Author: Bin Song

How To Make Sense of the Pandemic as a Ruist (Confucianist) ?

On By Bin SongIn Confucianism History & Philosophy3 Comments

Hallo, my name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, therapist, and college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to help make sense of the cause of this pandemic in light of the spiritual practice of Ru (Confucian) meditation.

Before you start to listen to my words, I recommend you to do a short breathing practice to calm our heart and illuminate our mind. So, please position yourself well, sit, incline, or simply lie down. Using your belly muscles, be aware of the minor movements of your body, and then, focus upon your breath. Breathe in, deeply, slowly, and comfortably. Breathe out, feel the release, and feel the relax. And a short pause. Again, breathe in, breathe out. remember, no matter how bad the pandemic is, how frustrated you feel about your situation, there is always air and oxygen flowing around. The fact that you can breathe in to reenergize and re-tranquilize yourself should be deeply appreciated. So, breathe in, breathe out. Release the anxiety, worry, and all feelings of uncertainty. We need to focus upon things that we can control and improve, not things that are out of our control; so all anxieties, worries, and the feeling of uncertainty caused by the uncontrollable facts of life should all be released. Take care of yourself, be kind to your family, do your duties of your work; these are what we can control, and what we can do well if we breathe and meditate in the place here and in the time now. After you breathe out, let’s feel the short pause before next breathe in. Yes, when you stay home because of the pandemic, this is just a short pause of your entire life. For everybody, this is a good moment to reflect, to slow down, and to learn and plan for a better future.

While I am speaking, please continue to enjoy your breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, and a short pause.

From a Ruist perspective, the pandemic is neither an ineluctable natural disaster such as hurricanes or earthquake, nor the punishment by a supreme deity to humans’ violation of preestablished divine laws. It is not a sign of an apocalyptic event predetermined by some divine plan either. Instead, regardless of the origin of the fatal virus which the best scientific minds in the world are still trying to figure out, the development of the original outbreak to the current pandemic is a completely human disaster. It is caused by the non-transparency, dishonesty, injustice, malfunction, and inhumaneness of human governance and social management in face of this unprecedented event of global health crisis.

Let’s use one of the canonical texts of Ruism, Zhong Yong, to explain why theism is not a model for Ruism to make sense of the pandemic. The title of the text can be translated as “centrality and normality” or “keeping centered in the everyday world”, and it is said to be written by the grandson of Confucius, Zi Si, who lived around the 5 century B.C.E.

According to this text, what creates this world is not a supreme personal deity, but an all-encompassing, constantly generating cosmic power, which is called Tian. It says Tian “has no goal other than creating, and its power of constant creativity is beyond fathom.” (為物不貳，生物不測). So, what is Tian? Tian is the breathed air when you meditate; Tian is the beautiful sunshine in a nice and warm spring afternoon; Tian is also the colorful flowers, your cute puppet, and everything you love and cherish to your heart. However, Tian is also your bad moods when you are hungry, and your feelings of envy and jealousy when your peers get promoted. Tian is also all the frequently arrived natural disasters on the earth: hurricane, earthquake, famine, drought, flooding. And Tian is also the birth, explosion, and even disappearance of a remote star in a galaxy we humans can never imagine to reach. Seen from this perspective, the greatest virtue of Tian, which Ruism calls 德, is to have each and everything in the universe exist, become and change together in the eternal temporal scale of all possible past, present and future moments. In other words, Tian is beyond which nothing greater can be imagined, and this is the reason why the Chinese character of Tian 天adds a small stroke upon a lower character read as “great”, and indicates that Tian is the greatest being that humans can ever imagine when referring to the evolving world and its origin.

While we ponder the unfathomable and all-encompassing creative power of the universe of Tian as such, a feeling of wonder and awe towards it will naturally arise in our heart. Also, we will feel released by the fact that although Tian’s awesome creative power reaches anything and everything in the universe, it is not centered and calibrated to human needs. So, even if it would be possible for human civilization to be completely wiped out from the universe one day perhaps because of some natural disaster, pandemic or other devastating events, Tian is still Tian. It is still changing, becoming and creating; perhaps generating another civilization in another planets, or perhaps not.

This brings at least two central points of Ru spirituality: one, if we understand the co-existence of each and everything in the universe of Tian as the broadest case of “harmony” humans can ever imagine, the humans’ efforts of building a human civilization so as to satisfy the human interests of existing, surviving, and thriving together with a non-human nature should take the unfathomable creativity power of Tian as an ideal. This means we shall try to love and nurture as many living and natural beings as possible; but second, whether humans can harmonize all interests of human beings and furthermore, harmonize and co-flourish both human civilization and the non-human nature, will entirely depend upon our own efforts. Translated in terms accessible to Ru meditation, I will say, Tian provides abundant energy flowing around for human individuals to breathe in and utilize, but whether human individuals can breathe in and utilize them in the most effective way entirely depend upon our discipline and practice.

