《古书隐楼藏书》Vol. 6

Things born from the union of man and woman and from essence and blood possess both Qi and physical form, so they exist or vanish with the body’s birth and death. Pre-heaven Yin-Yang, by contrast, arises from the Dharmā body (the body of inner-nature cultivated in Neidan), condensed from a single breath in emptiness; it is Qi alone, without material form, and therefore can endure as long as heaven and earth. That is the basic difference between pre-heaven and post-heaven.

Although pre-heaven Yin-Yang originates in the pre-heaven realm, once a person has a physical body it is concealed within the post-heaven order and is thus assigned to the trigrams Kan and Li. In Kan, yin is outside and yang inside: the outer yin is post-heaven yin, the inner yang is pre-heaven yang. In Li, yang is outside and yin inside: the outer yang is post-heaven yang, the inner yin is pre-heaven yin. Here is another layer of pre-heaven versus post-heaven distinction.

Post-heaven Yin-Yang moves only within the one body, following natural creation. At the zi period (roughly eleven p.m. to one a.m.), one yang is born and yang Qi rises from the kidneys; by day it drives the blood and vessels. At the wu period (roughly eleven a.m. to one p.m.), one yin is born and yin Qi descends from the heart; by night it again circulates the blood and vessels. Yin and yang take turns in an unending day-and-night cycle. After pre-heaven is buried and post-heaven holds sway, excessive thought injures Shen, lust and indulgence drain Jing; spirit and energy decay, Qi quietly wastes away, and when Qi is spent, one dies.

Pre-heaven Yin-Yang operates in the void and runs counter to ordinary natural creation. When the “living zi hour” arrives—the inner moment in practice when yang returns, not a fixed clock time—one yang in Kan is restored and one advances the yang fire (using intent to lead yang upward) to generate and grow. When the living wu hour comes and one yin in Li unites, one withdraws the yin tally (the phase of gathering and descent) to warm and nourish the Dharmā body. When the Dharmā body is complete, Qi full as in a ten-month pregnancy, the sacred fetus (the formed inner elixir) is born and one may attain immortality. Again, this is pre-heaven set against post-heaven.

If even the post-heaven Yin-Yang of one’s own body cannot complete dual cultivation of nature and life (the full realization of inner nature and vital life in practice), what need be said of the guilt of those who treat men and women as yin and yang and pursue deviant arts? Students who truly clarify pre-heaven and post-heaven Yin-Yang should promptly seek confirmation from an authentic master if they hope to succeed. Those who fail to tell true from false yin-yang yet dream of “stealing” creation with a line or two and leaping from the mundane to sagehood—where is the sense in that? Should students not weigh the matter carefully?

This discrimination is extremely concise and essential; students of the Way may take it as their standard, and in advancing in practice they will have a clear path. If one can infer from it and earnestly put it into practice, the benefit is great. This is unlike heterodox side paths, which misread “drawing near” and “drawing far” (taking from what is near—the self—and what is far—external things) and still stand on what has form and image. Wuyuanzi (Liu Yiming) said that the profound cannot be fully conveyed in a phrase or two—he meant precisely the great mysterious efficacy here. If one can truly stand on what is before the innate—before yin and yang have separated—then naturally one aligns everywhere. My late master Master Taixu said: Cultivate until there is no self, and one sees that the three powers (Heaven, Earth, and humanity) are originally one thing, yet each also divides into three; this is forgetting form and self and melting into one. Ancient supreme beings could take the three powers as the Dharmakaya (the true body of cultivation), take being and non-being as yin and yang, and take True One as Wuji (the Limitless); being and non-being could not move them, nor could movement and stillness stop them—clear and still, always thus; this “I” is the Heart of Heaven. Ancient supreme beings reached this; students who emulate them, going from provisional to constant and from effort to ease—is that not subtle? My master’s subtle teaching is just this. It can fill in what Wuyuanzi’s exposition did not say, so it is recorded here as corroboration.

