What “nourishing of life” is ?
Nourishing of life (another variant – “science of vitality cultivation” or, in Chinese, “Yang Sheng Xue” (养生学) – is an ancient Daoist teaching about improvement of a human being. Herewith, it is improvement in all the aspects: corporal, psychoemotional and spiritual.
Body improvement
This level implies, first of all, methods of body improvement and strengthening. The simplest and, meantime, deep practices allow to:
- radically correct health;
- enhance immunity;
- get rid of a chronic fatigue, raise life tonus and vigor.
Advanced level of mastership makes a human body immune to any unfavorable factors of the nearby environment, allows to cure difficult ailments, and to help other people.
Beyond that, Daoist practices of bodywork assist also to achieve external perfection, namely:
- to dispose of deep body clips;
- to sanitize spine and correct body posture;
- to renew joint mobility;
- to make body flexible and strong.
Improvement on psychoemotional level
A large role in Daoism practice is devoted to methods of section Xing Gong (“cultivation of Inner Nature”).
These methods in particular give one an opportunity to balance own psychoemotional condition and to reach pure inner harmony.
Practice allows one to dissolve internal obscurations (fears, complexes, feelings of diffidence and dissatisfaction), dispose of fretful temper, melancholy, depression and other imperfections. Instead of them Inner Nature of a person begins to appear. It appears in the form of openness, naturalness, and charity; and person starts to enjoy one’s life and its every moment spent.
Spiritual improvement
Spiritual development is the top and purpose of all the practice of self-improvement. It is not reading of intelligent books on history and philosophy, not going into religion, however, these methods can also bring certain contribution.
A full value spiritual development is fulfilled by virtue of internal cultivation only, and means liberation of one’s consciousness in order to perceive the world in the way it really is, and not in the way we see it through the prism of informational litter accumulated in our heads. As the practice advances, attainment of the true nature of things begins, through which a person obtains Wisdom that is expressed in a full understanding of oneself, neighborhood and, with time, all the Universe. This is what is known as an Enlightenment.