But how humans can rely upon our own efforts to harmonize and co-flourish all involved beings in a civilization to try our best to manifest the all-encompassing creative and loving power of Tian in the human world? Here, the text of Zhong Yong gives us a crucial verse for guidance, and it is also highly helpful for us to make sense of the cause of the pandemic: the verse reads, “不誠無物”, which can be literally translated as “if humans are not honest, nothing exists in the human world.” Yes, that’s it! Let me read the verse again: “if humans are not honest, nothing exists in the human world.” Look at the world now: schools closed, restaurants shut down, cinemas cannot be walked into. Even when humans meet each other, we cannot see our faces, or we can only greet each other from a far distance. How sad this is! How bad this is! But who causes this? It is those dishonest people rightly in the epi-centers of this pandemic!

There are three meanings of the Chinese character Cheng in this verse, each meaning is deeper than its prior one, and it also includes but is not limited by the prior meaning.

Firstly, Cheng means simply honesty. Human words and deeds must be in line with each other. And this is the bottom-line principles of human interaction. If parents are not honest to children, husband is not honest to wife, a government is not honest to its citizens, nothing remains to sustain these human relationships.

Secondly, Cheng means sincerity. The correspondence between words and deeds may not endure if an individual is not sincerely believing the value of what they are pursuing. In this case, the apparent correspondence may derive from blind thought habit, or just pretend to be so to fulfill some strategic, utilitarian needs. On the other hand, extreme situations may require humans to temporarily break their promise of words to accommodate emergency needs, and in these unusual situations, it is still the indicated sincere good intention of those individuals to account for why they need break their promises and hence, induce some dishonesty in their deeds. In other words, a deeper meaning of Cheng refers to the devotional dimension of inner sincerity of human heart when we are saying words and doing deeds.

Thirdly, Cheng means authenticity. If one’s devotion to a certain cause of life does not line up with principles about how individuals thrive themselves in an all-interconnected human society, their devotion may be sincere, but not authentic. So, according to the text of Zhong Yong, what is the most important for each individual to manifest the all-encompassing creativity of Tian in the human world is to remain authentic to their enduring, irreplaceable and genuine self, and thus, harmonize the needs of their self with other human and natural beings, so as to realize harmonies in its varying forms and in evolving life situations. If we humans can achieve this, we will “assistant the transformation and nurturing of heaven and earth”, and thus become one of the triadic, divine powers: heaven, earth and human beings, within the universe of Tian.

So, in light of this crucial verse of Zhong Yong, how can we make sense of the cause of the pandemic? I think we just need to ask these questions to all those involved human fellows who are responsible to monitor, plan, and execute policies of public health: are they honest in their words and deeds? Are they sincerely devoted to what their responsibilities require to? And are their personalities or the institutions where they work in authentic to principles of the sustainability of human civilization and the co-thriving harmonization of all involved living beings? If not, then, the result has already been mandated by the text: “ if not Cheng, nothing exists in the human world.” Yes, “if not Cheng, nothing exists in the human world.”

Then, since we can make sense of it, the last question we need to ask is that, in order for things in the human world to exist and flourish again, how can we make our human life continually honest, sincere and authentic? In the context of Ru meditation, a disciplined practice of re-centering ourselves in evolving moments of our everyday life is definitely a starting point for each individual. As Mencius said, if each of us can have a good sleep, practice meditative breathing in a daily basis, and thus, nurture the oceanic Qi within our bodies, we will be more ready to feel the interconnection of all living beings in the universe, and thus, be more honest, sincere and authentic to do what is right, to live out what is meaningful and valuable. So, let’s continue to breathe in, breathe out, and enjoy the incoming peaceful and temporary rest.

Standing and Walking Meditation

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment
Standing and Walking Ru Meditation

Hallo, my name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, therapist and college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to guide your Ru (Confucian) meditation using the postures of standing and walking.

The posture of standing meditation is fairly straightforward, since you already know the posture of the upper body when you do quiet-sitting on a chair or cross-legged quiet-sitting. While standing, your upper body remains the same as those postures.

Standing posture is very fit for moments when you need to stand for a longer while. For instance, when you ride a bus, a train, or other vehicle, especially when the vehicle is crowded, you need a space for yourself to go through the stress created by unhappy travels. In these moments, you can simply stand straight, or lean on something, focus upon your breath, and start to do Ru meditation according to the method I told you before. Or, another instance is that, before you enter into an auditorium for public speaking, you can simply stand up straightly, take a deep breath, and start to gather all the surrounding energy for courage, composure and confidence. In a deep meditative state, you can even start to visualize your speech in front of those dedicated audience so as to prepare yourself well for the speech.

In the spiritual level, the standing posture is very fit for the description given by the Ru tradition to an upright and outstanding junzi: they are “carrying the heaven, and standing on the earth.” In the terms of the Classic of Change, a junzi would combine the virtue of heaven as they work diligently towards daily renewal and self-strengthening, and the virtue of earth as they are all-caring and nurturing towards the other living beings. So, while standing up and meditating, please feel the unique position you take between the heaven and the earth as an upright Junzi who is dedicated to daily renewal and all-encompassing universal love.

Many postures I introduced in the past can be practiced as a package. For instance, before sleeping, you can do cross-legged quiet-sitting first, and then, sleeping meditation second. And another best package of practice is that, first, you do quiet-sitting on a chair, then, you stand up for a while, and finally, you start to walk. Therefore, in the following, I will start to introduce the first moving posture of Ru meditation in this series of broadcast: that is to meditate while walking.