Inner and Outer Five Phases

When the Five Phases gather, the golden elixir (Neidan—the elixir of inner cultivation) is complete; when the golden elixir is depleted, the Five Phases scatter. That is inevitable. Yet yin and yang are twofold, so the Five Phases are not a single set. Why? Because there is an inner Five Phases.

When the Five Phases (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth) gather together, the Golden Elixir—the refined essence formed through Neidan (internal alchemy) cultivation—can be fully realized; once the Golden Elixir suffers any loss, the Five Phases scatter. That is an inevitable principle. Yet Yin and Yang inherently have two poles, so the Five Phases are never a single fixed thing. Why? Because there are inner and outer Five Phases, and also the inner and outer Five Phases of Heaven and the inner and outer Five Phases of Earth. Heaven’s Five Phases are movement; Earth’s Five Phases are Qi (vital energy). Heaven’s Five Phases are the ten heavenly stems—Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui—symbols that mark the turning of celestial time. Earth’s Five Phases are the twelve earthly branches—Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai—symbols that mark direction and the hours. Jia, Bing, Geng, Ren, and Wu belong to Yang and count as outer; Yi, Ding, Xin, Gui, and Ji belong to Yin and count as inner. Yin, Shen, Si, Hai, Chen, and Xu belong to Yang and count as outer; Zi, Wu, Mao, You, Chou, and Wei belong to Yin and count as inner.

Originally the Five Phases were one—how did they become four kinds? Only because the Five Phases arise from the two breaths of Yin and Yang. Establishing the Way of Heaven is called Yin and Yang; establishing the Way of Earth is called yielding and firm. Heaven’s Five Phases are transformed by Heaven’s Yin and Yang: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth each carry Yin and Yang breaths—Jia, Bing, Geng, Ren, and Wu hold Yang breath, while Yi, Ding, Xin, Gui, and Ji hold Yin breath; this is Heaven’s Yin-Yang Five Phases. Earth’s Five Phases are transformed by Earth’s yielding and firm: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth likewise each carry yielding and firm breath—Yin, Shen, Si, Hai, Chen, and Xu hold firm breath, while Zi, Wu, Mao, You, Chou, and Wei hold yielding breath; this is Earth’s Yin-Yang Five Phases.

Heaven’s Five Phases take movement as primary, yet within movement there is stillness; the stillness within movement is Yi, Ding, Xin, Gui, and Ji. Earth’s Five Phases take stillness as primary, yet within stillness there is movement; the movement within stillness is Yin, Shen, Si, Hai, Chen, and Xu. Regarding Heaven and Earth as a whole, Heaven’s Five Phases belong to the outer, and Earth’s Five Phases to the inner. When each realm’s own form is considered separately, among Heaven’s stems Jia, Bing, Geng, Ren, and Wu are outer, and Yi, Ding, Xin, Gui, and Ji are inner.

Among the Earthly Branches, Yin, Shen, Si, Hai, Chen, and Xu count as outer, while Zi, Wu, Mao, You, Chou, and Wei count as inner. That is the inner–outer and yin–yang pattern behind the “Four Five Phases.” The human body works the same way: it has both Heavenly-Stem Five Phases and Earthly-Branch Five Phases.

Heavenly-Stem Five Phases: foundational nature (Yuan Xing), foundational emotion (Yuan Qing), foundational spirit (Yuan Shen), foundational essence (Yuan Jing), and foundational qi (Yuan Qi) are yin; benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness (Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi, Xin) are yang. Earthly-Branch Five Phases: the wandering hun, the ghostly po, the discriminating shen, turbid essence, and deluded intent are yin; joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, and desire are yang.

As for the yang viscera—heart, liver, spleen (the source text mistakenly writes a homophone for “spleen”), lung, and kidney—and the yin bowels—stomach, gallbladder, triple burner, bladder, large intestine, and small intestine—these are all acquired, visible, tangible turbid forms. They do not belong to these Four Five Phases.

