As we learn from Lao Tzu “He who treasures his body as much as the world can care for

the world. He who loves his body as much as the world can be entrusted with the world.”

Self-maintenance in Taoism

means respecting your body. The human body is said to have its own energy pattern, which is known as

Zang-Fu. The Zang-Fu model has particular organs that correspond to the Five Elements - Wood, Fire,

Earth, Metal and Water. The organs have Yin and Yang properties assigned, which, if not balanced,

will result in particular illnesses. To keep the Yin and Yang energies in balance,

Taoism recommends the practice of Wu-Wei, which means doing “action through non-action”,

in other words, to be in a “flow state”, to do things effortlessly. By practicing Wu-Wei,

we can reach a state of complete spontaneity and happiness, the state of “Ziran”.

In Taoism, you are happy when you are able to follow the spontaneous course of things and, to

achieve the state of happiness, you have to know how to balance the Yin-Yang energies in your body.

Sometimes our body has too much Yin, sometimes too much Yang. Yin regulates the parasympathetic

nervous system - rest and digest state, Yang the sympathetic nervous system - “flight or fight”

state, which is most typically activated by danger. If we have too much Yin, we become

demotivated, lazy, we miss out on the joy which new adventures can bring. On the other hand,

if we have too much Yang, we become over-stressed, we don’t relax enough, we don’t recuperate enough,

and this can be extremely damaging to our health. We need to make sure that we balance the Yin and

Yang in our bodies. Each of our organs has to be in balance. For example, our brain:

scientists proved that our brain functions best when it has medium levels of stress or, in other

words, when Yin and Yang are at an equilibrium. We need both rest and stimulation in our lives.

Taoism glorifies the human body, comparing it sometimes with a country, the spirit being the

king and the other viscera being the officials. As a country must be administered and led very well,

so too the body. Before somebody tries to take leadership of anything in this world,

they have to first be able to take leadership of their own body and they

have to be able to administer it with excellence. To implement the taoist wisdom of the body in our

lives, we need to apply practices like meditation, qigong, and mindfulness. This will help us to slow

down in our fast paced modern world. This way we can learn to respect our body more,

taking care of it in a more serious way. To balance the Yin and Yang energies,

we need to organize our schedule in such a way that we alternate intense periods

of activity – your Yang with relaxing periods of your Yin. We need to sleep enough, to eat and have

a satisfying sexual relationship, but we also need to put ourselves out of our comfort zone,

by doing intense mental work at our job or by performing intense physical activity or by

facing the inconvenience of speaking in public for example. There is a great link between our body

and our mental state and spirit. To take care of our body means to know how to balance our energy,

our Yin and Yang and this balance leads to Ziran, a state of naturalness and happiness.