Concepts
Core ideas of Chinese contemplative traditions.
Dao (道): The Way
Dao 道 — the way things go, the way to go, and the unnameable source and pattern of everything: Daodejing chs. 1, 25, 32, 37 and Zhuangzi chs. 6 and 22, with the naming problem kept in view.
De (德): Virtue, Power, Integrity
De 德 — the Dao's working in things: Daodejing ch. 38's two kinds of virtue, ch. 51's four-agent pipeline, and why 'virtue' misleads.
Fan (反): Reversal and Return
Fan 反 — the Dao's characteristic motion: 反者道之动 (ch. 40), 远曰反 (ch. 25), 吾以观复 (ch. 16), 正言若反 (ch. 78), and the double reading of the word itself.
Jing: Stillness
Jing 静, the stillness at the root of all Daoist sitting — the Daodejing's 'returning to the root is stillness,' the mirror-mind of the Zhuangzi, and why stillness is a state, not a posture.
Jingzuo (Quiet Sitting)
Jingzuo 静坐: the Neo-Confucian practice of quiet sitting, its Song-dynasty sources (Zhu Xi's 'half day sitting, half day reading'), Daoist and Chan antecedents, and what it does not claim.
Pu (朴): The Uncarved Block
Pu 朴 — uncarved wood as the image of the unworked original: 见素抱朴 (ch. 19), 复归于朴 (ch. 28), 道常无名，朴 (ch. 32), 无名之朴 (ch. 37), and the block's own warning: 朴散则为器.
Qi
Qi 气: the classical Chinese term for vital energy/breath/substrate — what Zhuangzi means by 'listening with qi', why 'energy' is a partial translation, and how the term works in contemplative texts.
Shouyi (Guarding the One)
Shouyi 守一: the early Daoist meditation of holding the One — from Daodejing ch. 10's 'embrace the One' to the Taiping Jing's chamber method and Ge Hong's longevity practice.
Wu and You (无/有): Non-being and Being
Wu 无 and You 有 — the Daodejing's founding pair: nameless/being at the start (ch. 1), 有无相生 (ch. 2), the empty hub (ch. 11), and 有生于无 (ch. 40), with Zhuangzi ch. 22's ladder past the pair itself.
Wuwei (Non-action / Effortless Action)
Wuwei 无为: the Daodejing's central practical ideal — acting without forcing, letting things self-transform. Chapter citations, the wuwei-er-wu-buwei formula, and the meditation connection.
Xinzhai (Fasting of the Mind)
Xinzhai 心斋, from Zhuangzi ch. 4: not listening with the ear or the mind but with qi — the emptiness in which the Dao gathers. Original text, context, and interpretation.
Xu (虚): Emptiness
The Zhuangzi's working term for the state of stillness: 'the Dao gathers in emptiness' — and the one warning attached to it: stillness without emptiness is just sitting while racing (zuochi).
Yin-Yang (阴阳): The Paired Aspects
Yin-Yang 阴阳 — shade and sun as the paired aspects of change: the one Daodejing mention (ch. 42), the Yijing's 一阴一阳之谓道, the Neijing's medical systematization, and the boundary with the Yin-Yang school.
Ziran (自然)
Ziran, 'so of itself': the Daodejing's word for the way things go when nothing forces them — the deepest root of wuwei and the target the whole contemplative tradition aims at.
Zuowang (Sitting in Oblivion)
Zuowang 坐忘 is the Daoist contemplative ideal described in Zhuangzi ch. 6: dropping the body, dismissing intelligence, and merging with the Great Thoroughfare. Its textual basis, history, and contested interpretations.