Conserving one’s inner energy is the essence of Taoism.

Conserving one’s inner energy is the essence of Taoism. You need to nourish your vital spirit. You do that through silence.
- From an interview of a hermit nun in the Zhongnan mountains of China by Bill Porter, in the video Hermits on YouTube.

Bill Porter's documentary captures the living tradition of Taoist hermits who have retreated to the Zhongnan mountains for over a thousand years. Their practice of conserving inner energy through silence and solitude echoes the teachings of Lao Tzu and the ancient Taoist masters—a path of withdrawal not as escape, but as cultivation of vital spirit.  This is the teaching at the heart of the Tao Te Ching — that stillness is not emptiness, but the condition in which the vital spirit gathers and deepens. The Tao Te Ching returns to this theme again and again: stillness as the root from which all action arises, silence as the ground of knowing.