A Practice of Stillness and Clarity
To sit quietly, without agenda, is an act of trust. Zuòwàng (坐忘), “sitting in forgetting,” is one of the meditations from the Daoist tradition. It does not seek visions, powers, or accomplishments. Instead, it leads us toward stillness and clarity — qualities that arise when the clutter of thought and the weight of self-concern are set aside.
The Zhuangzi tells of Yan Hui, who explained to Confucius:
“I slough off my limbs and body, abandon my intelligence, leave behind form, and become one with the Great Thoroughfare. This is sitting in forgetting.”
Here, forgetting does not mean erasure but release. The body, the mind, and even identity itself are loosened. What remains is openness, a merging with Dao (道), the Way that underlies all things.
The Path Through the Texts
The Daodejing (Laozi)
The Daodejing (道德經), also known as the Laozi and dating to the late Warring States period, consistently links serenity with clarity. In chapter 16 it instructs:
“Bring emptiness to the limit. Guard stillness with firmness. The myriad things arise together, and I watch their return. To return to the root is called stillness; stillness is called returning to life.”
Here, emptiness (xu 虛) and stillness (jing 靜) are not passive voids but conditions in which natural processes reveal themselves. The text affirms that when the mind is emptied of striving and held in calmness, it perceives the patterns of return and renewal that underlie all existence.
This concern for qingjing (清靜, “clarity and stillness”) runs throughout the text, and later Daoist traditions would seize upon such passages as the scriptural foundation for meditative practice.
The Zhuangzi
The Zhuangzi extends this into practice. Yan Hui’s declaration of sitting in forgetting shows meditation as a direct method of releasing selfhood. Elsewhere the text describes “fasting the mind” (心齋 xinzhai), where Confucius advises: “Make the mind empty like air; only then does Dao gather there.” The image is clear — Dao resides where agitation has ceased.
The Huainanzi
By the 2nd century BCE, the Huainanzi tied serenity explicitly to breath:
“When the heart is calm, the breath is ordered. When the breath is ordered, the spirit is at peace.”
This shows the growing sense that calmness and physiological balance mirror one another. In forgetting self and quieting the mind, the body too finds harmony.
The Zuòwàng Lùn
Finally, the Tang dynasty master Sima Chengzhen (647–735) wrote the Zuòwàng Lùn (Treatise on Sitting in Forgetting). Unlike the poetic concision of the Daodejing or the allegories of the Zhuangzi, this was a structured manual.
Sima lived at a time when Daoism was flourishing under imperial patronage but also competing with Buddhism, especially the flourishing Chan schools of meditation. His codification of Zuòwàng in seven stages was both a preservation of earlier currents of “internal cultivation” and a Daoist answer to the strong Buddhist influence of the Tang. He emphasised that Daoist meditation had its own depth, equal to the Buddhist path, but expressed in the language of stillness, forgetting, and union with Dao.
In it, Sima outlines seven progressive stages of cultivation:
1. Respect and Faith (敬信, jìngxìn)
The path begins with an attitude of reverence toward Dao and trust in the practice itself. Without this inner orientation, sitting becomes empty habit. Respect opens the heart, and faith steadies it, creating the soil in which stillness can take root.
2. Interception of Karma (斷緣, duànyuán)
Here the practitioner learns to step back from endless entanglements. “Karma” refers not only to actions but to the web of ties, obligations, and desires that keep the mind restless. Intercepting them means creating space, simplifying, and letting go of what constantly pulls us outward.
3. Restraint of the Mind (收心, shōuxīn)
With outer distractions eased, the heart-mind is gathered inward. Scattered thoughts are not fought but gently collected, like sheep herded back into their pen. This restraint is not repression but concentration — a return to centre.
4. Detachment from Affairs (簡務, jiǎnwù)
Beyond immediate thoughts, there is the larger weight of “affairs”: worries, duties, and ambitions. This stage is about loosening their grip. The practitioner learns to meet responsibilities without being consumed by them, cultivating a freedom of spirit even in the midst of worldly life.
5. True Observation (真觀, zhēnguān)
As detachment deepens, clarity dawns. Observation becomes “true” when perception is no longer coloured by craving, aversion, or self-concern. Things are seen as they are. This is the birth of wisdom: reality reflected like the moon in still water.
6. Great Stability (泰定, tàidìng)
Stability is the fruit of sustained practice. The mind abides in profound serenity, luminous and unshaken. It is not rigid concentration but ease — a vast stillness that holds everything without disturbance. In this stage, Dao permeates the practitioner’s being.
7. Union with Dao (道合, dàohé)
The culmination is not an achievement but a merging. The boundary between self and Dao falls away. One lives in seamless harmony with the Way, beyond striving and beyond separation. This is not escape from the world but a deeper participation in its unfolding, guided by the rhythm of Dao itself.
Sima expresses this beautifully:
“When the mind is without thoughts and the heart without attachments, the spirit of Dao will naturally arrive. In forgetting both self and world, one enters the Great Peace.”
Through these stages, Sima Chengzhen presents Zuòwàng as a path of gradual release. Each step strips away a layer of attachment or agitation, until what remains is not effort but resting in what has always been present: Dao itself.
