One of the characteristics of Taoist thought is Taoism and its far-reaching way of longevity and health preservation. Since ancient times, people have discussed many ways of keeping in good health, but the earliest, most perfect and most valuable way of keeping in good health comes from Taoism and Taoism based on the thoughts of Huang and Lao Taoism.
Taoism has a long history of keeping in good health, which originated from Huang Lao. Taoism, as the only native traditional religion in China, pursues immortality through Taoism. Therefore, in the long-term practice of Taoism, they created a systematic theory of health preservation and wrote a large number of health preservation books, forming a huge and all-encompassing Taoism. Taoist health preserving theory is the epitome of China's traditional health preserving theory.
Taoism, with Laozi and Zhuangzi as its representative figures, is based on the view of natural heaven and centered on human beings, pursuing the liberation of life essence and spiritual peace, with special emphasis on spiritual detachment and personality independence, attaching importance to spiritual cultivation and yearning for life freedom. Its health concept mainly includes:
Quiet nothingness
Laozi advocates simplicity, selfishness and no desire, and rejects all human desires and temptations brought by foreign objects. He advocated rejecting interference through weakness, inaction and self-control, so as to achieve the purpose of returning to nature. Zhuangzi's way of keeping in good health is "quiet and self-control", "nourishing the heart without desire" and "turning a blind eye, listening without hearing, knowing without hearing ..."
Comply with nature
Advocating nature is the basic principle of Taoist health preservation. Taoism believes that taking the change of natural order as the law, abandoning human rational factors and taking natural measures in health preservation can keep health and prolong life.
Laozi said: "Man should learn from earth, the earth should learn from heaven, and heaven should learn from Taoism, and Taoism is natural." . He believes that everything in human beings should conform to the laws of nature and not violate the principles of heaven and earth. However, people's initial state is close to nature. Therefore, health care should be simple and true, and the highest standard is to return to the baby state.
Zhuangzi believes that the harmony between man and nature is the highest state of health preservation. He advocates getting rid of all artificial and deliberate pursuits, and thinks that "inaction", "selflessness" and "absolute freedom" are the fundamental ways to realize the unity of man and nature.
Health preservation with qi
"Historical Records" says: "I am in my sixties and twenties, and I am self-cultivating." There is a saying in history that I don't know my final destination. Although I dare not believe it all, the unanimous view of historians is that Laozi is nearly 30 years older than Confucius and died later than Confucius. Confucius lived for 72 years, and Laozi should be regarded as a centenarian.
Laozi's longevity benefits from his way of keeping in good health. Its core is: "I want to be different from others, but I want to eat my mother." This mother-eating is "eating gas." Eating qi is the main method of ancient people's health preservation created by Laozi, and it has also become the gist of qigong practitioners in past dynasties.
Laozi also put forward the essence theory. He thinks that the root of heaven and earth refers to his mouth and nose. Oral intake of food is yin, and nasal intake of air is yang.
Taoism believes that the human body is a small universe, connected with the big universe and holographic everything in the universe.
The universe is full of energy, and the human body also has energy flowing, but the energy is very low. If people practice opening acupoints, the energy of the universe will continuously enter the body.
Under the guidance of human consciousness, energy will gather to one point. What we see on TV is that the iron tip of the red tassel spear pierces the throat, which can bend the wooden pole, that is, the energy is concentrated in the throat, and huge energy acts on the skin to resist external forces. This is "external work".