How does one practicing Ding Meditation?

[TheExaltedRonin]

Ding means focus.

 

Any who I have never heard of this. Is it as simple as it sounds? Pure concentration on one thing?

[子泰]

pretty much ese

Edited March 14, 2014 by dazed

[ChiDragon]

Ding meditation is 禪定(Zen Ding), a Buddhist term same as Da Zuo(打坐).

[ChiDragon]

No Buddhist want to response to this....???

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Ding actually means to stabilize, to fix in place, to settle down. Guan means observation.

 

With Ding and Guan, it is the mind which is settled and observed.

 

This meditation goes back to the Nei Ye, from the 4th century BCE.

 

Nei Ye (excerpt, trans. Roth)

 

Eleven
When your body is not aligned,
The inner power will not come.
When you are not tranquil within,
Your mind will not be ordered.
Align your body, assist the inner power,
Then it will gradually come on its own.

Twelve
The numinous [mind]: no one knows its limit;
It intuitively knows the myriad things.
Hold it within you, do not let it waver.
To not disrupt your senses with external things,
To not disrupt your mind with your senses:
This is called "grasping it within you."

Thirteen
There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within;
One moment it goes, the next it comes,
And no one is able to conceive of it.
If you loose it you are inevitably disordered;
If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered.
Diligently clean out its lodging place
And its vital essence will naturally arrive.
Still your attempts to imagine and conceive of it.
Relax your efforts to reflect on and control it.
Be reverent and diligent
And its vital essence will naturally stabilize.
Grasp it and don't let go
Then the eyes and ears won't overflow
And the mind will have nothing else to seek.
When a properly aligned mind resides within you,
The myriad things will be seen in their proper perspective.

 

 

As with Samadhi and Vipisanna, Ding is needed first.

 

The Ding Guan Jing, "Scripture on Stabilization and Observation," echoes the words from the Diamond Sutra which awakened Hui Neng:

 

"Just extinguish the stirring mind, don't annihilate the shining mind. Just stabilize the open mind, don't solidify the dwelling mind."

 

 

 

 

 

edit: Ding Guan Jing is a Taoist text from early 8th century CE.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness