The Nüwa Newsletter, Edition 6
Thought Pieces, Cultural Journalism and Extracts exploring Buddhism, Daoism and their Intersection with Western Culture.
Hello and welcome to this edition of the Nüwa! As always, it’s such a pleasure to share this material with you and I hope you find something that inspires you or leads to the unfolding of something new in your practice. Before beginning to read, please take a moment to follow these instructions. I include them because I find they help me slow down, enjoy and really take in what I’m about to read. We’re all faced by information overload, so this simple method is really nice to do whenever you just want to take a moment.
Place both feet flat on the ground, straighten your back and suspend the crown of your head to elongate the torso.
Become aware of the breath, spend a minute slowing it down. Without force, breathe deeply into the lower abdomen.
The Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting: Chapter One
The Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting (Zuowang Lun) was written by Sima Chengzhen (647–735 CE), the sixth patriarch of one of the most influential schools of medieval Daoism, named Highest Clarity. Unusual amongst religious traditions, Highest Clarity was founded by a woman — Wei Huacun (252–334 CE). The Treatise on Sitting and Forgetting discusses one of the earliest and most fundamental forms of Daoist practice — apophatic meditation that releases everything that obscures our connection to Dao. The term used for this form of meditation in the text is ‘Sitting and Forgetting’, which originally comes from the Zhuangzi. The main body of the text is broken into seven chapters, each of which deals with an increasingly advanced stage of practice. Chapter one deals with the importance of faith and reverence, and is translated in full below. That these qualities are discussed at the start of the text indicates that Sima Chengzhen saw them as the foundation of the path.
A note on the translation on faith and reverence. The Chinese term that I have translated as faith can also be rendered as trust or confidence, and the term for reverence can also be translated as respect. I chose the somewhat more religious terms because I feel they more accurately reflect the religious environment in which Sima Chengzhen was situated. In my personal practice, I understand faith as being firm conviction in the direction I am travelling, and reverence as being the maintenance of humility in my external engagements. Without these things, I cannot see how it would be possible to walk the path.
Chapter One: Reverence & Faith
Faith is the root of the Dao, whilst reverence is the stem of virtue. When the root is deep, the Dao can grow. When the stem is firm, virtue can flourish. One who presented a brilliant piece of jade to the city had both feet promptly amputated as punishment, whilst another who spoke out to defend the state was executed. These examples demonstrate that the appearance of objects causes the heart-mind to become confused, and that speaking of principles makes the emotions confused. Now, the utmost Dao surpasses colour and taste, and true inner-nature (zhenxing) is separate from that which can be desired. This being the case, how can one hear about the rarefied and subtle and believe in it, or hear of the imageless and not be confused?
When people hear of sitting and forgetting, if they have faith that it is essential to practising the Dao, if they respect it, are firmly without doubt and put it into practice, then they are sure to attain the Dao. Therefore Zhuangzi said, “I smash up my limbs and body, drive out perception and intellect, cast off form, do away with understanding, and make myself identical with the Great Pervasion. This is what I mean by sitting and forgetting.”
When sitting and forgetting, what is not forgotten? Inwardly, you are not aware of your own body. Outwardly, you have no knowledge of time and space. When you become one with the profound Dao, the myriad considerations fall away. This is why Zhuangzi spoke of the “Great Pervasion” — they are shallow words but the meaning is deep. Those who are confused hear them, but do not have faith. They have treasure in their hearts, yet go looking elsewhere for treasure. What can be done for them? A scripture states, “When faith is insufficient, there is disbelief.” How can one then expect to achieve the Dao?
Michael Pollan: This Is Your Mind on Plants
Michael Pollan is an author and journalist who writes about “the places where nature and culture intersect”. He’s probably best known today for his work on psychedelics, and I recently went to a talk he gave to promote his newest book This Is Your Mind on Plants: Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline. Here’s a short extract from it, in which he talks about the cultural history of tea in East Asia and its relationship to spiritual practice. I’ll write more about his work on psychedelics at a later date.
The first tea plantations in China were cultivated thousands of years ago by monks, who found that sipping tea was an important aid to meditation. In one of the origin stories for the discovery of tea, Bodhidharma, a sixth-century Indian prince seeking enlightenment, was in the midst of a seven-year-long meditation (he had already completed a nine-year stint sitting in front of a wall “listening to the ants scream”) when, despite his determination to stay awake, he fell asleep. Furious with himself, Bodhidharma cut off his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Tea bushes sprouted where his eyelids landed, a plant with leaves resembling eyelids. From that time forward, the drink would help monks stay awake during the long hours of meditation.
Tea was celebrated in China and, later, Japan not only as a promoter of wakefulness but of health too — and with good reason. Tea was used as a mouthwash in the East long before science discovered it contains fluoride (the English would negate this advantage by adding copious amounts of sugar to their tea); tea also contains a great many vitamins and minerals — one of the highest concentrations in any plant — and prodigious quantities of polyphenols, compounds rich in antioxidants. (Tea contains more polyphenols than red wine.)
