Daoist Qigong and Meditation are based on the philosophies of Daoism and Neo-Confucianism.
These schools of thought emphasize metaphysics, cosmic principles, and the change and transformation of Yin and Yang in the environment and body.
In this section we will discuss the highlights of Daoist philosophy to help us understand how Daoists have viewed Qigong and Meditation through the generations.
1: Dao:
The Dao is the core concept of Daoism and refers to a nameless, formless precondition of all existence.
The Dao generates time and space and the relationship of the Heavens, Earth and all living things including Humans.
The Dao De Jing (the main text of Daoism) says:
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。
The Dao which may be stated is not the constant Dao. The name which may be named is not the constant name.
Nonbeing is named as the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
Being is named as the Mother of the Myriad Phenomena.
Dao De Jing – Chpt1, trans. Robert Coons.
This Dao exists in an original state of nonbeing and generates all physical things in existence such as the sky and earth. Since it performs this function of bringing all being into existence it is conceived of as the great mother of all living things.
This Dao while originally intangible has the function of generating things from a Pre-world state and is thus revered as the greatest principle in Daoist thought.
2:Pre-Heaven/Post-Heaven
Living things do not just spontaneously appear in the world, they must first go through a creation and incubation period and then be born.
After a human is conceived it goes through a gestation period as a fetus in which their new body grows and develops until it is mature enough to abandon the womb and enter the world.
This gestation period is known as the Pre-Heaven State and is viewed in Daoism as applying to all things including the creation of the Universe.
The Dao De Jing says:
有物混成，先天地生。寂兮寥兮，獨立不改，周行而不殆，可以為天下母。
There was a being which was mixed and formed before the birth of Heaven and Earth. Silent and vast it stood alone unchanging. Circulating in movement and not damaged. It can be held to be the Mother of the World.
Dao De Jing – Chpt24, trans. Robert Coons
Daoists believe the world went through an incubation process in the Dao before it was created and that the world received its original energy from the Dao.
This Pre-Heaven State is viewed as being the precondition for living in the Post-Heaven, another way of saying the conscious world of phenomena which is perceived after birth.
Although living beings in the world exist in the Post-Heaven their origin is in the Pre-Heaven and they still contain some of the genetic material of their parents.
They also have the ability to reproduce and thus have a small quantity of the energy of the Dao itself. This energy is called 道炁 Dao Qi.
3：炁 Qi and 氣 Qi
Daoists believe the world is governed by Qi, an intrinsic energy which forms and moves through all things.
Qi is conceived of in many ways including as air, active and passive energies, oxygen in blood etc… but Qi mainly has two definitions in Daoism:
炁 Qi:
The Qi of the Dao is composed of the Chinese pictographs 无 Wu/Nonbeing and 火 Huo/Fire and refers to the refinement of nonbeing with fire.
This version of Qi is an Alchemical concept which describes how the Dao generates being within the infinite void of nonbeing.
氣 Qi:
The Qi of the world is imagined as air that circulates around and within all things. It is composed of the pictographs 气 Qi/Air and 米 Mi/Rice and Qi in this context refers to an air with nourishing qualities. In other words Qi is the nourishing quality of the air we breathe.
All living things contain both types of Qi since they are created from an original state of nonbeing and thrive on the consumptions of oxygen and other elements of nature which themselves are built of Qi.
In order to understand how Qi applies to humans we must first take a step back and review the concepts of Nature and Life.
4: 性命 Xing and Ming/Nature and Life
The doctrine of Nature and Life is a central feature of Daoist cosmogony (the study of how the universe came into being) and describe two processes:
- 性 Xing/Innate Nature describes the foundation of reality created by the Dao. This actual fabric at the bottom of reality is a pure form of emptiness which supports all being within it.
- 命 Ming/Innate Life Energy describes the energetic substrate present in all living things and the life and destiny of the universe itself.
These ideas are present in two forms in human beings:
- Innate Nature is found in the Pre-Heaven Consciousness all all sentient beings. It is the most basic awareness we have and the foundation of all of our cognitive processes.
- It is also associated with the characteristics, personality and proclivity of all sentient beings. Thus it is said in Daoism that Innate Nature may both refer to base consciousness and to the driving force behind our personalities.
- Innate Life Energy is the spark of life passed down from generation to generation through the act of procreation and is also associated with the destiny of living things.
- Innate Life Energy as destiny refers to all of the possible outcomes available to sentient beings during their lives. This reflects things like genetics, society, family, educational opportunities, economic status and so on.
Thus in Daoist thought Innate Nature and Innate Life Energy have many implications and make up the basis of all Daoist arts since it is through using various aspects of them that we can attain physical health, spiritual liberation, and adjust aspects of our personhood in order to change our destiny.
In order to understand all of these concepts we must know about the most important principle of Daoism, the relationship of Yin and Yang:
5:阴阳 Yin and Yang:
Yin and Yang are the central philosophical principles of Daoism and Neo-Confucianism and are used at every step of the way to describe all processes in the universe.
For a basic overview of the philosophy of Yin and Yang please view this link:
The Daoist conception of Yin and Yang contains two fundamental ideas:
- Pre Heaven Taiji: the term 太极 Taiji means Greatest Extreme and refers to a phase of creation in which 无极 Wuji/The Absolute of Nonbeing generates Yang energy within itself. To simplify, the absolute of Nonbeing is viewed as static and thus Yin in nature while the absolute of Being is viewed as Yang and active. This principle is called 先天太极 Xian Tian Taiji/Pre Heaven Taiji and indicates an incubation state in which Yang Qi is developing in a Yin shell, the same as a fetus developing in a womb or a seed in an egg etc…
- The Two Poles: the term 两仪 Liang Yi/Two Poles refers to the time after Yin and Yang have become sovereign and begin to manifest as opposite energies in the world.
All change and creation in the Universe is viewed by Daoists as the product of the Dao generating activity in the center of Nonbeing, these two energies unified as one in an incubation state until maturity and then a division of the energies into a bivalent form which goes on to subdivide and mix into the Myriad Phenomena of the Cosmos.
These ideas were alluded to in early Daoist manuscripts and codified into terminology by Neo-Confucian philosophers such as Zhu Xi in the ninth century.
From two poles are derived a combination which forms a third thing which unifies Yin and Yang into a Post Heaven Phenomenological form.
6:三才 San Cai/Three Levels:
The Three Levels are 天地人 Tian Di Ren/Heaven, Earth and Humanity.
The sky is a pure form of Yang Qi since it is moving and clear and insubstantial.
The Earth is pure Yin Qi because it is stable, collected and substantial.
Humanity is a combination of Yin and Yang because it is both substantial and insubstantial, still and moving, emptying and filling, and subject to change and transformation within time and space.
The twentieth century Secular Daoist Master 陈樱宁 Chen Yingning held that Yin and Yang are only able to be understood because humans serve as a third party containing aspects of both and are thus able to investigate their relative nature and compare them.
After the Three Levels are formed Yin and Yang further split into the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams.
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