Inner Spaces, Different Depths - Stages of Turning Inward in Qigong & Daoism

[Kati]

Lately I’ve been reflecting on how not all forms of “turning inward” feel the same.

Sometimes it’s grounding and transformative – like in Qigong, when Shen, Qi, and Jing begin to gather in the body.

Sometimes it’s soothing but physical – like with using Gua Sha, where the body opens but the mind is not deeply involved.

Sometimes it’s inward but scattered – like in daydreams or fantasies, where the energy rises but doesn’t settle, leaving me less centered.

 

This makes me wonder:

Are there different “inner spaces” or “inner qualities” we enter, depending on the practice or state of mind?

 

From a Daoist and Qigong perspective, it seems that we can distinguish stages of going inward:

1. Through the body (stability, Jing foundation)

2. Through energy flow (Qi movement and collection)

3. Through spirit (Shen calming and returning)

4. Through unity (Jing, Qi, Shen returning to one)
    

 I’m curious:

• Have you also noticed this difference between a collected inner state versus a scattered inner state?

• Which practices help you personally to anchor Shen in the body, so that “turning inward” feels truly nourishing rather than dispersing?

I’d love to hear how others who walk the Daoist or Qigong path have encountered this theme.

Edited October 2 by Kati

[Mark Foote]

23 hours ago, Kati said:

 

From a Daoist and Qigong perspective, it seems that we can distinguish stages of going inward:

1. Through the body (stability, Jing foundation)

2. Through energy flow (Qi movement and collection)

3. Through spirit (Shen calming and returning)

4. Through unity (Jing, Qi, Shen returning to one)
    

 I’m curious:

• Have you also noticed this difference between a collected inner state versus a scattered inner state?

• Which practices help you personally to anchor Shen in the body, so that “turning inward” feels truly nourishing rather than dispersing?
   

Reading the "Welcome" remarks of @Steve Clougher today introduced me to the Neiye, a Chinese text that may be the ancestor of other Chinese texts on inner cultivation. AmberOwl was so kind as to post a translation he put together, that's here.

I wrote a post (on my own site) recently about advice I might give to a first-time meditator. That's here. My conclusion was:
 

... I expect I will tell him to let the place where his attention goes do the sitting, and maybe even the breathing.
 

 

I am talking there about what Feldenkrais described as "reflex movement", automatic movement triggered initially by a weighted "one-pointedness" of mind, and then simply by "one-pointedness". As I wrote in an earlier piece:
 

Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice.  I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern.  Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism.

 

(Appendix–A Way of Living)
 

 

I sit first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, and generally by at least the end of the sitting the place where my attention goes can do the breathing. Generally I can return to that during the day, should the necessity arise. Yuanwu wrote:

 

Actually practice at this level for twenty or thirty years and cut off all the verbal demonstrations and creeping vines and useless devices and states, until you are free from conditioned mind. Then this will be the place of peace and bliss where you stop and rest.
 

Thus it is said: “If you are stopping now, then stop. If you seek a time when you finish, there will never be a time when you finish.”

(“Zen Letters: Teachings of Yuanwu”, tr. Cleary & Cleary, Shambala p 99)

 

 

The emphasis there is on a regular practice, and "this level" I believe refers to practice where "the place where attention goes does the breathing". Yuanwu emphasized that the key is regular practice, and that some time may pass before the necessity of a return during the day becomes fully apparent. 

 

 

Edited October 3 by Mark Foote