{"id":140,"date":"2018-01-18T07:43:47","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T15:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2018-01-19T20:32:48","modified_gmt":"2018-01-20T04:32:48","slug":"mindfulness-wuwei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/18\/mindfulness-wuwei\/","title":{"rendered":"Mindfulness & Wuwei"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\u9ec3-seal\"\"\u725d-seal\"<\/p>\n

I recently attended a two-day seminar on mindfulness training in a program promoted by Google.\u00a0 A Google engineer was inspired by mindfulness and decided this practice should be Google\u2019s next gift to the world.\u00a0 The program is now being taught all over the world, largely in corporate settings.<\/p>\n

Despite my initial skepticism, I thought it was quite good \u2013 the teachers were steeped in the practice and well-versed in the latest science on meditation, and of course both were clinical psychologists because that is the route through which modern science is opening up to the benefits of meditation.\u00a0 Practices included attending to the breath, feeling the body, noticing emotions, journaling, and conscious listening.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t noted in the seminar, but mindfulness meditation per se comes from Vipassasa practice in Buddhism.\u00a0 Vipassana \u2013 meaning \u201ckeen observation\u201d \u2013 uses systematic conscious observation as a gradual method to chisel away at our illusion and impurities in order to uncover our pristine original nature.\u00a0 From a modern agnostic-scientific-corporate perspective, we are chiseling away at our distractedness in order to optimize our brain function, creativity, emotional intelligence, happiness, and productivity.<\/p>\n

It is pragmatic to meet people where they are (\u201cskillful means\u201d), and these practices, which are fundamentally non-cultural and non-sectarian in nature, have adapted to many different cultural and religious contexts for millennia.\u00a0 Since we\u2019re living in a largely post-religious scientific world, it probably makes sense to present these practices from a scientific perspective, as most of us trust doctors, psychologists, and scientists more than priests or shamans.<\/p>\n

While mindfulness practice is wonderful in itself and has countless \u201cbenefits\u201d, I am compelled to write about the distinction between mindfulness & wuweidao \u2013 they are not the same thing.<\/p>\n

The Chinese term xin (\u5fc3) translates as heart-mind.\u00a0 It represents our central consciousness consisting of a harmony of 5 distinct kinds of spirit, each associated with 1 of the 5 phases of qi.\u00a0 One of these spirits is yi (\u610f), which means mind-intent.<\/p>\n

Mindfulness practice engages the yi to look into the xin in order to gain perspective, to calm down, and to improve our ability to remain centered or to handle difficult situations.\u00a0 Two Chinese words for mindfulness practice are ding & guan (\u5b9a\u89c0) \u2013 focus & observation (see Ding-Guan post<\/a>).<\/p>\n

There is a term in esoteric Daoism called the \u201cYellow Woman\u201d (\u9ec3\u725d) – these characters are featured above.\u00a0 \u201cUse the yellow woman to harmonize yin & yang\u201d.\u00a0 The color yellow implies the qi-phase soil, which represents central equilibrium and is associated with yi.\u00a0 The character for woman here \u2013 \u201cpin\u201d \u2013 shows an ox plowing a field, so the image is of furrows in soil.\u00a0 While the process of plowing represents intentional practice (wei, \u70ba), the open, empty grooves represent emptiness, fertility, and open potential (wu, \u7121).<\/p>\n

Most traditions, including Daoist alchemy, agree that meditation practice needs to start with some degree of intentional effort, but at some point effort needs to be abandoned in order to allow our practice to ripen.\u00a0 In Daoist terminology, we start with youwei (\u6709\u70ba) \u2013 intention and control (plowing the field), and finish in wuwei (\u7121\u70ba) \u2013 abandoning intention and control (relaxing effort).<\/p>\n

In wuweidao, we abandon intention and control pretty much from the very beginning.\u00a0 It takes some degree of intention to sit and maintain the specific points of posture, but once we\u2019re sitting we just let everything go, leaving our cultivation to the great Dao.\u00a0 We\u2019re not actively cultivating and we\u2019re not exerting effort to be mindful \u2013 this is an important point.\u00a0 Letting our mind be as it is without placing effort or mindfulness or anything else upon it.<\/p>\n

Mindfulness is the process of actively plowing the field.\u00a0 Wuweidao by comparison is the practice of empty-mindedness \u2013 xuxin (\u865b\u5fc3). \u00a0While mindfulness may aspire to\u00a0wuwei as an ultimate goal or consider it an advanced stage, in Laozi\u2019s practice we consider wuwei the fundamental method of nature itself and jump right in with full faith in the capacity of Dao and our own inherent virtue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

10,000 methods come & go<\/p>\n

From where, to where?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know<\/p>\n

Weary of them all<\/p>\n

Something else arises – of itself<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t really call it a method<\/p>\n

Call it wuweidao<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

*image source: Richard Sears \u2013 thank you!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently attended a two-day seminar on mindfulness training in a program promoted by Google.\u00a0 A Google engineer was inspired by mindfulness and decided this practice should be Google\u2019s next gift to the world.\u00a0 The program is now being taught all over the world, largely in corporate settings. Despite my initial skepticism, I thought it … Continue reading “Mindfulness & Wuwei”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}