The Way, Virtue, Method, and Art of Nurturing Life

Xuefeng

June 19, 2014

The Purpose of Nurturing Life: to: To maintain health, achieve longevity, transcend the ordinary, and attain Tao.

The Essence of Nurturing Life: Nurturing the essence, qi, spirit, form, heart, and nature.

The Way of Nurturing Life: Follow the path of the Greatest Creator, that is, the path of nature, and act in accordance with nature.

The Virtue of Nurturing Life: Treat all beings with kindness. Without virtue, it is difficult to nurture life. Benefiting others is benefiting oneself, harming others is harming oneself.

The Method of Nurturing Life: Purify the soul, empty the consciousness, be selfless and formless, and unite with Tao.

The Art of Nurturing Life: Maintain regular routines, moderate diet, calm the spirit and quiet the mind, balance movement and stillness, regulate breath to nurture qi, be simple and easy, guide qi to harmony, make the body flexible, have a clear heart and few desires, reduce worries, embrace the Yin and the Yang, Know the Masculine but Keep to the Feminine, treat people with equanimity, handle affairs moderately, meditate on beautiful things, perform many Yin deeds, often change spaces, and integrate with nature.

A brief explanation of the above content is as follows:

To maintain health, achieve longevity, transcend the ordinary, and attain Tao is to cultivate the demeanor of a Celestial Being and be free and easy.

Nurturing essence is to absorb energy, absorb the essence of the sun and the moon, the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, to ensure that the body is “half an acre of square pond, looks like a mirror, the light of the sky and the shadow of the clouds linger together, ask the canal how to be so clear, because there is a source of living water.”

Nurturing qi mainly nurtures lung qi, stomach qi, liver qi, heart qi, blood qi, essence qi, and spirit qi.

Nurturing spirit mainly is to make the spirit calm; the spirit does not go out.

Maintaining one’s physical form primarily involves using health exercises to achieve a symmetrical body proportion, balanced weight, kind and gentle appearance, and beautiful exterior.

The main purpose of nurturing the heart is to allow the environment to follow the heart, to enable the soul to transcend all phenomena, to manifest the heart when events occur and to empty the heart when they pass, ensuring that no things or phenomena linger in the heart.

Cultivating one’s nature is the most challenging task. The primary goal is to relinquish human wisdom and intelligence, return to the original intention of the creator, that is, to achieve the unity of heaven and man.

Because “the great way is exceedingly smooth,” and “Tao manifests itself in nature”, the path adhered to in life nurturing is the path of nature.

The virtue of life nurturing lies in benefiting all sentient beings. If you treat all life kindly, all life will reciprocate in kindness. If you harm other lives for your own nourishment, you are violating the virtue of life nurturing. Violating this virtue not only renders life nurturing futile, but it also invites endless troubles.

The primary method of life nurturing is to purify the soul. Cleanse the weeds and trash in one’s soul garden, let the flowers bloom and the fragrance permeate. Then, maintain a tranquil mind, allow your consciousness to be orderly and not chaotic, always in a state of ethereal tranquility. Because only by relinquishing the ego can one realize the Self. All phenomena are but illusions, hence, one needs to enter a state of selflessness and formlessness, to evolve in accordance with Tao. Tao endures, and so do I.

The art of life nurturing belongs to methods and measures. The content of the art of life nurturing is vast and numerous. I mainly focus on the following eighteen aspects.

Maintain Regular Routines: The arrangement of work, rest, and living should be punctual and orderly, preferably in accordance with the natural sequence and the structure of the human body.

Moderate Diet: Don’t eat indiscriminately, don’t eat blindly, eat what you should eat, absolutely don’t eat what you shouldn’t eat. Don’t overeat or drink, and don’t starve or go hungry. Eat meals at a fixed quantity and time.

Calm the Spirit and Quiet the Mind: If the heart is quiet, the spirit will be at peace. If the heart is running, the spirit will be swinging. If the spirit does not guard the house, it will be difficult to live a healthy and long life. Therefore, you need to keep your heart quiet, and at the same time, you need to keep your mind quiet, that is, your consciousness, thoughts, and ideas are pure and not mixed.

Balance Movement and Stillness: Movement and stillness complement each other. Pure movement and pure stillness are both detrimental to health preservation. Move when it’s time to move, be still when it’s time to be still. You can have a calm mind and active body, an active mind and calm body, both mind and body can be active, both mind and body can be still. In short, movement and stillness should be combined and appropriate.

Regulate Breath to Nurture Qi: Through conscious breathing regulation, make the breath become more and more relaxed, even, and long. You can also combine it with health exercises, let the movement and breathing proceed synchronously, in order to cultivate Qi.

Be Simple and Easy: Make life simple and frugal, do not pursue luxurious things, so you will not be busy. Not being busy is also a kind of health preservation.

Guide Qi to Harmony: This is a kind of Qigong practice, letting Qi run smoothly and unobstructed among the limbs, bones, five organs and six viscera.

Make the Body Flexible: Do exercises to make the body soft and not stiff.

Have a Clear Heart and Few Desires: Be satisfied with the present, be grateful, be content with circumstances, do not seek excess.

Reduce Worries: “Three parts human effort, seven parts fate”, everything has a fixed number, health preservation should reduce worries.

Embrace the Yin and the Yang: The invisible is Yin, the visible is Yang, rely on the invisible, depend on the visible, Yin supplements Yang’s rigidity, Yang supplements Yin’s softness, adhere to the principle of Tai Chi.

Know the Masculine but Keep to the Feminine: Do not show off strength or ability, water naturally becomes deep, mountains naturally become peaks, health preservation should be done in the details, work hard on the weak.

Treat People with Equanimity: Always keep calm and peaceful, do not argue, quarrel, fight, or debate with people, get along harmoniously with the people around you.

Handle Affairs in Moderation: Do not do things absolutely, leave room for everything, if you exceed the degree, it is not health preservation.

Meditate on Beautiful Things: Fully use the law of attraction and the principle of visualized thinking to build your own body and environment.

Perform Many Acts of Hidden Virtue: Do more anonymous giving, secretly do more good deeds.

Change Space Often: Frequently change your living space, do not stay in one place for too long.

Integrate into Nature: Live in nature, integrate with nature.

Health preservation is a learning, an art, a taste, a process of sublimating life, health preservation is not a stage, but throughout life, treat everything encountered in life with the eyes and perspective of health preservation, life will have different levels and realms, one will have the mood of Liu Yuxi’s “In Praise of My Humble Home”.

Health preservation first needs to cultivate Tao, then the virtue, after having Tao and virtue of health preservation, you can use the method of health preservation, after understanding the method of health preservation, you can freely use the art of health preservation, the content of the art of health preservation is complex, involving all aspects related to people, too much emphasis on the art, will become a burden and cumbersome, so it is better to use the art to treat the symptoms, “self-nature can generate all dharma”, no need to be too defensive and worried.

May everyone “make love until ninety-nine, live until one hundred and twenty”.