A Practice of the Internal Cultivation Tradition
Before Daoism developed into organised schools with their own scriptures, rituals, and hierarchies, there was already a deep current of practice sometimes called the internal cultivation tradition (內修, neixiu). Its focus was simple: calming the mind, preserving vital essence, and aligning body and spirit with Dao.
Texts from the Warring States and Han periods — such as the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and the Neiye (《內業》, “Inner Training”) preserved within the Guanzi — speak of serenity as the heart of cultivation. The Neiye describes how clarity and stillness allow the vital forces of life (jing, qi, shen) to gather and harmonise within the body. The Huainanzi later echoed this with its teaching: “When the heart is calm, the breath is ordered; when the breath is ordered, the spirit is at peace.”
Zuòwàng belongs to this current. It is not dependent on elaborate ritual, visualisation of deities, or liturgical forms that came later with Shangqing and Lingbao. Instead, it reflects a continuity of early Daoist concern for qingjing (clarity and stillness) as the root of transformation.
Sima Chengzhen’s Zuòwàng Lùn in the Tang dynasty can thus be seen not as an innovation but as a codification of a much older, internal approach. In his writing, he explicitly situates sitting in forgetting within this stream, warning against excessive complexity and reminding practitioners that serenity itself is sufficient.
Posture and Letting Go
The Zuòwàng Lùn speaks of regulation and release, while later Daoist teachers describe nine points of posture:
- A stable base like a mountain
- Upright yet supple spine
- Floating head, with the crown light
- Soft eyes, open without grasping
- Tongue resting on the palate
- Relaxed jaw, chest, and shoulders
- Hands easy and natural
- Breathing free and unforced
These points are not rigid rules but supports. They create a frame in which body, breath, and mind can gradually quieten.
From posture, four qualities unfold: comfort, calm, clarity, and context. Comfort means ease without indulgence. Calm allows qi to settle. Clarity arises as muddiness sinks, like a pond clearing after rain. Context is the great background — Dao itself — where calm and turbulence, clarity and obscurity, are all embraced.
Step by Step into Zuòwàng
The entry into Zuòwàng is gentle. First prepare the ground — a simple, quiet space, free from distractions, with the intention of nothing to achieve, only to sit.
Taking your seat, let the body arrange itself with ease. A stable base supports an upright yet supple spine; the head floats; the eyes are soft and neutral. The tongue touches the palate, the jaw and shoulders relax, the hands rest naturally, and breathing flows without effort.
Allow the breath to settle by itself. There is no need to control or count it. As early Daoist texts remind us, when the heart is calm the breath is ordered, and when the breath is ordered the spirit rests at peace.
Awareness rests broadly, without grasping. Simply feel the fact of sitting. When thoughts arise, let them drift like clouds or dissolve like ripples. This is the “fasting of the mind” that the Zhuangzi points to — empty enough for Dao to gather.
In time, even the sense of “doing practice” fades. Effort slips away, and you are left simply resting. The Zuòwàng Lùn describes this plainly: when the mind is without thoughts and the heart without attachments, Dao naturally reveals itself.
Clarity emerges not through force but through settling. The Daodejing calls this “returning to the root.” Like a pond clearing when the mud sinks, stillness allows the water of awareness to become transparent.
To close, remain a moment before rising. Feel the body, the breath, the ground beneath you. Gently return to activity. And then carry something of the forgetting into daily life — a pause before replying, a breath before stepping forward. In this way, Zuòwàng is not only what happens on the cushion but what threads through each moment.
Kinship with Mahāmudrā
Across traditions, when practitioners turn toward stillness, they often discover the same landscape. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Mahāmudrā tradition teaches that the mind’s true nature is luminous, open, and beyond grasping.
This bears a striking resemblance to Zuòwàng. Sima Chengzhen’s Zuòwàng Lùn describes the culmination of practice as the moment when “the mind is without thoughts and the heart without attachments; Dao naturally reveals itself.” Tibetan masters echo this: “When mind rests in its own place, it shines, vast and clear.”
Both traditions affirm that stillness cannot be forced, and that clarity appears when grasping ceases. Where they differ is in framing: Zuòwàng dissolves into Dao, the vast process that births and reclaims all things, while Mahāmudrā rests in mind’s luminous nature, often described as inseparable from compassion.
The resonance between them is reassuring. It reminds us that what emerges in stillness is not owned by one tradition. Whether we call it Dao or Buddha-nature, forgetting or resting, the path is the same: a return to what was always present.
Living the Forgetting
The ancient Daoists did not confine Zuòwàng to mountain hermits. Sima Chengzhen wrote for officials and householders as well as recluses. Sitting in forgetting can be as small as pausing before replying to a message, as simple as noticing one breath before stepping into a meeting.
In each act of release, stillness returns, clarity arises, and life feels less entangled.
Reflection
The line that runs through the texts and teachings — from the Daodejing to the Zhuangzi, from the Huainanzi to the Zuòwàng Lùn, and echoed in Mahāmudrā — all remind us of the same truth: stillness and clarity are not achievements but our natural state.
As my old teacher would say:
Who would you be if you forgot who you are?