates us from the present moment.

Most concentration narrows down to a reference point, breath, mantra etc….not wandering off it, we return  back to the reference point, that’s concentration meditation

The jìng bài is inclusive, there is no reference point, no labelling, no naming of experience, you separate otherwise, there is no preference, it’s conditioning that makes us name all the time

• 敬拜

  jìng bài

  to worship
• 精白

  jīng bái

  pure white spotlessly white

Don’t do anything, as long as you have a way of doing it, it will be a struggle

Forget the self, the manic control.

“As I sit quietly doing nothing, Spring comes and grass grows by itself”

Everything goes through the reference point of self. The self drops away.

Absolute effortlessness

Body sitting, relax posture, long smooth breathing

3 basic teachings on enlightened sitting:

Trust that our original nature is presence. Our original nature is always present.

You have to be willing to sit, willing to be present, no reaction to what arises

Our senses reach out for gratification all the time.

Yet our original nature is always present.

enlightened sitting:

The moment we sit still, qi starts to gather through that stillness

When water is still, it gets clear

Cultivation not practice. Not entertainment but this is already present. Doesn’t need meditation to enter the space, it  can do it anywhere.  Not unknown to us, particularly in childhood

Prepare the field, plant the seed, the true and tranquil path.

It’s like vapour but very light and awake.

Gaby Hock