Daoist schools of meditation put this peace squarely within your reach because they are born from non-sectarian and non-dual ways of thinking.
Below are three, easy to remember principles utilized by Daoist Meditation, which you can apply to any practice of inner peace!
Daoist practices understand the connection between our bodies and minds, this is why practices like Qigong, or "Daoist Yoga" are so often emphasized. It is felt that if you can manage the life force through posture and breathing, you can balance the body for greater health, and the mind for greater peace.
Each of these three is said to impact the others. Our thoughts affect our physical vitality, our breathing affects our emotions, and our posture will affect our breath.
In the video attached above, the Daoist practice of the "Inner Smile" combines these elements: the "posture" is smiling with your face, the "breath" or "vital energy" is cultivating a felt sense of calm and gratitude, and the "mind" is imagining this peace flooding through your entire being.
When you put them all together, you get the most profound effects!
Daoist meditation is kind. It's kind in that it doesn't (usually) recommend doing forceful practices with a "no pain, no gain" type of attitude. Classical Daoism is actually against "gain" as a principle, with one of the famous slogans being "invest in loss"!
Here, what we have to "lose" are our stresses. So to practice Daoist meditation, don't force yourself into a rigid seat or stance. Don't fixate your mind on a single object with great effort.
Instead,
Naturalness is an important Daoist concept in that the inevitable result of practice is said to be a "return to nature". They call the state we experience our "Nature" or our "Original Nature" because it is felt that our stress, unhappiness, and sense of separation are contrived things - add-ons that we can function perfectly without.
When we practice Daoist meditation, we can feel safe to relax and let go into our Original Nature and understand that dropping the unnecessary stressors always feels like a homecoming!
That's why there are so many varied and detailed traditions of practice!
While there's nothing wrong with us - and Daoists feel we're never really separate from Nature (the Dao) - we seem to find all kinds of ways to wind ourselves up and make ourselves feel separate, tense, and lonely!
There's a unique qigong or meditation out there for every individual person, all it takes is to jump in and start experimenting. At the most minimal, if you the three principles above and that Daoist Inner Smile you're already on your way to greater ease and vitality!
