This category gathers writings and media on Confucian (Ru) meditation and spiritual cultivation. It includes public-facing essays, instructional materials, recorded talks and videos, as well as interviews and conversations. Together, these posts explore meditation not only as a technique, but as a way of self-cultivation, ethical formation, and lived spirituality within the Ru tradition, while remaining accessible to contemporary readers and practitioners.
Inspired by the ancient Confucian tradition, this conversation explores a timely question: How can we meditate as scholars, administrators, or modern professionals?
I also explain the misnomer of “Confucianism,” clarifying the Ruist (Confucian) tradition of contemplative practices and self-cultivation, and distinguishing it from other major ancient Asian traditions, such as Chinese Mahayana Buddhism.
Excerpt:
Contemplation in the Ru tradition is best understood as a state of heightened attention grounded in reverence. It means focusing your energy and aligning your consciousness with a guiding principle in order to gain insight into reality and engage with it.
What does heightened attention involve? It requires integrating all dimensions of the self, including understandings, feelings, emotions, actions, and more. This is traditionally described as sincerity or authenticity (cheng). You study ethical and metaphysical teachings, practice them, and cultivate a unified way of living. This coherence is what Ru thinkers mean by heightened attention.
And what about insights? As we see in Buddhism’s emphasis on mindfulness, many traditions seek direct, unclouded awareness of reality. Ruists (or Confucians) also aim for this: accessing reality free from prejudice and partiality. However, each tradition defines reality in its own way.
Hallo, this is Dr. Bin Song at Washington College!
After discussing the varying yogas in the Bhagavad Gita, it is a perfect occasion for us to start reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. The Lord Krishna taught Arjuna to achieve his total inner equanimity while performing his vital duties in the battlefield, whereas, in the Yoga Sutras, what Patanjali accomplished is that after learning the contemplative Hindu practices as they were indicated by varying classical Hindu writings, for the first time of Hinduism, Patanjali furnishes a systematic elaboration about the philosophy, experience and technique of meditation per its Hindu bent. Since meditation would be such an important, generic theme of our course on Eastern Religions (I do think meditation is the most important religious practice for individuals in the traditions of the so-called “Eastern Religions”), let me explain my approach of teaching meditation.
Firstly, I need to emphasize that meditation is ubiquitous to all major world religious traditions. Nowadays, people normally think of the lotus position in Buddhism whenever the term “meditation” is mentioned; also, whenever the term “yoga” is mentioned, people normally have the idea of the varying stretching postures without particularly thinking of the lotus position of Buddhist meditation. However, all these popular notions about “meditation” are actually quite misleading. If we understand “meditation” as essentially a training of attention, and hence, as being an intensive inner work of human mind while the mind is pursuing varying causes, there is no world religious tradition which does not practice meditation. Accordingly, not only the lotus sitting of Buddhism or the stretching yoga postures of Hinduism [which is called hatha (force) yoga among varying yogas practiced by Hinduism] is meditation, prayers, ritual-performances, sleeping, walking, running, artwork, and a gazillion other aspects of human life can also be considered to be meditative.
Because of the variety of meditative activities that are practiced by human beings in varying religious traditions, I would lay out three major approaches to learn any of them, and these three approaches are technical, experiential, and philosophical.
Technically, we need to pay attention to how religions present their techniques of meditation, viz., how one starts and deepens their meditation in concrete ways. In the Yoga Sutras, we find the “eight limbs of Yogic practice,” starting from moral disciplines which urge meditators to be a good human being in their daily life at the first hand, and then, going through “posture, breath control and withdrawal of senses,” and eventually culminating on how to refine one’s mental state regarding an object in such steps as “concentration (dharana), meditative absorption (dhyana) , and integration (samadhi)”(Yoga Sutras, III.4, translated by Chip Hartranft). The latter three are further called a “perfect discipline,” and with a deepening training of this perfect discipline, meditators can eventually realize their “pure awareness” which remains unmoved, unperturbed, and perfectly peaceful regardless of the changing phenomenal world.
