A question sometimes arises in people who enjoy Laozi\u2019s laissez-faire teaching: why would we need to practice sitting meditation or any other formal practice?\u00a0 To be sure, Laozi\u2019s teaching does not mandate any formal practice.\u00a0 Fundamentally speaking, in fact, the teaching itself need not arise.<\/p>\n
But it does arise \u2013 this indicates the need for teaching, or at least some appetite for teaching.\u00a0 Laozi doesn\u2019t recognize any grand fall from grace, but he does recognize that human beings have a tendency to lose our way.\u00a0 Thus, teaching & practice (Hygiene, Meditation, & Ritual<\/a>) appear.<\/p>\n The teaching simply points to our own natural, uncontrived experience.\u00a0 It shifts our qi-orientation back to what is so of itself (Dao-De<\/a>).<\/p>\n According to my wuweidao lineage teacher, we have four mandated practices: breathing, eating, moving, & resting.\u00a0 Everything else is details.\u00a0 Options for how to cultivate these mandates.<\/p>\n So no, we don\u2019t need to practice sitting meditation.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need to chant.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need any altars, any scriptures.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need any Taiji forms.\u00a0 We don\u2019t need fengshui or astrology or divination.<\/p>\n Yet there are ways to breathe, eat, move, & rest that bring about discomfort, disease, and death before our time, and there are ways to breathe, eat, move, & rest that support natural comfort, ease, and longevity.\u00a0 So we sit, we chant, we keep altars, practice Taiji forms, adjust fengshui, study astrology, cast yarrow stalks to inform our conduct\u2026 we practice the myriad methods with the view of wuwei.\u00a0 The forms are empty, but when we cultivate them without attachment or struggle, they somehow bear unexpected fruit (View-Method-Fruition<\/a>).\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand, but I can say the fruit is sweet.<\/p>\n There is no pressure to accomplish anything in wuweidao, just methods to stay with our own uncontrived nature \u2013 which is constantly abiding, effortlessly of itself.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t need our practice.\u00a0 But it does seem to like our attention.\u00a0 Firm discipline is an expression of reverence for Dao, but it\u2019s not about struggle.\u00a0 It\u2019s just about bringing the qi back home.\u00a0 As our practice matures, what may appear to others to be uptight discipline, actually feels easy, maybe even a bit indulgent on the inside.<\/p>\n This ripening comes from a relaxed view and disciplined practice.\u00a0\u00a0So let’s forget about necessary or unnecessary and just settle into the ease of practice.\u00a0 That’s what it’s here for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A question sometimes arises in people who enjoy Laozi\u2019s laissez-faire teaching: why would we need to practice sitting meditation or any other formal practice?\u00a0 To be sure, Laozi\u2019s teaching does not mandate any formal practice.\u00a0 Fundamentally speaking, in fact, the teaching itself need not arise. But it does arise \u2013 this indicates the need for … Continue reading “Is Formal Practice Necessary?”<\/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\/314"}],"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=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldoakdao.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}