Chapter 16 Learn how to meditate with your heart

It is not difficult to sit still, but it is really not easy to do it with the heart.Generally, seven out of ten people who learn to meditate do it for the sake of health and longevity; two out of ten people seek mysteries out of curiosity, or want to achieve supernatural powers, such as radiating light and predicting; one out of ten people seek the Tao ; but it is almost impossible to truly understand what the Tao is and what the correct method of cultivating the Tao is.Regarding the question of how to learn to meditate with your heart, you first need to understand the purpose of learning to meditate, so that you can actually discuss how to start and how to use your heart.Generally speaking, the more popular method of meditation and mindfulness can be roughly summed up. In the Chinese side of the East, it can be included in the three schools of traditional culture: Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.In addition, there are meditation methods such as yoga, hypnosis from Europe and the United States, and other religious prayers, fasting, and retreats, etc., which are also one of the methods of meditation.However, in China, in the most popular meditation methods, the methods of mindfulness are generally based on Buddhism and the two schools of creation. It is the methods of Buddhism and Taoism. There is no need to strictly distinguish them here, it is just a theory.

Among the methods of Buddhism, the most popular ones are reciting the Buddha's name, practicing tranquility and contemplation, or observing the mind, and practicing Zen.As for those who believe in Tantric Buddhism, reciting mantras and visualizing are the proper methods of mindfulness.Each holds one end and despises the rest.However, in the Buddhist method of mindfulness, except for some learning of the Tantric Buddhism spread in Tibet, it is true that it is based on "cultivation of the mind" and does not pay much attention to physical changes in the body, and thinks that those who pay attention to physical changes in the body are heretics The like, even, there is a lot of sneer, disdain to get close.

But in the Taoist method, it pays extreme attention to the physiological changes of the body.It is even believed that due to the method of meditation practice, achieving the predetermined effect of the body's physiology, opening up the two meridians of Ren and Du, so as to reach the eight extraordinary meridians, restore health, and increase life expectancy are the real effects of Tao.If, like the Buddhists, they only know how to "cultivate the mind" but don't know the wonders of the body and physiology, it is not in line with the way.Therefore, Taoists believe that the practice of Buddhism only knows "cultivation of nature" but not "cultivation of life", which is incomplete.Therefore, Taoism advocates "single cultivation of life and soul", which is the right way.And said: "Cultivate only fate, not nature, this is the first disease of practice. Only cultivate ancestral nature and not alchemy (life skills), it will be difficult for ghosts to become holy after ten thousand kalpas."

Even the quoted concepts and the main purpose of "The Doctrine of the Mean".Determine the supreme principle of "pursuing reason, exhausting one's nature, and leading to life". In fact, no matter Buddhism or Taoism, or even the so-called heresies of other schools and schools, unless they do not pay attention to meditation and practice, they have nothing to say.If you enter the method of meditation practice, let me ask: In addition to the physical body and the mental state of mind and emotion, is there any way to practice without the body and mind? If there is, it is to engage in material Scientific research, or special focus on medicine, or medicinal chemistry, physiological chemistry, etc.It is completely different from the method of life cultivation. One is to verify the metaphysical way through the free function of one's own life; the other is to understand the mysteries of cosmic physics through experiments with foreign objects.