Experientially, which can also be called phenomenologically, we need to study how the experience of meditation in its varying states is described by meditators. This description is an important material for beginning learners to grasp so as to confirm whether they themselves get there or not. For instance, when the Yoga Sutras describes the “steady and easy” posture of yoga, it states poetically “It (the posture) is realized by relaxing one’s effort and resting like the cosmic serpent on the waters of infinity” (Kessler, pp. 75); Also, each of the three steps of the perfect discipline is specified by phenomenological descriptions about what happens to human mind if it is trained as such: “Concentration locks consciousness on a single area” (III.1); “In meditative absorption, the entire perceptual flow is aligned with that object” (III. 2); and “When only the essential nature of the object shines forth, as if formless, integration has arisen” (III, 3). Here, the three steps of perfect discipline of human consciousness is depicted experientially as a process starting from human mind’s endeavor of concentrating on one object, proceeding through steadily and uninterruptedly focusing upon the object, and eventually, letting the object occupy the entire mind so that no split between subject and object avails. Obviously, all these phenomenological descriptions are quite helpful if a reader of the text tries not only to intellectually understand it, but also starts to practice meditation.
Philosophically, we need to attend to how meditators in their writings weave every piece of their meditative experiences together, so as to articulate the truth or the broad meaning of such experiences. Patanjali was influenced by a Hindu philosophical school called Sankhya, and believes that the world of “pure awareness” is separated from and ultimately unperturbed by the material, natural world. Varying patterns of human consciousness such as desires, memory , latent impressions and intelligence for Patanjali also evolves from the natural world, and hence, Patanjali defines the goal of meditation is to “still the patterning of consciousness,” and describes the final state of yoga as such: “Freedom is at hand when the fundamental qualifies of nature, each of their transformations witnessed at the moment of its inception, are recognized as irrelevant to pure awareness; it stands alone, grounded in its very nature, the pure seeing. That is all.” (IV. 34). It is quite obvious that Patanjali’s yoga practice is grounded in an elaborate philosophy, and this philosophy states both its ethical ways of human living and also its ultimate soteriological goal of achieving ultimate freedom.
These three aspects of meditation are normally intertwined in given contemplative traditions. Techniques affect how meditators experience, the experiences inform their philosophies, while their philosophies also color and fashion how they report their experiences. If we look at these three aspects cross-traditionally, we’ll find a fascinating phenomenon that each of these aspects can be borrowed, revised, and accommodated within a new tradition so as to form a new relatively stable pattern of meditative style. For instance, Buddhists may use the same techniques of posture and breath control as articulated by Patanjali, but practice them using a different philosophy. For Buddhists, they do not typically think of the goal of meditation as discovering one’s genuine self since they believe nothing has a self, and accordingly, their vision about the position and destiny of human beings in the ever-changing karmic world is also different from the Yoga Sutras’ Hindu view. So, the question is: as beginning learners, what shall we do in face of this vast and complex body of meditation literature accumulated by so many religious traditions so far?
Two suggestions from me at this beginning stage of your learning and practice of meditation:
(1) Whenever learning meditation from a given tradition or an established teacher, practitioners should broadly and critically examine all the three major aspects of meditation, and on the basis of this, form their own way of contemplative practice fit for their own lifestyle. This implies that you may borrow techniques from a certain tradition without necessarily buying into its philosophy; also, it may imply that you can feel differently from the established meditators in a given tradition during your meditating process, but as long as you have your own philosophy to coherently and positively connect your practice with other aspects of human life, the difference is warranted. In other words, while practicing meditation, we need to dedicatedly practice it while critically thinking over it.
(2) For major meditative traditions in the world, they normally have their established ways to solidify the three major aspects into a coherent whole. This means that in order to reach a certain goal, it would be more practical for beginning learners to focus upon such an established way for a certain period of time. Therefore, it will do a disservice to beginning learners of meditation to delve into varying traditions superficially, and then, to hastily try to form their own meditative style. More ideally, beginning learners should find a teacher fit for their initial preference, practice that particular style for a while, and see whether it works and to what extent it works before deciding to change the approach or starting to create synthetically one’s own. After all, as similar to learning any other subject, a certain degree of dedication is still necessary for learning meditation.
Finally, in order to facilitate your learning and practice of meditation, I made a series of youtube videos with attached scripts about how to meditate in a Confucian approach. Some of these videos contain concrete guidance about how to breathe, sit, walk, etc. So hopefully, while pursuing the course, you can start to practice physically what you have learned intellectually. But please do not forget, while teaching meditation, my hope is not to promote any religion, but to have you critically study meditation in an integrative way so as to form your own unique contemplative lifestyle.