Confining the discussion to those four phases: when the Dharma Body (the body of innate spiritual nature) and the illusory body (the body of acquired form) are taken together, the Heavenly-Stem Five Phases are used to transform and circulate the Earthly-Branch Five Phases. When they are taken apart, the Dharma Body completes nature, emotion, essence, spirit, and qi through Ren, Yi, Li, Zhi, and Xin; the illusory body gathers and holds joy, anger, sorrow, pleasure, and desire through essence, spirit, hun, po, and intent. All of this is how the inner and outer Five Phases of Heaven, Earth, and humanity are distinguished.

The Five Phases both generate and overcome one another: metal generates water, water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal; and metal overcomes wood, wood overcomes earth, earth overcomes water, water overcomes fire, fire overcomes metal. Generation can contain overcoming, and overcoming can contain generation: overcoming within generation is the forward, post-heaven path; generation within overcoming is the reverse, pre-heaven circulation. If cultivators can grasp generation and overcoming and tell reverse from forward, the meaning of the Five Phases becomes fully clear.

The essential principles in this text should be turned over in the mind again and again in quiet moments, and verified through direct bodily experience when you practice—each point understood and held clearly within. Through repeated study and careful reflection, even practice snatched amid a busy life will not go wrong; when training reaches the point where you forget hours and days, you naturally will not stray.

Students must not cheat themselves: a hair’s breadth of error becomes a thousand miles off course.

From birth we have turned away from the Dao and lost our original nature; every contraction and release within the body has lost its proper measure, far from the inner condition of an infant—before the habits of later life disturb what is originally so. At the start of cultivation, settle the body in emptiness and fix the mind in stillness; neither force progress nor neglect practice. In such deep, silent stillness, place and time no longer matter—this is what is meant by stilling only the restless mind, not extinguishing the illuminating awareness (zhaoxin, the clear knowing that observes).

When emptiness comes without chasing emptiness and stillness without chasing stillness, then devote yourself to discerning: whatever appears within the body at this stage arises from the pre-heaven (xiantian)—what is innate in life before later conditioning. Toward these appearances, still only observe each one in quiet stillness. As days pass, what manifests grows ever more pure and solid; only then may you sustain it and weigh what to keep or let go, without misstep.

The first foundation is to digest these principles thoroughly, practice in order, and feel your way through each stage with the body; cut off stray thoughts and clinging, and do not let what you see and hear shake your resolve—and do not ask about results at first. Persist while forgetting clock and calendar: that is the crucial instruction. When ailments of the body are cleared, you naturally align step by step with the method, and the subtle wonder appears of each drop returning to the source. Do not treat this as an old monk’s tired commonplace. Even if your wit outshone Yan Hui and Min Ziqian, without real accomplishment you cannot enter the gate.

This is how Patriarch Master Taixu Weng explained it. Moved by Yuanzi’s compassion, I have recorded our master’s teaching for fellow practitioners.

On internal and external medicinals (in Neidan, nei yao and wai yao—the two kinds of “medicine” spoken of in practice, one belonging within the body and one outside it).

In alchemical practice, medicines are divided into inner medicine and outer medicine, and the work likewise falls into two stages. If those who cultivate the Way do not understand these two kinds of medicine, inner and outer, they are like the blind walking or the deaf listening—always unable to find a starting point.

What is inner and what is outer? Inner medicine is what one already possesses; outer medicine comes from “another’s domain.” What belongs to oneself is spirit-mercury (ling gong); what comes from elsewhere is true lead (zhen qian). Spirit-mercury is not the common mercury of the world, and true lead is not black tin; both are innate treasures of heaven, not the impure substances of the mundane realm.

Spirit-mercury is the “crimson maiden” (chanü), like a wife presiding within; true lead is the “infant” (ying’er), like a husband presiding without. Though spirit-mercury is a treasure of heaven, its nature is restless—it scatters as soon as it meets fire. Without true lead to restrain it, it wanders without trace, so that the true is mixed with the false and kindness turns to harm, like a woman without a husband who cannot avoid impropriety. Therefore one must use true lead to subdue true mercury. When lead and mercury unite and husband and wife harmonize, meeting fire they instead complete one another.

