Practices
Meditation and self-cultivation methods with origins, instructions and textual evidence.
Cunsi: Inner Visualization
Cunsi 存思, 'holding images in mind' — the imagistic pole of Daoist practice: the Huangting Jing's inner palaces, and how it contrasts with the emptying traditions of zuowang.
Daoyin: Guided Stretching and Breathing
Daoyin 导引, 'guiding and pulling' — the classical body-and-breath art the Zhuangzi calls 'the bear's strides and the bird's stretch,' and its modern afterlife.
Jingzuo: Quiet Sitting as a Practice
What the Song–Ming sources actually say about how to practice jingzuo 静坐 — posture, timing, the mind's work, and the tradition's own cautions. No invented universal technique.
Neigong: Internal Work — The Term and Its Territory
Neigong 内功, 'internal work' — the counter-term to external exercise: what it means in the martial and cultivation traditions, and the site's cautious treatment of a loosely attested term.
Neiguan: The Practice of Inner Observation
Neiguan 内观 — the Neiguan Jing's method of inner observation: 内观己身，澄其心也. The scriptural instructions, the Tang identification with zuowang, and the boundary between historical method and modern reconstructions.
Qigong: The Modern System With Ancient Roots
Qigong 气功 — the 20th-century name for the breathing-and-movement arts: what the term covers, its modern origin, and how the site treats it against the older textual practices.
Shouyi: Guarding the One
Shouyi 守一 as practice: from the Daodejing's 'embracing the One' to the Taiping Jing's chamber protocol and the Baopuzi's economy argument — the holding-pole method with its classical conditions.
Taixi: Embryonic Breathing
Taixi 胎息, 'breathing as in the womb' — the classical ideal of breath so fine it forgets the nose and mouth, and why the tradition itself warns against forcing it.
Tiaoxi: Regulating the Breath
Tiaoxi 调息 as practice: the Xiao Zhiguan's breath ladder from the 'wind' fault to the 'rest' breath, and the rule that governs every level — harmonize, never force.
Zuowang: The Practice of Sitting in Oblivion
Zuowang 坐忘 as a structured method — Sima Chengzhen's seven stages (reverent faith to attaining the Dao), the classical Zhuangzi state description, and what the tradition does and does not claim.