Taoism > Meditation

About the Realization of the Celestial Mind

Peace of mind - picture

By Jhian

The realization of the Celestial Mind (or the Great Ultimate) is a must for the Taoist disciples. There are many texts, more or less confusing, explaining the method.

The following one is extremely simple if we take into account the difficulty of such a task. Let's see what it is about.

Quote:

The reason this Way is not operative is that the Way is not clearly understood. At first the work is a matter of extinguishing emotionalism and sweeping away miscellaneous thoughts. This is the first step, building the foundation and refining the self. Once the human mentality is set aside, the celestial mind come back. Once human desires are purified, then the celestial design is always present.

Commentary:

This quote is from Master Zang Safeng's teachings about the Taoist alchemical work. The text is translated by Thomas Clearly in his book on Taoist meditation*.

Let's try to understand its meaning.

The Way, meaning the work of realizing the celestial mind is affected by two factors: our emotional approach and the confused thinking meaning a confused view of what is about.

Generally speaking this is what we call "human mentality". We must get rid of this.

In other words, we must rebuild the foundation of our ego-consciousness. It is the same as what a Tibetan master points to by saying: we must acquire a panoramic view (which includes everything).

When the human mind is  the celestial one comes back. Meaning it was still there, hidden in the background, like sun is obscured by clouds.

Further more, without desires our mind can view (that is, understand) the celestial design.

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*Thomas Clearly: Taoist Meditation. You may order this startling book from Amazon.com:
https://amzn.to/30CXwgn.

Please notice that we may earn a small revenue from your purchase.


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