There are beautiful passages in the Analects that record Confucius’s saying while he was walking with his students. One of my favorites is the last verse of Chapter 10. No interpreter in the commentarial history of this verse exactly knows what happened here, including me. But I will try my best to render it in accessible English, and in my own way. It says, when Confucius was walking in a mountain, he saw several beautiful hen-pheasants. While he looked at them, those pheasants flew away, and after circling around for a while, they settled down again. At this moment, Confucius said: “The hen-pheasant on the hill bridge – How timely! How timely!” Then, Zi Lu, one of Confucius’s close students, cupped his hands to greet those pheasants. These pheasants flapped their wings for several times, and then, took to the air. And this is the end of the scenario.

The fact that this verse is located at the end of one Chapter which talks about how Confucius sleeps, sits, stands, walks, looks, expresses his face, speaks, eats, cooks, and does all other details following his sense of ritual-propriety at evolving situations of life is very telling. In the context of Ru meditation, what this seemingly very obscure verse speaks to exactly what I tried to convey in previous podcasts of Ru meditation; that is, Confucius acclaims that a continually self-cultivating junzi, like those beautiful hen-pheasants, can timely move, and timely settle, so as to extend an inner state of energy equilibrium or centrality, to both static and moving moments of human life. This is actually what the Ruist idea “ritual-propriety” 禮 is all about: a properly ritualized human deed would let involved living beings in a specific situation harmoniously and dynamically fit together.

Understood in this perspective, the simplest moving posture of Ru meditation, the one of walking while meditating, is of crucial significance. This is because, for meditation practitioners, they may have formed a bad habit of enjoying stillness, while disliking movement. For instance, whenever they close their eyes, sit quietly, and focus upon their breathing, they feel great. However, whenever they need to deal with real human issues, or simply start to move, they will feel disturbed, distracted, and cannot bundle themselves up. Because of this, a discipline of moving meditation using the same method of Ru breathing will greatly balance our sense of body kinematics, and thus, integrate our life as a dedicated and functional whole. On the other hand, professionals in today’s world are usually sitting for too long a time, and routinely straining their eyes and bodies before screens too. In this case, sitting meditation may cause further harm to their body if they cannot command an alternative approach of standing or walking meditation.

Good, enough for the philosophy part of walking meditation in the Ru tradition. Let’s move on to talk of its method. (Pause, first half)

For the practice of walking meditation, it is better to do it while your breath starts to enter its second meditative stage, the so-called stage of “following breath,” according to the method of Ru breathing I explained before. This is because in the first stage of Ru breathing, your primary focus is to use counting to concentrate your heartmind upon your breath. In this initial stage, if you simultaneously walk while counting your breath, it will add another action to your initiative of meditation, which will make it harder. However, in the second stage of following breath, your breath has become calmer, slower, and deeper, and your attention has also been easily following each part of your breathing. Like what I suggest you to contemplate your body and contemplate your environment while you follow your breath, you can start to walk as well. Because the concentrated attention can now easily encompass each detail of your body movement, through walking meditation, you can furthermore integrate your moving body, your heartmind, the air, and the environment as a harmonious unity, which is the goal of Ru meditation.

Since it is better to do walking meditation when you succeed to follow your breath, beginning practitioners may need to do quiet-sitting on a chair, or standing meditation for a while before they walk. This is the reason why I said that some postures can be practiced as a package: sitting, standing, and walking. However, for adept practitioners, they can easily focus their heartmind upon breathing and follow their breath, so it would not be an issue for them to do walking meditation at any time they want.

There are several points for the method of walking Ru meditation:

  • match your slow and deep breath with your steps. This may mean a few steps for inhale, a few steps for exhale, and fewer steps for the short pause, depending upon how slow your breathing is. However, it is important to put the attention of your heartmind simultaneously upon your breath, and upon moving details of your body.
  • when moving, be aware of each step of your walking. You raise one of your legs, let the heel of one foot touch the ground first, and then, do feel how the bottom of foot, and your toe, touch the ground one after another. The same goes to the other foot. While contemplating a still body requires your attention to each part of your body, the same goes to your moving body, particularly the parts of lower legs and the feet, when you are walking. So, we will do walking meditation like this: a deep inhale, slowly walk, your left heel touches the ground, your right toe starts to leave the ground, then, the sole of your left foot settles; while your right foot leaves the ground, your left toe settles too. Then, a very relaxed exhale. The smooth move of your whole body is a subtle and beautiful interaction between the yang and the yin powers of the universe and yourself. So, heels down, toes up; one knee bends, another straights out; one step forward, one breath downward. If you can succeed to put your attention upon all these moving details of your body while walking, you realize the pattern-principle, li 理, in the context of meditative walking.
  • feel the solid ground! That’s the primary component of your environment you need to contemplate when you are doing walking meditation. Also, all the other components of your environment are worth contemplating. I once did walking meditation on the beach, in the forest, in the parks, in the college campus, etc. In these cases, you can encompass the ocean, the sand, the wind, the tree, the chirping bird, the twisting worms, the historical building, and all the other components of your environment into your contemplation while walking and joyfully breathing. Believe me, this will be a transformative human and cosmic experience.
  • The position of your upper body will be like the one when you do quiet-sitting on a chair or the cross-legged quiet-sitting, including how your position your backbone, chest, head, eyes, and tongue. However, because your body is slowly moving, your arms will swing a little bit, and this is totally normal; make the arm relaxed, and swing natural following the rhythm of your moving body.
  • You can walk in straight lines, back and forth, just like what I am doing in the video; or walk along the four lines of a square. When reaching one end point, turn your body slowly, and feel how your muscles, bones, and your heartmind work together to make this smooth and peaceful turn. A key to understand moving forms of Ru meditation is that no matter whether your body is moving or not, you can always feel the inner quietude in your heartmind. This implies you extend the state of centrality, the one of energy equilibrium, to both still and moving parts of your life, which is really what Ru meditation is all about.

