What is the purpose of TaoZen Meditation?
I’ve been calling our practice “TaoZen Life Practice” for a long time. As you may remember, it consists of Meditation, Breathing Techniques, Qi Exercises (such as Taichi and Qigong, and Chi Nei Tsang), and Life Empowerments.
I’ll explain these five petals of TaoZen in more detail another time. Today, I would like to talk about the purpose of our practice.
Someone like me can’t really comprehend the real purpose of Meditation. It’s far too big and vast for me. But that’s why it’s worth doing every day with quiet passion.
Asking ourselves about the real purpose of Meditation is like asking what the real purpose of Love is. It is so big. That is why it’s worth it.
But we need some tangible purpose to understand it in our daily life. For many years, I’ve said we practice “to live our life authentically” and “to be a life artist“
With and through Meditation, I’m trying to do that. I’m trying to live my life as authentically as possible and be an artist of my life. The process doesn’t have only one right way or one result. It’s always a process of trial and error.
I came across Meditation and Taichi very early in my life. (I would like to talk more about that sometime too.) Back then, it was just for myself and my private practices and learnings. I wasn’t interested in teaching or sharing with others, but I was pushed to teach and share. Through teaching, I realized that life is much better when sharing and practicing with others.
Without friends, life means very little. We need other people and nature to live. That’s why I share the practice and have tried to create a TaoZen community.
Our purpose is not only to be good at Meditation, Taichi, or Chi Nei Tsang, but to live well with each person’s integrities. That’s the reason I call what we do TaoZen Life Practice.
I believe to live well, or even to die well, we need good practices and friends.
~Masahiro