Treatise on Sitting in Oblivion坐忘论

Author / transmission

Sima Chengzhen

Period

Tang · Composed by Sima Chengzhen (647–735), around the Kaiyuan era; a separate stone-inscribed text from Mount Song exists, differing in wording from the Daozang text, and some scholars suspect the stone-inscribed version was the work of Zhao Jian.

Canon division

Taixuan Section

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Taixuan Section; also included in scroll 94 of the Yunji Qiqian

Category

Daoist Philosophy

Fascicles

In one scroll, seven chapters (with an appended Shuyi, 枢翼).

Synopsis

The Treatise on Sitting in Oblivion (Zuowang lun) is the celebrated work of the Tang Shangqing patriarch Sima Chengzhen on the stages of cultivating the Dao, centered on the concept of "sitting in oblivion" (zuowang) from the Zhuangzi. It sets out seven progressive stages — reverent faith, severing entanglements, gathering in the mind, simplifying affairs, true contemplation, great stability, and attaining the Dao — teaching that the cultivator should gather in the mind and withdraw from external objects, dwelling in a state of having nothing, proceeding from "settling the mind" to "stability" (ding) and from stability to "wisdom" (hui), and ultimately attaining the Dao through the "union of form and spirit." Lines from the text such as "the mind is the ruler of the whole body, commander of the hundred spirits" and "at the outset of studying the Dao, one must sit at ease, gathering in the mind and withdrawing from external objects" have been frequently quoted by later cultivators. Its method fuses the Zhuangzi's "fasting of the mind" with Buddhist calming-and-insight meditation (zhiguan) and Shangqing visualization, but places greater weight on the cultivation of mind and nature, marking the Tang-dynasty shift in Daoist cultivation from external alchemy and visualization toward the cultivation of mind and nature, and exerting great influence on the "nature cultivation" (xinggong) of Song–Yuan internal alchemy and the theory of quiet cultivation in Quanzhen Daoism. Sima Chengzhen's other works, the Tianyinzi and the Treatise on the Essential Meaning of Ingesting Qi, likewise belong to his system of cultivation.

Key Ideas

• Seven stages: reverent faith, severing entanglements, gathering in the mind, simplifying affairs, true contemplation, great stability, and attaining the Dao
• Gathering in the mind and withdrawing from external objects, dwelling in having nothing
• The mind as ruler of the body and commander of the hundred spirits
• Dual cultivation of stability and wisdom, union of form and spirit

Structure

Seven chapters plus one additional chapter, the "Pivotal Wings" (Shuyi).

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Yunji Qiqian edition
• Stone-inscribed edition from Mount Song and Mount Wangwu (Yuan-dynasty carving)

Translations

• Livia Kohn, Seven Steps to the Tao: Sima Chengzhen's Zuowanglun (1987)
• Livia Kohn, Sitting in Oblivion (2010)

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT: Zuowang Lun
• Wikipedia: Zuowang Lun

Related scriptures

Related figures