This spirit-mercury is present and complete in one’s own body; there is no need to seek it elsewhere. True lead appears after yang reaches its peak and yin is born, when it has gone to “another’s domain” and no longer belongs to oneself. One must first seek it back and return it to one’s own place, matching it with true mercury, so that yin and yang are not disordered. Lead belongs to the other, mercury to the self—hence the names inner and outer, and the distinction between self and other.

The alchemical classics speak of “seven returns” (qi fan)—making true mercury return to its original nature; and “nine reversions” (jiu huan)—making true lead revert to its original nature. “Another’s domain” does not mean there is literally someone else’s home: before true lead has returned, it is temporarily counted as outside and belonging to the other; once it has returned, it is inside and belongs to the self. What is called outer and other applies only while it has not yet come back—not that there is truly another’s home. The inner–outer distinction is the same.

When a person first receives life and receives qi, lead and mercury were originally one qi, with no inner–outer division and no self–other split. Only when fullness reaches its peak and decline begins do lead and mercury separate into two places, and then the talk of self and other, inner and outer, arises.

Lead and mercury have a further layer of meaning. In refining the reversion elixir (huandan), one takes black lead to restrain red mercury; the two unite and form the reversion elixir—this is one layer of inner and outer medicines. After the reversion elixir is formed, it is also called true lead; ingesting it transforms one’s own yin mercury, which dries in an instant. Then one uses the dried mercury to nurture true lead and form the great elixir (dadan)—this is another layer of inner and outer medicines. If students can grasp these two layers of inner and outer medicines, the matters of reversion elixir and great elixir become clear.

The text draws a very clear line between inner and outer, self and other, so practitioners know where to apply effort. It also compassionately explains the two layers of “medicine” in neidan (internal alchemy)—the external medicine leaning toward post-heaven jing and qi, the internal medicine pointing to the innate true seed—which is especially valuable. The stages that follow can be pursued along these lines. What compassion! With this book, the fortunes of the Daoist tradition may revive; whether students will go further and inquire deeply is another matter. Alas! What Wuyuanzi (Liu Yiming) indicated still belongs to the “small return”; the method of the “great return” is nothing other than placing body and mind before pre-heaven, leading them to the primordial unity of the three powers (Heaven, Earth, and Human) so it meets the primordial unity within the person. When one probes its operation, the hinge lies entirely in the two characters “from non-being” (cong wu). From Wuji (Limitless), the “One” first appears; this “non-being” is not the emptiness later prized in Buddhism—it is fullness returning to not-having, and only then reaching ultimate non-being. To obtain and tame it: this “non-being” is named the mother of the ten thousand things, the root of the three powers. To obtain this one “non-being” is the great return. My late master Master Taixu’s profound discussion runs thus; I record it here to supplement what this treatise has not fully disclosed.

“Small and great Elixir Return” means the Small Elixir Return and the Great Elixir Return.

The Wu Zhen Pian (Understanding Reality) says that the illustrious Golden Elixir can be completed in a single day. Ancient scriptures also say that the Returning Elixir is achieved in one moment, yet nurturing it in warmth requires ten months. Alas—how easy is it to truly understand the way of the Returning Elixir?

Returning Elixir (huandan) has a small Returning Elixir and a great Returning Elixir. The small Returning Elixir is called the Golden Elixir; the great Returning Elixir is called the Seven Returns, Nine Restorations, Golden Fluid Great Elixir. What is meant by small Returning Elixir is returning from the post-heaven state to the pre-heaven: using lead to control mercury, using water to support fire, pairing the “golden lord” (lead) with the “crimson maiden” (mercury), having the black tiger drive the red dragon, having the tortoise swallow the vermilion bird—all of this is language about true yin and true yang restraining and complementing each other. Then one uses “another’s house” to restrain “one’s own house,” returns what belonged to one’s own house, and restores the genuineness originally possessed by one’s own house—this is Returning Elixir, which is why it is also called Golden Elixir. When the scripture says “when gold returns to the nature’s beginning, it may be called Returning Elixir,” it refers to this small Returning Elixir.