Five major approaches to meditation in Confucianism (Ruism) are described as follows:
(1) Attention. Technically, focusing upon breathing is, as many traditions have practiced, a very efficient way to start and maintain Ru meditation. This implies that whenever our mind feels distracted, constantly going back to breathing will keep our meditation on the track. Of course, if breathing reaches its own natural, deeply meditative pattern, that is when it becomes very slow, fine, delicate and permeating, our mind is free to be directed to something else for enriching meditative experiences. For adept meditators, however, the time used to reach this natural pattern of breathing tends to be much faster, and its effect is much more guaranteed. For example, after 7 years of uninterrupted practice, whenever I take a nap, go to sleep, or even sit quietly on a train, the feeling of this extraordinary, yet natural pattern of breathing arrives almost as a constant.
(2) Empathy. When the breathed air is permeating within our body, the boundary feeling between our body and the outside world will gradually melt away. This is when the incipient sprout of empathy, which Mencius once talks about in his famous thought experiment of falling baby, is budding and grows. Many philosophers analyze Mencius’ thought as if it intended to construct an ethical theory. However, rarely has any theorist ever noticed that what Mencius really talks about is his meditative practice, and a corresponding Ru way of living. It is in the unitary feeling of ourselves and every creatures in the universe that lies the root of the cardinal virtue of Ruist ethics, i.e., humaneness (仁, Ren).
(3) Problem-solving. This is, without any doubt, the most important and salient part of Ru meditation. The purpose of Ru meditation is not to be an escapist in any sense. Instead, it aims to confront, contemplate, and resolve tangible and touchy issues in ordinary human life without any cringe. For instances, when I need to write a term paper for a better grade in school, I meditate. When I need to complete the process of financing for purchasing my first home, I meditate. When I need to deal with the relationship among family members, colleagues, or anyones I met or will meet on my life journey, I meditate as well. During the process, the Ru meditation enables us to empathetically understand the perspectives of every involved human and cosmic being, and thus, try our best to find a way to harmonize all their needs, including our own.
(4) Therapy. Meditation understood in a Ruist term has its unsurpassable benefits in restoring our continually consumed body, and in certain cases, mitigating or curing diseases. The feeling of deep breath to permeate every nook and cranny of our body is just so therapeutic! The much lowered stress level will therefore create better opportunities to treat our diseases. In my life experience, the diseases that meditation helps to cure or mitigate include: the decade-long insomnia during my young adulthood, occasional seasonal asthma due to the mounting pressure and stress, toothache, and stomachache.
(5) Motivation. No matter how difficult one’s life situation could be, the tiny little spark of lucidity, warmth and energy that reemerge from the depth of our body during meditation will inexorably motivate us to try our every piece of strength to make the world, where we find ourselves live in, be better. This may start from caring our children, spouse, and parents, having kind conversations with our neighbors, and furthermore, fulfilling our duties in the workplaces or as a responsible global citizen. On the one hand, Ruists believe the universe renews itself in a daily basis, and hence, it provides an inexhaustible amount of energy necessary for all beings and creatures to grow and thrive. On the other hand, how these cosmic energies are utilized by human beings to build a better family, a more livable country, or a more fulfilled personal lifestyle entirely depend upon humans ourselves. In a Ruist term, the essential meaning of human life can be encapsulated into one singular, cryptic sentence said by Confucius: it is humans that can make the Way of the cosmos extended and enlarged, but it is not the Way of the cosmos that extends and enlarges human beings.
In a nutshell, these five approaches to Ru meditation can be paraphrased by five Ruist terms: meditation of attention is to enhance our capacity of Reverence (敬, jing). Meditation of empathy is to nurture our virtue of Humaneness (仁, ren). Meditation of problem-solving is to find appropriate Pattern (理, li) for us to deal with real issues in human world. And meditation of therapy and motivation provides (養, yang) us with a healthy body to enjoy the irreplaceable opportunity of cultivating ourselves to become fully human (成人, chengren).
Tai Chi and Eight-Brocade Exercise in Confucianism (Ruism)
Hallo, I am Bin Song. I am Ru scholar, therapist and college professor. This audio is written and recorded by me to introduce you to the practice of Tai Chi and Eight-Brocade Exercise in light of the philosophy and practice of Ru Meditation.
