The difference between trance and meditation

What is the difference between trance and meditation? This is a distinction my Taoist teacher Liu Ming really emphasized. I believe he felt it was a very important distinction in historical Taoism. He considered meditations that cultivate states such as samadhi, trance inducing meditations. They serve a purpose, but my impression was that Ming felt they had more shamanic value, for navigating bardos, healing, divinations, etc. Whereas the intention of zuowang is to just be with the starkness of ordinary reality. As it is. And “as it is” is what the ego, or whatever you would call it, the grasping for separateness, would do anything to avoid. Because reality is a disaster for the idea of separateness. This is why eyes are kept open (very difficult for me) and there is no object of meditation. Choiceless awareness. Without slipping out into trance, which can also be supremely challenging for me. From this perspective, trances can be one of the most highly sophisticated forms of reality avoidance.

Then of course there is the face that “movement always implies stillness, and that stillness always implies movement.” In an “absolute” sense, Stillness isn’t a posture we can assume. It just is (– or maybe more accurately, it is not — since it is no-thing, but anyway) … A big part of the struggle of our practice is trying to align ourselves with this ineffable Stillness. The paradox being the fact that trying is also a form of movement. In this way it seems naively literal to assume that trying force the body to be still will somehow align us with this profound mystery of capital S - Stillness. But then I must admit — as naive as this does seem, there does appear to be a relationship between engaging in regular stillness meditation and the arising of a deepening resonance with Stillness. Wether this apparent arising of “more stillness” is itself another illusion and/or whether this relationship of stillness meditation to Stillness is causal … well these are koans. It’s too much to grasp. Which is good. My mind is stopped in it’s tracks. Humbled. Ultimately this is where I agree with the Christians when they say it is through an utterly mysterious grace that God descends. Slashing through the ego’s plots to storm the Tao through this or that method — generating a kind of dumbfounded humility in her wake. Enlightenment is a giant failure.