{"id":268,"date":"2019-01-24T16:15:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T00:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/?p=268"},"modified":"2020-07-28T21:13:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T05:13:24","slug":"zuowang-%e5%9d%90%e5%bf%98-sitting-forgetting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/24\/zuowang-%e5%9d%90%e5%bf%98-sitting-forgetting\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuowang (\u5750\u5fd8) \u2013 Sitting & Forgetting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ZuoWang-WuMingChuan-2020.0728\"The central practice method of wuweidao is sitting quietly and simply abiding in things-as-they-are.\u00a0 This practice has been given many names throughout history, and different traditions have approached it in different ways.\u00a0 Our tradition refers to it as Zuowang \u2013 Sitting & Forgetting.\u00a0 This term comes from the Zhuangzi, which says: \u201cDropping the body and dismissing concepts, leaving appearance and removing knowledge, merging with the Great Pervasion \u2013 this I call sitting & forgetting.\u201d \u00a0My teacher learned this method from a Daoist hermit who had been on retreat in a cave in northern Taiwan for 20 years.<\/p>\n

The practice consists of a\u00a0view and a method<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the view of Zuowang as practiced in Laozi\u2019s tradition is distinctly different from\u00a0alchemical practices<\/a>\u00a0geared to bring about refinement and transformation.\u00a0 It\u2019s also quite different from magical practices that manipulate qi to improve auspices.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t conflict with these practices – and in fact is often practiced in conjunction with them – yet it stands alone as something disengaged from aspirational pursuits.\u00a0 Wuweidao isn’t about producing some exalted state – it’s simply relaxing into our natural condition, uncontrived by effort and intention.<\/p>\n

Laozi\u2019s revelation is that our nature and Nature itself are inseparable, so the method of Zuowang is not about refining ourselves into something better but appreciating our nature as we actually are.\u00a0 This is why we sometimes refer to it as \u201cSudden-School Daoism<\/a>\u201d \u2013 a term borrowed from Chan\/Zen Buddhism.\u00a0 We view Laozi\u2019s Dao De Jing as an instruction manual for how to abide in our natural condition.\u00a0 But as my teacher said, the text is intended to spark conversation between teacher & student during personal transmission, as it needs to be \u201copened up\u201d by an adept of the practice.<\/p>\n

In the Tang Dynasty, as Buddhism came over the Himalayas and brushed up against Daoism, some keen-eyed monks recognized a resonance between Zuowang and the teachings of Buddha \u2013 in particular the Diamond and Heart sutras \u2013 and Chan (Zen) was born.\u00a0 In particular, the Caodong Chan tradition, and later the Soto Zen tradition in Japan, took the mantle of this non-conceptual meditation, placed it into the Buddhist worldview, and carried it forward as the central method for Buddhist awakening.\u00a0 Zuowang as practiced within Daoism seems to have taken on an aspirational quality at this time \u2013 as Daoists came to more concretely articulate their goals and distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary experience, Zuowang was increasingly viewed as a tool for accessing the Dao or attaining immortality, as evidenced in gradual-entry texts such as the Zuowang Lun.\u00a0 Fundamentally however, according to our tradition, Zuowang isn\u2019t geared around any such agenda, as Laozi doesn\u2019t presume that we\u2019ve lost anything that we need to recover.\u00a0 Actually, sitting without any agenda is precisely what Zuowang is in its pure sense \u2013 simply a platform for appreciating our nature, which Laozi refers to as\u00a0Dao-De<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the Chinese characters.<\/p>\n

Zuo (\u5750) means \u201csit\u201d.\u00a0 The character shows people on soil.\u00a0 Soil is the element or qi-phase of central equilibrium, so we can say this posture relates to Laozi\u2019s \u201cholding center\u201d in Dao De Jing Chapter 5.\u00a0 The idea of sitting is not only a physical posture but a qi-posture of letting movement settle into stillness. \u201cLetting mud settle\u201d brings the qi in and provides a stable base for natural qi circulation and \u2013 indeed \u2013 natural alchemy to arise.<\/p>\n

Wang (\u5fd8) means \u201cforget\u201d.\u00a0 The character shows the head & heart hiding, or the heart-mind perishing, so the idea is letting the heart-mind calm down, relaxing the qi down to the base and disengaging from thoughts & emotions. \u00a0The term suggests effortless emptying, it\u2019s not really an active technique \u2013 thus the practice embodies\u00a0wuwei<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Zuowang method in our tradition includes several precise facets that allow the practice to unfold in an easy and natural manner.\u00a0 It is my sincere wish to share this practice with like-minded adepts.\u00a0 If this practice appeals to you, check out my\u00a0Wuweidao Cultivation Group<\/a>.\u00a0 If you would like an introduction to this practice, or if you have any questions, please contact me at oldoakdao@yahoo.com.<\/p>\n

You can download a free introductory talk on Zuowang by my wuweidao lineage teacher, Liu Ming, at:\u00a0 https:\/\/www.dayuancircle.org\/zuowang-introduction\/<\/a>, and you can purchase his invaluable translation & commentary on the Dao De Jing at: https:\/\/www.dayuancircle.org\/observing-wuwei\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The central practice method of wuweidao is sitting quietly and simply abiding in things-as-they-are.\u00a0 This practice has been given many names throughout history, and different traditions have approached it in different ways.\u00a0 Our tradition refers to it as Zuowang \u2013 Sitting & Forgetting.\u00a0 This term comes from the Zhuangzi, which says: \u201cDropping the body and … Continue reading “Zuowang (\u5750\u5fd8) \u2013 Sitting & Forgetting”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,8,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268"}],"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=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}