Good, these are the five major points for walking Ru meditation. Before concluding this session, I will share you my best experience of walking meditation. That happens during one night, perhaps around 12 o’clock am, when I practiced cross-legged quiet-sitting for a while. I entered the third stage of breathing, the one of settled breath. Then, I stood up and started to walk. What marvels me is that I keep myself on the same stage of settled breath for a long time. With only a slice of air breathed in, my breathing can be suspended there, and it is robust enough to support my walking. I feel my entire body is extremely light, transparent, and my mind is so clear of everything that happens in and surrounding me, which extends as far as the entire universe. This is what happens when the state of centrality is extended from a still body to a moving one because of the accumulative efforts of my practice of Ru meditation. Zhu Xi, one of the greatest Ruist philosophers after Confucius, once described his experience of Ru meditation as “It feels like lying on the clouds, and walking in the sky. I dare not talk of it.” Yes, I think I need to stop here since I already talked of it.

I Hope you have a nice walk today, and Take care!

Meditation for Sleep

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment

Hallo, my name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, and a college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to guide your Ru meditation using the posture of sleeping.

Sleeping meditation takes a very important role in Ru meditation. Rightly at the beginning of the Ru tradition, Mencius lived around 3 century B.C.E and was a staunch follower and wise interpreter of Confucius’s thought. He wrote beautiful passages about “night vital-energies.” （夜气）. He likens human body to a mountain, and says that a daily good sleep for a human being will be like a regular amount of sunshine, air, rain, and other necessary natural elements to nourish a mountain. As a result, the mountain will become lush, vital and fertile, and it is going to grow, feed and bring joy to the life of many living beings. However, if humans are deprived of sleep, that will be like hunters and peasants who dare to use axes and hatchets to exploit the mountain every day. In this case, the mountain will eventually become bald and barren, and is completely stripped of any ability to nurture other beings. What is distinctive about Mencius’s thought on sleeping meditation is that he says when people get a good sleep, and have a clear, calm, and sensitive mind in the morning as a consequence, this will help us to be more moral. This is because it will become easier for us to feel the interconnection of all beings in the world, and when a baby is about to fall into a well, or any other similar distress happens to our human fellows, we will be more likely to have a feeling of empathy and try to care and help them. In other words, if we have a good sleep to continually nurture the vital-energies within our body day and night, we will become more moral. I do not know how many classes of ethics in modern universities and colleges are teaching how to sleep, but as inspired by Mencius’ thought and practice, I definitely believe they should.

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In the period of neo-Confucianism, Ru masters’ writings about meditative sleep became more abundant.

There are beautiful poems written by Ru masters such as Chen Baisha (1428-1500 C.E), who described his sleep as “thousands-of-meters-high clouds float under my pillow.” (千丈雲根枕底眠) It was also said that when Wang Yangming (1472-1529 B.C) stayed in the army as a general and lead a troop for a military expedition , using the method of meditative sleep, he could have no normal sleep and thus, remained to be awake for about 40 days. In general, for these Ru masters in the period of neo-Confucianism, they understood meditative sleep from two perspectives. Cosmologically, a good sleep is to preserve and nourish the yin side of humans’ daily routine. In other words, If you cannot recharge yourself during a restful and peaceful night, you cannot be full of yang power to act and function in the busy daytime either . Ethically, a good sleep is thought of being able to nurture the innately good human nature, and therefore, like Mencius said, to make humans’ practice of morality more ready and steady.

As shown in the pictures, I will introduce two postures of meditative sleep, and they are very suitable for practice before one’s sleeping.

One, you lean towards the right side, to avoid the pressure on your heart. When you lean towards the right, put your right hand under your neck. The part of the right hand that supports your head refers to the ulna bone part of your wrist. Please do not put the part of your wrist where you can feel the pulse under your head; in this case, it will bring pressure to your system of blood circulation, which causes no good. Also, where your head gets supported is the part of your neck below your ear. The final point for the head part in this sleeping posture is to put a nice pillow under your head and hand. So, in a word, lean towards right, on a nice pillow, put your right hand under your head, and use the bone part of your wrist to support your neck. If you position yourself well in this way, your head will be slightly higher than your knees, and you would not feel heavy-headed during the practice of meditative sleep.

Another key point of this posture is your knees. Do not let one knee directly upon another; you can put your left knee on your right lower leg, and in this case, your two legs would pass each other in a small angle. Then, you would not feel any extra pressure on your body.

The last point is a natural consequence of the aforementioned two points, that is when you lean right, do keep your tract of breathing relaxed and unblocked.

If you position yourself well in this sleeping posture, what remains for you to do is to focus upon breathing using the method of Ru breathing as I explained.