What is “small” is simply returning to the root and recovering one’s original state from years past: what was depleted becomes full again, what was lost comes back. Though this elixir has been restored, it has not yet passed through the refining fire; if one is careless for a moment, there is still the danger of gaining it and then losing it again—hence it is called “small.”

On this basis one goes further upward: setting up the furnace anew and establishing the cauldron again (the place and method of refinement in Neidan [internal alchemy]), slowly nurturing this Returning Elixir in warmth until emptiness reaches its limit and stillness is profound, and at the depth of yin a single yang returns; then one applies the Yin Talisman and Yang Fire (the advance and retreat of firing), gradually adding and withdrawing, from nothing to being, from hidden to manifest. When the ten-month embryo is complete and the fruit ripens and falls, one sheds the cultivated pure body (fashen)—only then is it called the great elixir.

As for opening heaven and earth anew and setting up furnace and cauldron once more—like a child begetting a grandchild and branches spreading from branches, until one becomes an immortal of the ten supreme great Luo rank (the highest fruition among perfected beings)—that lies outside both small and great Returning Elixir.

People in the world cannot distinguish small from great Returning Elixir; they lump everything under “the way of the Golden Elixir” and fantasize that a word or two from a master will bring success—how foolish! Side paths and outer schools need not even be discussed. Even when what is obtained is still genuine, some know only refining the self (cultivating body and mind) but not gathering the medicine (taking in pre-heaven vital essence), or know gathering medicine but not setting up furnace and cauldron, or know furnace and cauldron but not harmonizing; still others know only the small Returning Elixir and not the great Returning Elixir, and stop halfway.

Alas! At first there must be purposeful effort (youwei); in the end one returns to Wuwei (non-action). To know only the beginning and not the conclusion makes the Great Dao hard to complete. Those who study the Dao must see it through from start to finish, with not a thread of doubt in the mind—only then is it possible.

The discussion in the text focuses on anlu liding (establishing the furnace and cauldron—in inner alchemy, first stabilizing furnace and cauldron, i.e., settling body and mind). Sages of old essentially did the same. This author’s humble view: when worldly resources are insufficient, even getting started is hard, let alone seeing it through. Therefore the Taishang (Supreme Lord Laojun), in compassion, opened another gate of “zhizhong jiahuan” (sowing the seed through provisional illusion—using expedient means to plant the foundation of the Way) and transmitted it to the Lüzong (Longmen Lü regulation lineage): first gather yuanqi (original qi) to consolidate the Daofa (method of the Way), then welcome the xiantian zhi yi (the One of the pre-heaven) to form the elixir—how grand and free! What Wuyuan (Wuyuanzi Liu Yiming) discusses is indeed essential; yet if worldly means are not enough, few avoid sinking into chenfen (ruin and burnout). Moreover, without roots from past lives, how can one be fortunate enough to meet it? Hence the author records what he has heard to supplement what this treatise does not fully cover. To explain beginning and end in full detail is bound to invite slander; to leave students entirely without doubt is impossible.

Yunyong jixiong (employing fortune and misfortune): refers to how to apply and relate to auspicious and inauspicious circumstances.

The Realizing Truth (Wuzhen Pian) says: misfortune and fortune originally depend on each other and turn into one another, like a shadow following a form or an echo following a sound. If one can turn the pivot between life and death, disaster can in an instant become blessing. It also says: turn the “gate of death” into the “gate of life”; do not mistake the gate of life for the gate of death. Only when one understands how the “mechanism of killing” reverses will one know that good can arise from within harm.

The path of the Golden Elixir (Neidan, internal alchemy) requires first distinguishing auspicious from inauspicious; only then can one advance or retreat in season and act freely. Otherwise, with auspicious and inauspicious unclear and right and wrong undivided, to plunge in rashly is surely like fire born from wood: once calamity is set off it injures oneself— not only without benefit, but with harm.

