We are all aware that there are thousands of different kinds of meditation, from stillness to movement.
But first, let’s try to define the qualities involved in the practice of meditation. What do we really mean when we say, let’s meditate? This is not an easy question to answer given everyone’s individual experience. A simple definition may be that meditation involves our ability to observe our thoughts, our bodily sensations, and/or our feelings within the present moment without allowing any judgment.
Here are just a few of the various types of meditation we may already be familiar with:
- Pausing or ‘micro meditation’: a moment of pause in thought or action for reflection.
- Body scanning: traveling up and down the body to help identify any areas of tension
- Muscular or soft tissue relaxation: this usually follows #2 with active/passive release
- Breath regulation: deep diaphragmatic breathing or other patterns of breath release
- Heart, love and kindness meditation: calling on our feelings of love towards others
- Prayer: religious or non-religious
- Shamanic journey: sending our consciousness into the spirit/outer realm for guidance
- The meditation practices of the Chinese Arts (as in Tai Chi)
Let’s now focus on a couple of the commonly practiced forms of meditation in the Chinese Arts.
One rather interesting form of Taoist meditation is that of the Inner Smile. It is considered an important preparatory form of meditation for other deeper practices. The Inner Smile is believed to cleanse and dissolve any Qi blockages within our physical, emotional and psychological bodies. During this practice, one gathers and directs smiling energy towards our various organs (heart, lungs, liver, stomach, pancreas, kidneys, spleen, intestines, bladder, spine, brain). Starting by softening our gaze and relaxing our face, we are asked to smile warmly along each organ’s pathway, thanking them, one by one, for the hard inner work they are doing to help keep us healthy.
As the practice of the Inner Smile cultivates positive Qi, once completed, we are asked to collect and store this energy into our lower Dantien (2 inches below the navel and 2 inches inwardly) to help sustain our life force.
A second, perhaps more common, form of Taoist meditation is called Zhan Zhuang or “Standing like a Tree”. It is one performed quite often within our daily Tai Chi practice. This form is considered a powerful internal meditation that cultivates both mind and body by maintaining a standing posture in stillness with our arms held up before us in a half circle, embodying the structure of a tree. From a physical perspective, this posture helps us to align and rewire our overall posture, root our structure, loosen our soft tissues, open our joints, develop integrated strength and improve our body awareness in the process.
Here are some of the important postural elements of the Zhan Zhuang meditation:
- Toes pointed forward with feet aligned
- Rooted feeling into both feet with equal weight in each
- Weight across soles of feet evenly distributed, although slightly greater into the heels
- Feet placed as wide as the shoulders or hips
- Tailbone is maintained in the center between both feet
- Knees are softly bent
- Pelvis and tailbone are dropped with hips open and relaxed
- Shoulders and shoulder blades are dropped, open and relaxed, elbows pointing down
- Abdomen (belly) is relaxed and soft
- Head is raised with chin tucked in (not forced). Gaze is soft. Breathing is relaxed
- Body is kept upright throughout the mediation, with the intention set to lengthen the spine between the tailbone and the top of the head.
- Duration of meditation should be short and progress as per individual tolerance
What does today’s science tell us about the hidden health benefits of these ancient arts?
There is substantial ongoing research into the incredible health benefits of meditation, both anatomically and physiologically. These range from changes in the brain, heart, nervous and immune systems.
The Buddhist and Taoist meditations are considered by scientists to fall under the category of FAM (focused attention meditation). This simply refers to types of meditation that are based on the establishment, monitoring and maintenance of our attention on a chosen sensory object, be it visual (looking at an object) or using other senses (such as auditory/breathing/body). And because science has new and more precise methods of measurement available for exploration, real live changes can be measured during FAM to help identify the health benefits involved.
In terms of brain changes, neuroimaging has revealed two important findings. An area of the brain (striatum) responsible for making dopamine (our pleasure/reward hormone), is not only active during meditation, but a higher baseline dopamine level was found to be present with consistent meditation practice. Another area of the brain (ACC or anterior cingulate cortex) also had higher densities in its grey and white matter. This specific area of the brain controls our learning, focus and attention. Both these findings translate into behavioural changes as measured in the meditators’ ability to learn tasks in a more positively biased manner compared to control groups. An improved ability to ‘rebalance’ in stressful situations was also noted. These study findings were obtained in individuals who had meditated for as little as 30 minutes or more per week over a four-year period and were compared to non-meditator control groups.
Moving to the heart, recent findings (2025) are impressive. Tai Chi meditation (either in stillness or in motion) has been shown to improve heart rate variability (HRV) over non active control groups. Low HRV refers to a concerning imbalance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system response. However, since meditation and the practice of Tai Chi continually engage our vagus nerve (parasympathetic system), the HRV rises, meaning our response is more balanced and we are better able to adapt to life stressors over time. Specific physiological changes on our heart health included a lowering of blood pressure, improvement in blood cholesterol levels and a lowered risk of sudden cardiac death.
Finally, there are also significant physiological changes that have been studied. In a recent review of the literature (2022), meditation and mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) such as Tai Chi and others have been shown to offer significant benefits in reducing the detrimental effects of inflammation, compromised immunity and age-related decline. Evidence of this has been demonstrated in the context of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders as well as anxiety and depression. How is this possible? Some of these findings are discussed in detail in a previous blog on cellular renewal and healthy aging in Tai Chi.
In the end, it is not surprising that the ancient practices of meditation and Tai Chi have endured for centuries with great reverence and belief. They have been adopted by many to help improve health and reduce suffering, a cherished gift from Master Moy that we are endlessly grateful for.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1361002
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12788880
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735822000095
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Translation by Jordi Awarita, Cathy Filion