Fasting of the Mind — Xin Zhai
Confucius, in Zhuangzi's telling, describes a discipline of listening with steadily less of the self involved, ending in an emptiness that can actually perceive the Tao.
Yan Hui, preparing to advise a violent ruler, asks Confucius how to prepare himself, and is told to fast — not a fast from food, Confucius clarifies, but the fasting of the mind. The method unfolds in three steps: unify your attention; don't listen with your ears but with your mind; then don't listen with your mind but with your qi, vital breath, because the ears only take in sound, and the mind only matches what it hears against what it already expects, while qi is empty and waits on all things. Confucius adds the chapter's key line: the Tao gathers in emptiness alone, emptiness is the fasting of the mind — presenting receptive emptiness, not effortful concentration, as the condition under which the Tao can be perceived or acted from. Xinzhai and zuowang (ch. 6) are often read as companion practices, one describing engagement with the world through undefended attention, the other a withdrawal from it into stillness — both notably placed in the mouth of Confucius rather than a Taoist figure.
The Tao gathers in emptiness alone.
Zhuangzi