Standing Like A Pillar - A Basic Standing Chinese Meditation

The Chinese definitely have some masters of stillness. I first heard about "standing still" from a book called "The Way of Energy" which talks about "Zhan Zhang." You can Google Zhan Zhang for more information. More recently a discussion of "standing still" appeared in a small paperback book on training for Chinese grappling. I thought it was interesting that this somewhat esoteric practice should appear in a book on a very exoteric and physical art like wrestling.

When I used to practice kung fu (choi li fut), after my warmup exercises I would often practice "standing still" in one of the postures from the Way of Energy for several minutes, and was surprised how deeply affecting the stillness coupled with the postures could be. I never experienced the same depth of stillness or transformed awareness in sitting meditation. If I did several rounds of standing, I pretty much "blew out my mind" for the rest of the afternoon and felt quite different all day; on those days I never got around to practicing the actual choi li fut forms. Sometimes the Zhan Zhang would leave me stupefied, not mentally, but craving sleep, like a deep physical exhaustion although all I'd done was stand still. If I went home and slept, my sleep would be a little strange - on the border of a projection experience.

It is hard to explain, but I highly recommend exploration of Zhan Zhang. No equipment is needed, the postures are all "still" so there are no complicated moves to make (or to try to figure out from confusing diagrams).