“Auspicious and inauspicious” with respect to the medicine (the refined essence and qi used in cultivation): when vital spark is just rising is auspicious; when the moment has passed is inauspicious. Southwest is auspicious, northeast is inauspicious (scriptures take southwest as the direction of obtaining the medicine, northeast as losing it). The original spirit (Yuanshen, the innate spirit one already possesses) is auspicious; the discriminating spirit (Shishen, the postnatal consciousness that divides and labels) is inauspicious. Original essence and original qi are auspicious; postnatal refined essence and qi are inauspicious. The true body is auspicious; the illusory body is inauspicious. Heavenly nature is auspicious; qi-nature is inauspicious. The mind of the Dao is auspicious; the human mind is inauspicious.

With respect to gathering (the timing and method of “gathering the medicine”): water and fire mutually assisting is auspicious; water and fire not assisting is inauspicious. metal and wood merging is auspicious; metal and wood separated is inauspicious. The pre-heaven transforming the post-heaven is auspicious; the post-heaven damaging the pre-heaven is inauspicious. Whether slow or fast, what fits the time is auspicious; gentle fire (wenhuo, slow refinement) and intense fire (wuhuo, strong refinement) out of measure is inauspicious. Reducing what is excessive and supplementing what is lacking is auspicious; abandoning the correct path for a deviant one is inauspicious. Seeking the spark of life within the mechanism of killing is auspicious; a mechanism of killing mixed into the spark of life is inauspicious.

With respect to returning the elixir (refining what was gathered back to the source): having both “other” and “self” is auspicious; having only “I” without “other” is inauspicious. Emotion returning to unite with nature is auspicious; nature turning to chase emotion is inauspicious. Arising naturally through accumulated righteousness is auspicious; relying on temporary seizure or forced grasping is inauspicious. Dragon and Tiger (figures for spirit and qi, or wood and metal) not harming the person is auspicious; spirit and qi scattering is inauspicious. Yang from “the other’s house” arriving is auspicious; yin stagnating in “one’s own house” is inauspicious. “The other’s house” and “one’s own house” are images in the classics for other versus self, pre-heaven versus post-heaven.

When one shifts from the Bo (Stripping) hexagram to the Fu (Return) hexagram, it is auspicious; when one falls from the Guai (Resolution) hexagram into Gou (Encountering), it is inauspicious. When Kan (Water) comes, if Li (Fire) can meet and receive it, that is auspicious; if the other has already arrived and one does not respond, that is inauspicious. Using lead to restrain mercury is auspicious; using yin to wear down yang is inauspicious. When the medicine is sufficient and one need only warm and nourish, that is auspicious; when it is already full and one still will not stop, that is inauspicious.

Regarding the great elixir (da dan): when the tortoise and serpent coil and rely on each other, that is auspicious; when dragon and tiger fight each other, that is inauspicious. Getting the timing right and forming the elixir at once is auspicious; dragging through chaos for seven days is inauspicious. A companion whose intent matches is auspicious; a guest or deviant force from outside is inauspicious. Constantly guarding against danger and risk is auspicious; water cold while fire is too strong is inauspicious. The furnace and cauldron well secured and sealed tightly is auspicious; error or failure to notice is inauspicious. After the embryo is complete, then shedding the shell is auspicious; taking it out before it is complete is inauspicious.

The above are the principles of auspice and inauspice for internal and external alchemy (neidan and waidan). Each section must be thoroughly understood and each point mastered in detail before one can begin practice.

