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• 1 2019-01-13T18:13:23+00:00 Breathing the Daoist Way 1 plain 2019-01-13T18:13:23+00:00 Ancient Chinese stone veneration may be understood in relation a Daoist philosophy that dates to around the 4th or 3rd century BCE. The Daoist cosmos is composed of qi, a word for energy can connote “Vital Energy, Atmospheric Conditions, Breath, Air, Life Force” (Ziporyn, 215). The Dao translates as ‘the way’ but it also means all things (past, present, future) in their state of constant transformation. The Daoist text Zhuangzi stipulates that “The birth of man is just a convergence of energy. When it converges, he lives. When it scatters, he dies. Since life and death follow each other, what is there to worry about? In this way all things are one” (Zipcoryn 86).  Echoing the language cited above of the rising and falling of mountains (and all things) as “the respiration of the world,” Parkes writes, “Since breathing is a process that distinguishes the living from the dead, it was natural to think of the breath as a special manifestation of the energy that animates the cosmos, with an active (yang) phase corresponding to inhalation and a passive (yin) phase corresponding to exhalation” (Parkes, 79).