Sitting in Oblivion

“Sitting in Oblivion” is the translation of the Chinese word zuowang 坐忘 . It denotes a state of deep meditative absorption and mystical oneness, during which all sensory and conscious faculties are overcome.

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The final state is one of submersion and complete unknowing… The personality is entirely unbound by physical limitations, by emotional engagements, intellectual divisions, and arguments of reason. Any conscious ego identity that was there before is lost, and it is hard to determine at what point exactly the individual ends and the Dao begins. All is in continuous flux, moving along smoothly with the changes of the greater universe.

Coming out of enstatic immersion and the complete cessation of all physical, sensory, and mental functions, adepts at this stage fully attain the Dao and transcend all in open pervasion. They undergo an increase in movement, openness, joy, light, even ecstasy… 

The imagery at this level is ecstatic and shamanistic: flight into higher realms, experience of altered states of consciousness, freedom from worldly limitations. Attaining Dao means getting lighter and brighter; the higher one ascends, the purer the spirit becomes, the more light one will radiate. The worldview that underlies this model is one of “becoming:” the universe is in a constant flux, and nothing stands ever still or stops for a moment. Time is conceived as cyclical, eternity can only take place in an eternal return. By reaching this, the Daoist has become one with the Dao in both of its key aspects, as the quiescent, underlying power of all and as the creative power of the world, continuously moving and forever transforming.

Sitting in Oblivion
Livia Kohn