One must also see: within Bo there are still abundant fruits; within Fu there can also be calamity; within Tai there can be disorder of fate; after Pi there can be joy; Guai has the image of no proclamation; Gou has the virtue of “contained elegance”; Jiji ultimately turns to disorder; Weiji in turn has bright auspiciousness. Inauspiciousness hides within auspiciousness, and auspiciousness hides within inauspiciousness; auspice and inauspice are not fixed, and change has no fixed rule. If understanding is not true, practice will not be fitting—a hair’s breadth of deviation becomes a thousand li of error. If at the junctures where one applies auspice and inauspice one can penetrate the messages of yin-yang waxing and waning, with genuine insight knowing when to advance and when to retreat, when to hurry and when to slow, when to decrease and when to increase, then nothing fails to go as the heart wishes, and every step gains strength.

What has been discussed above is already extremely subtle, and those who study the Way must not neglect it. Yet there is another extremely concise secret: if every single thought can be kept pure and harmonious, one may naturally ascend to the highest realm. What Wu Yuanzi (the Neidan master Liu Yiming) expounded still belongs to the method of Earth Immortals (those who attain long life while remaining in the human world)—precisely the kind Master Qiongguan meant when he spoke of “methods that are intricate and hard to complete.” What is explained here is the method of Heaven Immortals (those who unite with the Dao), namely “taking the body as lead, the mind as mercury, samadhi as water, and wisdom as fire”: borrowing the language of Waidan (external alchemy) as metaphor—the body is lead, mind-spirit is mercury, steadfast concentration is water, and insight is fire. The firing process (huohou) lies solely in maintaining the center and harmonizing the elements; there is no need to calculate by hexagram lines, nor to weigh out ounces and pounds. Wu Yuanzi did not describe this level, hence this supplement. If the student can further stand in what precedes the stirring of the pre-heaven (xiantian) and use only the two words “clarity” and “harmony” to tune body and mind, one will naturally reach the state of central harmony (zhonghe) without any harmful side effects. The profound discourse of my late master Master Taixu meant exactly this.

Front and rear furnace and cauldron: Neidan terminology. Furnace and cauldron were originally vessels for refining elixir; here they metaphorically denote two loci in body and mind—one chiefly for “cooking” the refinement and one chiefly for storing and containing. “Front and rear” indicates how the two cooperate in sequence in practice; they are not two physical objects outside the body.

The Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Reality) says: First take Qian and Kun as cauldron and furnace, then capture the two medicines of the crow and the rabbit for refining. The crow stands for the sun and belongs to Yang; the rabbit stands for the moon and belongs to Yin. Once these two are driven back onto the Yellow Way (the central path where Yin and Yang meet), how could the Golden Elixir fail to form of itself? It also says: In the reclining-moon furnace jade buds arise; in the cinnabar cauldron quicksilver lies level. From this it is clear that furnace and cauldron are the foremost matter in cultivation. Without furnace and cauldron, from where would the medicine be gathered, and from where would the elixir be refined?

The furnace and cauldron here are not those made of copper, iron, earth, or clay on the outside, nor the kind of “furnace and cauldron” that borrows a woman’s body for practice in the bedchamber. They are the great creative furnace and the vessel of majestic light of the Great Dao. The ancients took Qian as cauldron and Kun as furnace, drawing on Qian’s Yang strength and vigor and Kun’s Yin softness and compliance. Qian-cauldron and Kun-furnace mean Yang vigor and Yin compliance. The so-called reclining-moon furnace and cinnabar cauldron carry the same meaning: the reclining moon takes Yin giving birth within Yang; cinnabar takes Yin within Yang. Yang vigorous and Yin compliant, Yin supporting Yang and Yang supporting Yin—this is the true furnace and cauldron of cultivating the Dao. If one abandons the four words “Yin-Yang, vigor and compliance” and seeks furnace and cauldron elsewhere, one is on a heterodox path, not the correct path.

