Tantric Cosmology Tantric Yoga, developed in the sixteenth century CE, seems particularly concerned with anatomy, which is largely spiritual. Tantra applies the three gunas to energy, as causal, subtle, and gross, and to man, as sat, will (or transcendental consciousness), chit, knowledge (or mind), and ananda, action (or matter.) These three qualities […]
Archive | Meditation
Chinese Daoist Alchemical Meditation
Basics My blog articles, “My Zen, Part II: Ageless Chinese Wisdom” and “My Zen, Part III: Alchemy, Qigong and Taijiquan” present a relatively thorough discussion of Daoist meditation and include a scientific perspective. The attempt has been made here to create a blueprint of the basic system of Chinese Daoist symbolic alchemy for those […]
My Zen Part III: Alchemy, Qigong and Taijiquan
Read My Zen Part II: Ageless Chinese Meditation Origins of Chinese Inner Alchemy Chinese Inner Alchemy includes meditation, breathing and movement exercises like Qigong and taijiquan. In both Chinese Daoist alchemy and the Western Royal Art, two distinct interpretations of alchemy have developed over time: ‘external alchemy’ (Mandarin waidan) and ‘internal alchemy’ […]
My Zen Part II: Ageless Chinese Meditation
Read My Zen Part I: The First Meditators: Indian Yoga CHINESE PHILOSOPHY & DAOIST MEDITATION A Note on the Romanization of Chinese Words Pinyin is used in this article as the convention amongst scholars today. With Chinese words that are relatively well known to English speakers, the popular Wade-Giles system is […]
Traditions: An Introduction to the “My Zen” Series
Traditions: An Introduction to the “My Zen” Series Tumbling Into Meditation “My Zen” is a four-part series of blog articles researched and written as a record of one American’s comprehensive investigation of the world’s most established Eastern meditative methods. Although this is the story of the author’s own personal journey and “awakening,” these articles […]
The First Meditators: Indian Yoga
The First Meditators: Indian Yoga Part I of the My Zen Series Read “My Zen” Series Introduction: Traditions IN THE BEGINNING… It is interesting to me that at some point when the world was young, before industry, before electricity, and previous to the global domination of the major religions, somebody sat down […]