Sounds good? Yes, let’s move on the next posture of sleeping meditation. In this posture, You face upwards, and then, completely relax your four limbs. As indicated in the picture, there is almost no technique whatsoever for this posture other than using a pillow, which we all do.

In this completely relaxed sleeping posture, since we can feel our belly’s up and down more obviously, it will be a very good moment to practice the extra breathing practice I mentioned in third stage of Ru breathing. That is, you can deliberately extend the length of your inhale so as to let breathed oxygen more abundant, running deeper and broader in your body. So, when the belly rises a bit, breathes in a bit; rises a bit, breathes in a bit. There is a short time of holding breath after each bit of inhale. Sometimes, even without any further discipline, for mature practitioners of meditative breathing, this state just happens naturally. In this natural case, a deep, slow and delicate inhale will take a length of time longer than usual, and you will have an utterly joyful and even gratified feeling because of this deep breath. As a consequence, when your consciousness feels modified during the process, you will fall into a sound, fast, and deeply healing sleep.

Good. This will be the end of this session, and I hope you can have a very good sleep every day. Take care!

Cross-legged Quiet-sitting

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment

Hi, My name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, therapist, and college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, and theology. The audio is written and recorded by me to guide your practice of cross-legged quiet-sitting Ru meditation.

And this will be the second among seven postures of Ru meditation that I intend to introduce through this series of audio broadcast.

The posture of cross-legged quiet-sitting originates from ancient Hinduism, and migrates to China following Buddhism in around the 2 century C.E As I mentioned in last audio, the attitude of the majority of Ru scholars towards this posture in the beginning was to resist it, or simply not practice it. The major reason is that this posture was normally practiced by monks and nuns in monasteries in a very isolated way at that time, and Ruism in general opposes social disengagement and isolation.

However, in time, Ruist scholars started to practice and were quite fond of this posture. There are two major reasons for the change of their attitude:

(1) Firstly, although social engagement is a central commitment for Ru ethics, this ethic does not preclude those scholars or scholar-officials from enjoying leisure, ease or simply having a quiet time to regather and recharge from their busy life schedules. This means that when the time and situation allows, it would not be a bad idea to have a more extended period of time to practice quiet-sitting in a more intensive way. In this case, the already very popularized cross-legged Buddhist meditation became a readily available option. In the more developed stage of neo-Confucianism, around 16-17th century, Ru scholars like to organize local meditation groups to go into mountains for an extended period of quiet-sitting retreat, and during these retreats, the cross-legged posture was frequently practiced. Another good time to practice cross-legged quiet-sitting is during night and before one’s sleep. At this moment, all those busyness and agitations during one’s daytime cool down, and one’s mind does not need to think about any particular thing other than finding ways to enter a sound and deep sleep. In this way, a cross-legged quiet-sitting on one’s bed will be a very beneficial practice to prepare one’s deep sleep.

(2) Secondly, Ru scholars found that compared to quiet-sitting on a chair, the cross-legged posture puts human body in a more concentrated position, which will modify how the breathed air circulates and moves in their body. Their experience indicated that the practice of this more concentrated posture can help to mitigate or cure certain diseases. Since I have practiced this posture for many years, I would like to use some of my personal experiences as examples to explain it, although you can also find plenty of evidences from writings by those Ruist scholars in history.

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I am right now 38 years old, and have practiced double-cross-legged quiet-sitting Ru meditation for one decade, and it helped me to mitigate or cure diseases such as insomnia, sleep paralysis, stomachache, toothache, and asthma, among many other benefits to enhance my mental health and general well-being. Let me tell some brief stories, so you can get a sense of what the therapeutic effect of meditation looks like.

When I am 20s, I was a very bad sleeper, and suffered a lot from sleep paralysis and insomnia. When my mind was too stirred and occupied, I normally woke up but could not move my body, and this is called a disease of sleep paralysis. One of the worst cases of sleep paralysis I suffered happened during my sophomore year in college, when I tried to read intensively the very abstruse and obscure Chinese translation of German philosophers. And I clearly remembered that is Schopenhouer and Nietzsche. I tried very hard to do the reading, exhausted my brain, and just couldn’t fall asleep, and even couldn’t get up when I finally fell asleep. I had to withdraw from my college to stay at home for about two weeks. During that two weeks, I did nothing but watching TV, and drinking coca cola to temporarily recover from it. After that, I made three decisions, firstly, never read Chinese translations of German philosophy any more; secondly, read ancient Chinese philosophy more; and three, start to learn and practice meditation. As mentioned, after many years of meditation practice, I am an extremely good sleeper now. The sleep paralysis completely disappeared, and even a small cup of coffee during the night would not deprive me of any sleep. And I sleep faster, and shorter than most of my family members. For instance, I started to sleep around 10:30 pm yesterday, and am sitting right now on my desk to write this transcript starting from around 6:30 am. This is my normal life schedule and I feel great about it because of the sleep quality I get.

