Tao te Ching 6

Tao te Ching 28

Know the masculine, 
Keep to the feminine, 
and be the Brook of the World...

Know the white,
Keep to the black,
and be the Pattern of the World...

Know the glorious,
Keep to the lowly,
and be the Fountain of the World.
To be the Fountain of the World is...
...to return again  to Primal Simplicity...

- Wu translation

This Yīn Sōngchi meditation mandala is derived and further refined from the Voice of the Tao post previously shared. The mandala is intended to deeply explore the Yin of the Tao – the passive, “dark”, still state of being that resides for all of us in our core. The instructions, taken successively, are designed to sink one’s awareness into deep interiority step by step, to take one from everyday active and outgoing awareness into a state of being where activity is progressively stilled and surrendered. The meditation commences at the one o’clock position with the reminder to empty – one’s mind, one’s emotions, one’s doings, followed by centering and sinking within. At depth, the meditator is encouraged to fully inhabit this interior dwelling locus and to begin to dissolve the form boundary that separates us from an experience of essence. Upon sufficient softening, an expansion into a diffused state, intermingled with formless essence occurs. The cycle at this point shifts into a deep listening/feeling of what one has diffused into, and a recognition that one is now newly-empowered to Be in a state of Non-being. The entire cycle constitutes the process of a Yīn Sōngchi (Relaxation) meditation – a profound and deep experience of the Formless Womb.

Tao te Ching 4

Tao te Ching 12

The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors cloy the palate.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Rare goods tempt men to do wrong.

Therefore, the Sage takes care of the belly, not the eye.
He prefers what is within to what is without.

- Wu translation

The second mandala details the movements (or means of sensing) of awareness that can be sensed during the latter stages (the Attune – Feel – Be triad) of the Yīn Sōngchi meditation process. Each axis crossing the Tai Chi symbol represents a different means of sensory attunement, with diametric poles of each axis correlating to the rise and fall of the substance of the axis. The six axes include inner breath, inner sensation, inner heat/warmth, inner contact, weight/gravity, and vibration. Some of these sensory attunements – breath, heat/warmth, vibration, weight/gravity – have correlates in the material realm, and these may be used exteriorly in a skillful fashion to “sense into” their interior counterparts. All of the axes, however, are intended to primarily refer to their inner essences. Breath, for example, does not mean the normal human respiration in this context, but rather an inspiration and exhalation of awareness itself in and through the lower dantian. Many are unaware that awareness itself is a type of incorporeal medium that can move, flow, assume different tonalities, and become the in-filling content of any sentigendered or invoked state. By focusing momentarily on the experiencing of each axis in succession, each axis paired with a physical respiration cycle, the meditator can feel the movement, interior coloration, and strengthening of awareness itself in the lower dantian. This practice should deepen rest and peace; do not allow the form or structure of the process or movement mappings to impinge upon your inner resting in the content of your meditative experience. The goal, insofar as that prosaic term applies to such a practice, is a naked experience of Being with interior movement and feeling centered in the deep belly.