Confucianism - Confucian Meditation And Family Integration

The Confucian transformation model (Chung 1992a, 2001) starts with individual meditation; goes through personal enhancement, self-discipline, personality integrity, family integration, and state governance; and reaches the excellence of universal commonwealth. Individual meditation starts with learning to rest the energy (chu chu), in order to be stabilized (ting), be still and calm (ching), reach peace (an), and be mindful (li). A mindful energy is ready to learn the truth and reveal the virtue (te) (Confucius 1971; Liu, K. 1985). An example of Confucian meditative qigong is sitting still to free the ego and get in touch with the real self. It aims to internalize and calm the energy (qi) to calm the mind, body, and spirit. It aims to reach a peaceful state so that the practitioner becomes a thoughtful person towards the self and others. It is a process of mind, body, and spiritual training with the aim of regaining control of the self/mind and preparing for further training and development for Tien jen unification (micro and macro self-unification).

Confucians called this meditation Chou Won. Chou means sit. Won means to forget (the self). It is a process of synthesizing with Tao by "letting go and allowing God to work," similar to Christian concepts. It is an essential means of detaching the ego and reaching mental freedom. It is important because it teaches self-awareness, self-enhancement, self-discipline, and self-actualization, as well as how to find the truth and create social change. This is a cornerstone of Confucian transformation technology.

These mental processes aim to revitalize the internal virtue (te—moral consciousness through mindfulness or Tao's image) that leads to the insight of real self and awareness of universal energy interconnection. This meditation is training the individual to become a highly self-disciplined sage who integrates various social developmental strategies for large-scale social applications. This simple meditation method aims to integrate mind, body, and spirit for holistic healing with three main functional goals: disease prevention, healing, and human capacity development. Historically, it serves as an empowerment tool for the Confucians and their family members by teaching them stress management, personal enhancement, family integration, and career development.