Scientifically speaking, I find the reason why meditation practice can elevate sleep quality is that the frequency of electro-magnetic wave that is exuded from our brain when we enter the deeper level of meditation is very similar to the one when we are in deep sleep. So, a practice before sleep is actually to exercise our brain to prepare it for deep sleep. However, sometimes, we can also become super energized and super awake because of the practice of meditation before sleep. If this happens, it just means that we have extra energy in our body to move and to act, so my solution is usually to get up again, do some reading, writing, or some other household stuff so as to get back to sleep later. Believe me, you will not feel exhausted by this as long as you get the needed sleep in time. However, for professionals and busy people, this state of extra energy doesn’t happen quite often, so you do not need to worry too much about this side effect of the practice of quiet-sitting before sleep.

Cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation also helps to greatly mitigate my asthma in the spring of 2017. I was in the graduate school to pursue my second PhD of religious studies in the U.S. at that time. My life was extremely stressed by writing the dissertation prospectus and trying to get it passed. Because of the high work pressure and also the changing spring weather, I caught a cold, and it developed into a bad asthma that I never had before. Apart from ordinary medications provided by my doctor, I continually practiced cross-legged quiet-sitting when the symptom of asthma got worsened. The deep, delicate and very effective deep breathing during the process really helped a lot. Fortunately, I never caught a similar asthma after that. But for people that have a chronic issue of respiratory disease, I would highly recommend the practice as a supplementary therapy.

The third example I will raise is pain control. I have great experiences to quickly mitigate my acute pains using the method of cross-legged quiet-sitting in the case of stomachache and toothache. Let me describe the case of stomachache here. My body recently succumbs to a habit of stomachache during the few weeks when fall changes into winter. During this time, whenever I eat something that is not hot or warm, my stomach just feels uneasy about it. I tried to change my diets, and added some new elements of food to avoid the pains. But sometimes, the pains just happen suddenly and intensively without any prior sign during night. Last fall, I had two very bad scenarios when I had to wake up during the middle of night from excruciating stomachaches. After I went to bathroom to do everything possible to control the pains, eventually of no avail, what I remained to do is to double-cross my legs, focus upon my breathing and my lower abdomen, and start to practice quiet-sitting. What surprised me is that after practicing it for a while, it feels like a very warm pair of hands are doing a deeply healing massage to my belly, and after some time, the pains disappeared completely. This happened twice to my body in the same season! What is interesting is that I read similar stories by ancient Ruist scholars when I did researches on Ru meditation, but when it actually happened to my body in almost exactly the same manner, it just caused a great feeling of marvel.

Scientifically speaking, pain control due to meditation practice is actually starting to be evidenced and researched by scholars in varying traditions and in varying disciplines. Apart from the physical massage that our body is doing to itself due to deep breath and the specific meditative posture, the mechanism why meditation can control pains, I think, is similar to why hypnosis can also do the same job. When we meditate deeply, our attention is more extensive, deeper, and more focused. As a result, our whole span of consciousness, including sub-consciousness, will be modified to alleviate the sensory and affective component of the acute pains. I do not believe that we can completely eliminate the physical cause of our pains all together using meditation; but given my experience and my research, I am certain that it does have this effect of mitigating acute pains.

Good, enough examples for the second reason why cross-legged quiet-sitting was practiced by Ruist scholars. Let me talk of its method.

There are seven major points of the method. Because the upper body part of the posture will be almost the same as quiet-sitting on a Chair, I would not use too many words to explain this part.

  • Cross you legs. This can be done in multiple ways. You can cross your feet and put them under your legs. You can also put either of the feet upon the thigh on the other side. This is called single-cross-legged quiet-sitting. The most difficult one for most of people is that you double-cross your legs. You will put the back of your right foot on your left thigh, and then, put the back of your left foot on your right thigh. This most difficult one has two orders: either your right lower leg is over the left one, or your left lower leg is on the right one. The pictures I show beside the audio is how I do double cross-legged quiet-sitting. If your body is not flexible enough, you will find it very hard to cross any leg to do this quiet-sitting posture. In this case, crossing your two feet and put them under your legs will be normally an easy start. Please do not worry over the fact that you cannot cross your legs. When I started to practice this posture, I cannot double cross my legs either. However, I singled cross my legs, and practiced it for a long time. One day, and I clearly remembered that was a day when I went to swim during the spring of 2010, I sat on the bench beside the swimming pool, and suddenly, I can double-cross my legs. And the story continues, in the beginning, I can only let my left lower-leg over my right one. But in time, I can do the other way as well. So, for beginning practitioners, do not worry about whether you can pursue the most difficult and concentrated form of cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. As long as you persist in practicing in whatever posture fit for you, you will always get benefits of it, and one day, you can command all available postures.
  • Put a cushion under your butt, so as to make your butt a bit higher than your knees
  • Make your backbone naturally stacked-up. No pop-up nor slouch of your chest.
  • The Head naturally lines up with your back up.
  • Eyes closed or leave a slice of vision open broadly.
  • This is slightly different from the one of the quiet-sitting on a chair. Since you can sit for relatively a longer time using this cross-legged posture, you can close your mouth, let your tongue touch the gum of your upper teeth. In time, there could be some saliva gathering up in your mouth, and since the saliva is a liquid very smooth and delicate, letting it run down along your tongue, and then, swallowing it will furthermore lubricate your throat and other related parts of your body, which will feel very good.
  • You can make your hands cupped, and put them below the lower abdomen. Or palms down, and put them on your knees. You can also put them in other places or use other hand gestures, as long as you feel comfortable. During deep meditation, sometimes you may feel you want to move your hands and arms a little bit, such as drawing some shapes or figures in the air; this is also completely normal. As long as you do it in the balance of discipline and spontaneity which I mentioned before, you can enjoy whatever you intend to do during meditation.

Ok, these are the seven major points of cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. Several caveats before concluding this audio:

  • Do remember to protect your joints when you do this posture of meditation, particularly your knees and your shoulder. They are the most exposed parts of your body during this posture. You can try to wear something or put a blanket on your legs if the temperature in the room is moderate or the outside weather is windy.
  • Long meditation is less ideal than short meditation but with more times of practices each day. So a 15-30 minute practice for two or three times a day will be ideal for beginning practitioners.

Good, this is the end of this audio on cross-legged quiet-sitting meditation. I hope you have a nice day, and take care!

Quiet-sitting on a Chair

On By Bin SongIn MeditationLeave a comment
Audio: Quiet-sitting on a chair, by Dr. Bin Song.
Video (picture in picture): Quiet-sitting on a chair, by Dr. Bin Song.

Hi, My name is Bin Song. I am a Ru scholar, and a college professor in the disciplines of philosophy, religion, and theology. This audio is written and recorded by me to guide your practice of Ru meditation using the posture of quiet-sitting on a chair.

As I explained in How to Breathe during the Ru Meditation, the focus upon a specific posture is less important than the focus upon breathing for the practice of Ru Meditation. However, this does not mean that one should not practice varying postures of Ru meditation. Instead, I would like to emphasize that compared to breathing, it is equally important that practitioners can command all the static and moving forms of “postures” so as to extend the state of energy equilibrium, or the state of centrality in a Ruist term, to both static and moving states of our body.

Let me use one metaphor to explain it. The state of centrality achieved during the breathing practice is like the inner body of a lake, while the static or moving postures of body during the practice of Ru meditation are like the surface of the lake, which is sometimes still but sometimes agitated depending upon the weather and the environment. The goal of Ru meditation can be described as such: if our life is like the life of a lake, then, no matter what surface state the lake is experiencing, our inner body is always tranquil, quiet and full of vital energies. For achieving this goal, it is much more important to encompass both static and moving postures of meditation, rather than merely focusing upon any specific one of them.

Let me explain the significance of varying postures of Ru meditation in another perspective. The practice of concrete postures of Ru meditation is to model in a micro scale what happens more frequently in a broader macro scale of life. As I will explain in this series of audios, I intend to introduce 7 postures of Ru meditation: sleeping, cross-legged quiet-sitting, quiet-sitting on a chair, standing, walking, eight brocade exercise, and the yang-styled 24-move Taiji martial arts. As you heard, some of these postures are more static, and some of them are more dynamic. However, human life is obviously more complicated, more social, and more far-reaching than the performance of these concrete meditative postures.

From the perspective of Ru philosophy, being able to deal with real life issues, conducting oneself properly in varying human relationships, and constantly embodying the major principles of Ru metaphysics and ethics, such as harmony and humaneness, in one’s daily life, are of course far more important than commanding good meditative postures and ideal breathing. Nevertheless, the benefits we get from the practice of Ru meditation is that it can help human individuals to realize those metaphysical and ethical principles in a micro scale, and then, gradually, to enable us to be an exemplary person, the Ruist junzi, in those broader stages of human life.

As mentioned by one of the canonical texts of Ruism, the Great Learning 大學, before one can govern a state, or align one’s family, everyone must be dedicated to cultivating their persons. So, before we are more sufficiently involved in varying stages of human life, we should be dedicated to the practice of Ru meditation. And the gist of Ru meditation is, firstly, to achieve the state of energy equilibrium, or the state of centrality, during one’s breathing practice, and secondly, to extend this state to the practice of both static and moving postures of Ru meditation. As mentioned, we will introduce 7 postures in our audios for you to practice this gist.

Among all these 7 postures, let’s talk of one of the most Ruist at first, which is quiet-sitting on a chair.

So far as my research shows, the invention of this posture by Ruists took place in the same time when the so-called “neo-Confucianism” arises to react to the increasingly flourished Buddhism in ancient China. And the timeline is around the 10th or 11th century.

As I mentioned in the brief introduction of Ru meditation, Ru practitioners are scholars and scholar-officials. Apart from the dedicated works of learning, education, and scholarship, they had so many things to care and manage in their households, schools, the governments and other workplaces. This means, even if they were fond of meditation, their occupied life schedule required them to immediately get out of meditation, and deal with tangible issues in their life. In this way, the normally Buddhist style of meditation, which requires a crossed-legged posture, a secured and quiet space, and sometimes an extended time period of practice, would be thought of by these Ruist scholar-officials as too isolated and socially disengaged. Therefore, rather than crossing one’s legs and letting every thought come and go in one’s mind in an isolated space, why not quietly sit on one’s chair, to clear one’s mind, re-gather oneself, to nurture an attitude of reverence towards things at hand, and thus, stay centered in one’s everyday life? This is the central motif for Ru practitioners to invent and practice this posture of quiet-sitting on a chair in this period of time.

