A Few More Words … Fifth Month

Lately I’ve been teaching counting the breaths. It's one of the oldest and simplest meditation methods there is. Count the inhalations. Count the exhalations. Count both. Count to 10 (or any of the numerous variations I’ve been teaching) and start over. If you lose track, simply return to one and try again.

Whenever I teach something like this, it inevitably raises questions, like what about all of those teachings that tell us not to count or focus on the breathing?

Zen often talks about “just sitting.” The Secret of the Golden Flower repeatedly points beyond techniques and toward something natural and spontaneous. Taoism frequently emphasizes simplicity, effortlessness, and non-action. So why count breaths at all?

The more I've studied and practiced over the years, the less interested I became in making distinctions about which perspective is right.

One thing I've noticed from studying Taoism, Taijiquan, meditation, and internal cultivation is that many of the apparent opposites we encounter eventually turn out to be two sides of the same coin: method and no-method, effort and effortlessness, movement and stillness, clarity and tranquility, action and non-action, to name a few. At first, these seem like opposing viewpoints but are actually more like partners.

Students sometimes hear "effortlessness" and assume it means not doing anything. But nobody becomes effortless without first making some effort. A musician practices scales. A calligrapher repeats basic strokes. A Taiji practitioner performs the same movements over and over. Eventually something changes.

What once required effort begins to happen naturally. The effort doesn't disappear; it transforms into effortlessness. The same thing can happen in meditation. Counting the breath is a method. It gives the mind a simple task and helps to gather scattered attention. Over time, however, there comes a point when the counting naturally falls away, and awareness remains steady on its own. But that doesn't mean the counting was wrong. It helped create the conditions for what came afterward.

I've sometimes heard people speak about methods and no-methods as though they belong to different camps. One is supposedly higher, while the other is somehow inferior. I've never found that way of looking at things particularly helpful. Even no-method requires practice. A Zen practitioner doesn't simply wake up one morning able to rest effortlessly in pure awareness. Years of sitting, returning, observing, and letting go create the conditions for that apparent simplicity.

The same thing appears throughout Taoist practice. Movement cultivates stillness. Stillness cultivates movement. Clarity deepens tranquility. Tranquility deepens clarity. Action eventually becomes non-action. Method eventually becomes no-method.

What begins as doing eventually reveals a deeper kind of non-doing. I think this is one reason Taoist teachings often seem contradictory. The teachings are frequently describing different points along the same path rather than different destinations.

Stuart often reminded us that people need different approaches at different times. Sometimes the way is counting breaths. Sometimes it is following the breath. Sometimes it’s simply sitting quietly and observing. The important thing is not becoming attached to any particular approach.

The Tao isn't found in methods, nor is it found in the rejection of methods. It's found in learning how to use whatever is needed and letting go when it is no longer needed. Like so many things in cultivation, what first appears to be an either-or question eventually becomes both.

—Patrick