Some beginners of Life Cultivation practice think Jingzuo is a very mysterious matter. Yet Jingzuo is only a form of meditation involving sitting. Once we learn and practice it, we will start to love it because it makes us feel comfortable and relaxed. It is simple and fun to get into it. Let us get into Jingzuo in greater detail.

Jingzuo is a static fitness method. It makes us fit without moving, and that is why we call it static.

To put it simply, it involves closing our eyes and sitting cross-legged, adjusting our breath, putting our hands in a certain position, and not thinking about anything. That is easy, right?

The practice is called Jingzuo because we are required to sit and be silent. It is a basic practice in Taoism. It is called Zen Sitting in Buddhism which is a compulsory practice in Zen Buddhism.

Since it involves sitting, how to sit is a major subject. Usually we sit cross-legged and are divided into natural posture, single-cross posture, and double-cross posture.

Jingzuo practice will nourish our body and prolong our life. It will also open up our wisdom and increase our wisdom. In the practice of Chinese martial arts, Jingzuo is also a way to increase our internal strength and willpower.

Jingzuo practice literally means to sit quietly. Therefore, one of the essence of the practice is quietness, meaning we will sit for a long time and be calm. If we sit for a long time, we will be fixed. If we are physically active for a long time, we will feel tired.

Therefore if we practice Jingzuo for hours, we should exercise our muscles and bones by doing the Mustang Shenzhan Technique to relax our physical body, combining stillness with soft activities. This is merely for your reference. Use your judgment in your particular situations.

As far as the Jingzuo sitting posture is concerned, most people will choose the double cross-legged posture. A practitioner will go into calmness faster, and control his mind more efficiently. With a single cross-legged posture, it is easier for the practitioner to scatter his spirit and attention. However, it is more difficult for a beginner to start with a double cross-legged posture. It is an option for a practitioner to think about.

04 Meditate for fitness and master the time in moderation

As practitioners of Life Cultivation, we mostly practice Jingzuo for fitness. We practice Jingzuo to simply adjust any physical discomfort and keep the mental state in good condition. In order for us to quickly experience the effects of Jingzuo during practice and to prevent confusion after a period of practice, there are a few considerations for grasping the time of meditation.

Twenty minutes in Jingzhou is a threshold. It may be difficult for beginners, but twenty minutes of Jingzuo will not guarantee maximum relaxation, or leading into tranquility. It usually takes half an hour or even an hour to get into a relaxed and happy state. Yes, being able to relax and feel happy does require exercise, but it’s not that difficult.

Soreness, numbness, swelling and pain are less likely to appear within the first twenty minutes. It is often more likely to appear after half an hour. It can be said that after twenty minutes of deep adjustment of the body, the better the relaxation state will be. The double cross-legged posture will also easily fall apart within the first twenty minutes.

Therefore, beginners should do Jingzuo again and again to overcome the twenty-minute threshold. To make life easy, they should first pursue the state of relaxation without regard to the state of tranquility. They should experience twenty-minutes of relaxation, then sit down and do some exercise, and then do Jingzuo for another twenty minutes.

Persistence is more important than the pursuit of longer time per session. It is not easy to deeply relax, let alone into stillness. It is really like sailing against the current. If we don’t advance we will retreat. Even maintaining the double cross-legged posture may become strenuous soon.

With the improvement of our ability to practice Jingzuo, we must not forget to sit down and do some stretching exercises. This will also take a certain amount of time. The longer we sit in the process of learning and practicing Jingzuo, the more careful we should be to exercise moderately after sitting down.

No matter how long it takes you to be well versed in the Jingzuo practice, it is good to experience it. Do it right and do not rush yourself. Sooner or later you will experience the fun of Jingzuo practice while moving forward. At this time, it is easy for you to fall in love with the Jingzuo practice. Don’t be too obsessed with it. Just be healthy.

05 Jingzuo practice is helpful for our health

As practitioners of Life Cultivation, we believe that the Jingzuo practice is helpful to our health. Why?

We believe that it has something to do with the posture of the Jingzuo practice. With the particular sitting posture, we are binding our lower limbs, forcing vital-energy and blood to flow towards the upper body. The vital-energy and blood in the upper body is now under higher pressure than the daily state.

Moreover, the energy consumption of human thinking and consciousness is also a part that cannot be underestimated. During the Jingzuo practice, we try to control distracting thoughts and reduce energy consumption as much as possible, so that vital-energy and blood will run in a relatively relaxed state without resistance. Coupled with the relatively high pressure on the upper body, it leads to a stronger body.

As practitioners of the Jingzuo Technique, we offer a few observations of our physical and mental feelings.

Meditation is very helpful for physical health. Some of us experienced a cold coming, and the nose is blocked. The practice of Jingzuo can quickly clear the nose.

The practice of the Jingzuo Technique can help us to cut down our daily troubles and play a role in calming our nerves. We all know that relaxation is our goal in the Jingzuo practice, and it is also our first threshold for the practice.

Moreover, the Jingzuo practice requires deep relaxation. The more complete the relaxation, the better. Then we will feel that every part of our body including every pore is in a state of complete relaxation. This is incomparable to dynamic fitness.

When our relaxed state enters a stable state, we will have a feeling of joy. The corners of our mouth naturally rise and our chin is slightly lowered. This emergence of a natural body state is not controlled by human consciousness. Some refer to it as the emergence of joy.

Once we sit down and do our Jingzuo practice, we enter into a state of relaxation and we can feel the body’s metabolic adjustment being strengthened. We will feel our upper body becoming warm. We may experience hiccups, local soreness and numbness, etc. Of course, with the deepening of the Jingzuo practice, many phenomena will disappear.

Our masters believe that this is the process of unblocking the meridians. When the meridians are unblocked, the phenomenon of soreness, numbness, and swelling will disappear. Some people may also feel small local soreness, numbness, and swelling during the Jingzuo practice. They may disappear after a while, or they may last a longer period of time. It varies from person to person.

When we go into the Jingzuo practice more deeply, we will have a very refreshing feeling of our mental state. We will be more active in our thinking, and the ability to focus on thinking will improve. Simply put, Jingzuo practice can improve our power of concentration.

Call to Action

Folks, that is all for now. If you think this article may be beneficial to your friends and loved-ones, feel free to forward this article to them. Life cultivation is mostly for older people with declining body health. If you are young and energetic, this may not be your cup of tea. However, if you have family members or friends who are middle-aged or older, they may want to practice life cultivation to maintain a life without pain or medication.

This is an extract of the full treatise published in the Mustang BodyWorks Series, a paid-subscription. You may buy this full treatise for the price of US$5.00-20.00, using your PayPal account.

Stay tuned for the next episode: Fundamental Jingzuo Technique Part Four.

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