Before I describe to you the major points of the posture, let me elaborate its characteristic and significance a bit more. “Chair” is a very normal piece of furniture, and you can basically find it in any place where your life is seriously engaged. It is in your study room, in your office, around family dinner table, in your classroom, or in any other private or public meeting room. Therefore, if you know how to meditate on a chair, at least for a few minutes or even some seconds, you will know how to remain centered, focused, and re-energized in your daily life.

Let’s imagine that you are right now in a very important conference with your colleagues and boss in a business meeting room. The boss is going on and on, sometimes on the topic, and sometimes not. Although you know the meeting is important, you feel quite exhausted by it. Then, you can start to meditate on your chair. You just need to sit nicely according to the method I will describe in the following, put your vision broadly on objects in front of you, and then, focus on your breath. Once you have a deep, slow breath, you start to let those bossy words appear on the screen of your inner-mind; you understand them, follow them, but your attention is actually put on the entire universe, the heaven, the earth and the human beings, which include but is not limited to those words. In this way, you can nurture a specific kind of attitude of reverence, dedication and seriousness towards your own work and your own worth, while being able to reenergize yourself during this work time in an uninterrupted way. You get it? Right? So the benefit to meditate on a chair is huge.

Let’s use another example to explain. Almost every adult has an experience of being interviewed for a job. Before you meet those interviewers, as a candidate, you are normally required to sit for a while in a room or a space separated from the interview room. I will tell you, this will be a perfect space and time to do a quick quiet-sitting meditation on a chair. Close your eyes, focus on your breath, feel all the energy flowing around you who are right now sitting nicely in the middle of heaven and earth. You need to remind yourself that you are special, you are unique, and while attending to the needs of those interviewers are important, you also need to be awesomely authentic to be and do yourself. And then, you take a deep breath; start to visualize everything you have prepared or anticipated for the interview. Per my experience, this practice of quiet-sitting meditation on a chair will contribute very positively to your interview.

Sounds good? Yes, remember the three features of Ru wisdom: simple, consistent, and adaptable to change. You already get two instances why it is so in the case of quiet-sitting on a chair.

Now, a final example before talking of its method. You know, almost no couples do not fight. We are human beings, we have our own views, and arguing with each other between a couple in our household is not only inevitable, but indicates that we invest our life upon each other, we care each other, and care our family. However, if inappropriate emotions are intertwined with inappropriate words during the process, squabbles will develop into fights, and fights will develop into wars. So, how can you nicely exchange ideas with your spouse without getting mired into these annoying and exhausting family in-fights? I will tell you, when your spouse forcefully expresses their views, you can quietly sit on your chair using the method of Ru meditation. At this moment, you pay attention to your breath, calm it down, and you listen to your spouse carefully and peacefully. During the process, you intend to nurture an inner feeling of love, mutual-bond and respect even though you also need to manifest your genuine self and exchange ideas with your spouse. Since the quiet-sitting meditation happens rightly during the middle, it will greatly calm down yourself, and thus, prevent the interaction between a couple from deteriorating into an undesirable family in-fight.

Good, enough examples for the significance of this posture. Let me get to the method part. The method of quiet-sitting on a chair is actually quite simple. It comprises the following several major points:

(1) Make sure your hip a bit higher than your knee. This may mean you need to put a cushion under your hip, or, you need to sit towards the edge of a chair. A chair with a hard surface will be better than a softer one, since sitting softly would make people sleepy. A too high chair which cannot have you put your feet, or a too low chair where you need to squat a bit to sit, is not ideal for beginning practitioners either. However, most chairs are not made as such, so you will find it fine to meditate using this posture almost everywhere.

(2) While sitting on a chair, the position of your backbone is really the key. Starting from our neck, our backbone caves in, caves out, and finally, caves in again towards our tailbone. So, make sure you neither pop up your chest to make the backbone super straight, nor slouch yourself to block your tract of breathing. Make sure you can feel the natural stacking-up of varying parts of your backbone skeleton: cave in, cave out, and finally, cave in again. In a word, the key to sit rightly in this posture is that you need to use minimal efforts to position yourself so as to make varying parts of your body naturally and harmoniously fit together. In a Ruist term, you need to find the pattern-principle 理 of your body so as to sit there nicely and joyfully.

(3) After you position your backbone well, then, your head naturally lines up with it. No nodding, no looking upwards; neither shall your head lean towards either of the sides. Still, let’s follow the same principle, use your minimal effort to make varying parts of your skeleton fit together.

(4) For your eyes, you can either close them or leave a slice of vision broad and open, just as what I explained in the previous audio on Ru breathing.

(5) The distance between your feet is about the same as your shoulder. Maker sure it neither too wider nor too narrower. Your toes are forward, but do not make them rigidly forward, like right in the angle of 90 degree. No, you do not need to do that. You just need to give yourself a little bit discipline, line up with the effortless position of your body, and then, sit there nicely and quietly.

Basically, the look of your upper body in this posture will be exactly the same when you do crossed-legged quiet-sitting. However, since this is sitting on a chair, your lower body has its unique position.

After you sit in this way, you just need to focus on your breath using the method of Ru breathing which I explained before.

Good, that’s all about quiet-sitting on a Chair. If you have any questions or comments to discuss with me, I would look forward to seeing them below the audios. You can also send me an email you can find in the contact part of my website, or find me in the facebook group “Friends from Afar: a Confucianism group.” Have a nice one, and You take care!

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