“Always sip tea as if tea were life itself”: this injunction, from the eighth-century Cha Jing, or The Classic of Tea, hints at the exalted role tea played in the spiritual life of China and Japan. The subtleties of this delicate inflection of water, in taste and aroma and appearance, encouraged precisely the kind of concentration and attention to the present moment that Buddhism sought to instil.
The idea that the act of sipping tea could be a spiritual practice culminated in the Zen tea ceremony. Here the scrupulous attention to every physical gesture and material detail gave participants an opportunity to step outside the bustle and messiness of daily life, turning their minds instead to the Zen principles of reverence, purity, harmony, and tranquility. Approached in this spirit of transcendence, the tea ceremony held the power to change consciousness. As the seventeenth-century Japanese tea master Sen Sotan put it, “The taste of tea and the taste of Zen are the same.” 1
The Teachings of Sri Anandamayi Ma
Sri Anandamayi Ma (1896-1982) was an Indian saint and guru who received little formal education. Her practice and teachings are simple and based almost entirely in bhakti, or loving-devotion to God. She speaks directly to our desire for self-realisation which, as a profound aspect the human condition, permeates every spiritual-religious tradition. Here are some extracts from her conversations and talks that I felt were interesting from a Buddhist and Daoist perspective. They’re taken from a wonderful biography and collection about her.
There are two kinds of pilgrims on life’s journey: the one, like a tourist, is keen on sight-seeing, wandering from place to place, flitting form one experience to another for the fun of it. The other treads the path that is consistent with man’s true being and leads to his real home, to Self-knowledge. Sorrow will of a certainty be encountered on the journey undertaken for the sake of sight-seeing and enjoyment. So long as one’s real home has not been found, suffering is inevitable. The sense of separateness is the root-cause of misery, because it is founded on error, on the conception of duality.
Sustained effort ends in effortless being; in others words, what has been attained by constant practice is finally transcended. Then comes spontaneity. Not until this happens can the utility of hathayoga be understood. When the physical fitness resulting from hathayoga is used as an aid to spiritual endeavour, it is not wasted. Otherwise it is not yoga, but bhoga (enjoyment). In effortless being lies the path to the Infinite. Unless hathayoga aims at the Eternal, it is nothing more than gymnastics.
Q: How can the restlessness of the mind be conquered?
A: “By intense love for God.”2
The Daoist Foundation: Entering Stillness
The Daoist Foundation is a non-profit run by Daoist scholar-practitioner Louis Komjathy and Kate Townsend. They have recently started their own printing operation, Square Inch Press, and their first title, Entering Stillness, in available now. I’ve had the pleasure of studying with Louis over the past year, during which time he has guided my intellectual study of Daoism and provided spiritual mentorship. I was also lucky enough to be on the team that copy-edited Entering Stillness, and can say that it will be of great use to anyone beginning their study of Daoism and looking for an intellectually rigorous and tradition-based presentation of Daoism. You can order a discounted copy of Entering Stillness via the website here, or on Amazon.
I’ll also take this opportunity to mention that Louis has recently assembled a team of translators to produce an accurate translation of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity (Baopuzi) by Ge Hong (283-343 CE). We are currently about one third through a first draft of the text.
Lastly, Louis gives regular talks on aspects of Daoist practice, which I also highly recommend to anyone looking to develop an authentic, tradition-based engagement with Daoism. You can find more about upcoming talks here.
If you enjoyed this edition of the Nüwa, please take a moment to give it a like, write a comment, or share it with a friend. These things make a massive difference and are really motivating. We have recently reached 1000 subscribers which is fantastic. Once the Nüwa has grown a little more, I’ll explore ways to make this into a community where people can learn and share with each other. Stay tuned for updates, and please let me know if you have any ideas.
With all my best wishes for the week ahead,
Oscar
For more on the tea ceremony and, more generally, the place of tea in the spiritual life of China and Japan, see Beatrice Hohenegger, Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006)
You wouldn’t find this said in Buddhism or Daoism — it’s the root of bhakti, which is something that both traditions lack. From the perspective of a practitioner, this is probably one of the greatest weaknesses in these traditions. Loving-devotion towards a somewhat personalised supreme being is a very effective tool of spiritual development, as all the saints of India and the West attest to! It’s just increasingly at odds with the modern world.
Thank you, Oscar, for taking the time to compile this for all of us and special thanks for sharing your translation with us.
Thank you I like the extract on Sitting and Forgetting! Few months ago I got a book from Livia Kohn on this topic that translates 3 scriptures on it but did not have the chance to read it yet. I am still busy reading some texts from Louis Komjiathy and I find amazing that you know him personally! If I understood correctly you can translate chinese? I am studying it and not much motivated, as not practicing it daily make it lose very quickly.
About love devotion is an interesting topic. I am interested in Christianity as it is my religious background from childhood and in the latest year I found that Orthodox church is much closer to the basic principles of Christ based on love, obedience, self-denial, humility. Some passages from the Desert Fathers are the same from the early Quanzhen Daoism. I am also trying to understand how ultimately these two religions are connected on the final goal.