I once described the spirit of Ru meditation as Meditation in Motion, which aims to extend the state of energy equilibrium across both static and moving forms of meditation. For doing this, I explained that breathing practice is a foundation. On the basis of this, we can start to practice meditation in its static forms such as sleeping, cross-legged quiet-sitting, quiet-sitting on a chair, and standing. After this, we add three moving forms of Ru meditation into our list: walking meditation, eight-brocade exercise, and Tai Chi (or Taiji in pinyin) martial arts.
Eight-Brocade Exercise and Tai Chi martial arts should be counted as two most popular physical exercises that were created in ancient China and are still practiced by people all over the world. They are on the must-do list in many Qi Gong clubs, and through internet, you can also find abundant instructions in both video and word forms. I include links under the video to help you find these instructions; in Maryland and the greater Washington D.C area, I would also like to find friends to teach and practice these moving forms of meditation together. Nevertheless, I would not include a point-to-point instruction on how to do these two moving forms of Ru meditation here.
However, since we are talking about Ru meditation, it would be interesting to discuss the meaning of these practices to the tradition of Ruism. Using short videos (which are embedded in the above youtube video, starts from around 10:00 ), I will also demonstrate shortly how I do these moving forms of meditation in person.
First, I need to remind you that there are three major spiritual traditions in ancient China, Ruism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and in reality, all these three traditions played a significant role in originating, documenting, and spreading varying forms of physical exercises and martial arts.
For instance, focusing on the Ruist side, I will tell you that the first person who gave the name “eight-brocade exercise” and documented its practice is called Hong Mai (1123-1202 C.E) in Southern Song dynasty. Mr. Hong Mai grew up in a Ruist family, participated in civil examination, got the highest degree, and appointed as a scholar-official for varying governmental posts. Therefore, we can discern the deep Ruist background of Hong Mai’s scholarship. Another great example is Chen Wang-ting (1600-1680), the founder of the Chen-Style Tai Chi martial arts. He passed both the martial and civilian branches of civil examination, and his practice and scholarship on Tai Chi was versed deeply in the spirit of Ruist metaphysics and ethics. On top of these two examples, let’s remember that martial arts is a very important component of civil examination, and for examinees that finally succeeded to be appointed as a military official in the army, they can be seen as the martial side of the Ru tradition, vis-à-vis the civilian side of Ruism which people today may be mostly familiar with. But some greatest Ru scholars, such as Wang Yang-ming and Zeng Guofan, were also great military leaders. And for the sake of indicating loyalty, wisdom, and courage, all Ruist virtues, to their own country and people, and for the sake of self-cultivation, physical exercises and varying martials arts are very much integral to the life of those Ruist military officials.
In a word, what I tried to convey through these examples is that Ruism, Buddhism and Daoism, seen from their own philosophies and histories, are three self-organizing, yet mutually interacting comprehensive systems. A person can broadly learn all these three traditions, form their own philosophical views, and practice martial arts with these views. Or, a person can be a very staunch advocate devoted solely to one of these three traditions, and then, embed the practice of martials arts in it. For me, I understand Ruism as a tradition of liberal arts, and advocate a version of “anchored pluralism.” In other words, I take Ruism, its philosophy, history, and practice, as a major anchor of my personal life, but simultaneously, I also try to learn broadly from other Eastern and Western, scientific and humanistic traditions, so as to enrich my own life, and enrich the Ru tradition that I am advocating.
Therefore, in the following, I will mainly show how I understand and practice these two moving forms of meditation in a Ruist manner.
What I like the eight-brocade exercise the most is its coordination of breathing with body movements. For instance, this first move is called “ Two Hands Carry the Heavens while Regulating the Three Stoves,” (两手托天理三焦) and “Three stoves” means the three major parts of our inner organs from our heart to our lower abdomen. When doing this move, our hands start from crossing each other while rising. At this moment, we inhale. When we top our hands above our heads, we look upward, and reach the limit of inhale. Then, we look forward while holding the breath for a short moment. After that, our two hands fall down from the two sides of our body; during this process, we slowly exhale until a short pause to back to our commencing posture. Look, the principle of doing this exercise is almost exactly the same as our other practices of Ru meditation. For instance, In the breathing practice, the first stage is to use a series of numbers, or a mantra to help our attention focus upon our breath. In the walking meditation, we match our steps to our breathing, and contemplate varying parts of our body’s movement while walking. Here, in the eight-brocade exercise, we coordinate our breath with our body movements which are designed to exercise varying parts of our body, and during the process, our attention needs to follow each detail of the body movements while feeling our person united as a whole with the environment. See how consistent the practice of Ru meditation is. Because of this consistency, one of my most favorite moving practices of Ru meditation is actually to combine breathing, walking and the eight-brocade exercise. So I will take a deep breath, walk for some steps, and then, do a move of the eight-brocade exercise. How wonderful the feeling is after this!
Another point I particularly like this eight-brocade exercise is that each of its movement has a title, and combined all together, these titles read as a poem, and the spirit of this poem represents very well the holistic well-being that Ru meditation aims for. For instance, the seventh title reads as “clench your fist, show angry eyes, and then, increase your vital energies and strength” (攒拳怒目增气力). According to Ruist ethics, no emotion is essentially bad, and it all depends upon whether you can have the appropriate emotion in the right measure and at the right situation, including the one of Anger. For instance, Zhu Xi once said that “Anger caused by one’s hardened temper should not exist. Anger caused by one’s moral sense should not vanish.” (《朱子语类》) Therefore, when facing obvious social injustice, our social engagement needs to be supported by a deeply non-relativistic moral sense of right and wrong. In this sense, the practice of eight-brocade exercise, especially in this seventh move, can nurture our rooted moral feelings, and prepare us for substantial social engagement while nurturing an undisrupted inner state of tranquility and self-contentedness.
Clench your Fist and Show Angry Eyes.
Good, let’s move on to the practice of Tai Chi (or Taiji in pinyin) martial arts. What I demonstrate in the video is part of the yang-style 24 move of Tai Chi martial arts, which is also one most popular for beginning practitioners of Tai Chi. Regarding the practice of Meditation in Motion in a Ruist manner by a human individual, nothing is more exemplary than Tai Chi martial arts.
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Firstly, the harmonious unity of heart-mind, air, body and environment, which I mentioned as a goal of Ru meditation, is vividly embodied by this practice. You need to match your attention to your breath, and then, your breath to the details of each move, and furthermore, feel your intimate and solid position between heaven and earth in a very holistic worldview. In particular, similar to the eight-brocade exercise, each move of Tai Chi has a name, and by pondering the name and its embodied move, we can furthermore appreciate the connection between us and the human civilization continuous to the nature. For instance, one move is called “a white crane spreads the wing”, and another move is called “hands embrace a Zither”. How beautiful these moves are!
White Crane Spreads the Wing.
Secondly, each detail of each move, and their mutual connection, is all about the subtle and smooth interaction between Yin and Yang aspects of the cosmic and human vital-energies, and thus, captures the spirit of dynamic harmony and meditation in motion very well. For instance, for the starting posture, you inhale, rise your hands, that is yang; but your palms need to face inwards, and this is yin. When your hands rise to the limit, you exhale and move the hands down, which is yin. But simultaneously, you palms need to face outwards, which is another form of Yang. Also, there are many circular or half-circular movements, representing the holistic commitment in this practice. Some move is solid, like standing solidly or closing your hands, while some is thought of as vacuous such as making the hand position like holding a ball. You see, these are a number of minor movements to embody the subtle interaction between yin and yang, which is a careful unfolding of the process of dynamic harmonization.
Hands Embrace a Zither
Thirdly, despite all these subtleties and varieties, all movements actually pivot upon our lower abdomen and its related belly and back. This part of our body is like the “ultimate pole”, the original meaning of Tai Chi, around which all our movements are pivoting. Impressively, this is a distinctively Ruist idea. First, the term of Tai Chi is from the Ruist Classic of Change, and it is used to describe the ultimate creative power of the entire universe; second, one central purpose of Ru meditation is to extend the state of energy equilibrium, or the one of centrality, to both static and moving forms of human activities. That means, despite changes and vicissitudes, our life is always centered upon a principle, and the principle is simple, consistent, and adaptable to change. You see? This is another great example of Ru wisdom.
Great! I hope you can find your own ways to practice these moving forms of meditation, and take care!
References:
A youtube video I like about Eight-Brocade Exercise
An English explanation of the each move of the Yang-style 24-move Tai Chi
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.
Bin Song 