Furnace and cauldron also differ: there is the furnace and cauldron for returning elixir (Huandan), and the furnace and cauldron for the great elixir (Dadan). For returning elixir, Qian and Kun are furnace and cauldron, and the crow and rabbit are the medicine; for the great elixir, emptiness and non-being are furnace and cauldron, and the single Qi is the medicine. That is the distinction between the two. Within returning elixir, there is also the furnace and cauldron of Kan and Li, which must be distinguished early. Kan is water; Li is fire. This furnace and cauldron is most crucial; without knowing it, even with Qian-Kun furnace and cauldron, the Golden Elixir cannot coalesce at once. For the reclining-moon furnace is where true fire is generated, and the cinnabar cauldron is where true water is generated. Understanding this furnace and cauldron, one uses water to assist fire so that water and fire dwell in one palace together; pre-heaven Qi then comes from emptiness and non-being, and the supreme treasure naturally forms. Once this treasure is formed, it is placed again in the furnace and cauldron of emptiness and non-being; one applies the natural true fire so that the formless gives birth to form and the invisible gives birth to shape; spirit and the whole person are perfected, the Holy Fetus (the inner alchemical embryo) is shed, and even the furnace and cauldron of emptiness and non-being are no longer needed. Beyond that, at a further stage, there is yet another furnace and cauldron, which cannot be sought in words and language.

Speak of the cauldron as you will—it was never a cauldron to begin with; speak of the furnace as you will—there was never a furnace either. The two words “body and mind”—on these, people throughout the world are still confused.

Though the discourse runs deep, it is stated with remarkable clarity. At the end it singles out body and heart-mind (xin): unless one has received the oral transmission in person, one will not know the layer still further above. Wo Yuanzi (Qing-dynasty Liu Yiming) has already laid the principle bare; the learner should grasp it for himself.

The text treats Qian and Kun (Heaven and Earth), Kan and Li (the Water and Fire trigrams), and emptiness (xu/wu); at the “crescent moon (yanyue)” it marks where true fire arises, and at “cinnabar (zhusha)” where true water arises. It also says: once this furnace and cauldron (lu ding)—the body-and-mind stand-in in Neidan (internal alchemy)—is understood, use water to support fire so that water and fire share one “palace”; then Qi of the pre-heaven (xian tian zhi qi)—innate vitality received before birth—comes forth from emptiness and naturally condenses into the supreme treasure. When that treasure is formed, it is taken back into the cauldron-furnace of emptiness; natural true fire is applied so that quality emerges from what had no quality and form from what had no form; Shen (spirit) and Qi are fully realized, and one “escapes the holy embryo (sheng tai)”—the image of the elixir perfected. At that point even the cauldron-furnace of emptiness is no longer needed.

Wo Yuanzi has entrusted every detail, and again stresses “nothing outside body and mind.” The so-called step further up, with another cauldron-furnace, is in truth only turning toward the “One” and melting into original ground (ben yuan); that ground too dissolves with this turning, body and mind return together to emptiness, and all distinction vanishes. What the ancients called “shattering the void (fensui xukong)” leaves no cauldron-furnace and no fire phases (huohou). Wo Yuanzi saw this completely, hence “the cauldron was never a cauldron, the furnace was never a furnace.” Traced to its method, it still comes from “neither fixating on being nor on non-being, holding movement and stillness alike”; thus gathering becomes form, dispersing becomes Qi.

Internal and external fire phases—timing cultivated within the body and without—ultimately still do not depart from body and mind; in the end one does not cling to cauldron-furnace or fire phases either.

Ancient immortals said: true fire (zhenhuo) has no fixed huohou (fire timing), and the great elixir is not weighed out by the pound. The Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Reality—a classic Neidan (internal alchemy) work by Zhang Boduan) says: even if you recognize cinnabar and black lead (minerals used as metaphors in Neidan for the two yin-yang substances within the body), without knowing huohou, your effort is wasted. Forming the elixir depends entirely on the power of cultivation; miss by a hair’s breadth and the elixir will not form. All these words were spoken for the sake of huohou.

Later people failed to grasp why the ancients spoke as they did. Some, seizing on “true fire has no fixed timing,” either drifted into dead emptiness (blank stillness and cessation) or fell into forgetting the body (letting the form go slack with nothing to hold it). Others, seizing on “not knowing huohou is idle effort,” either clung rigidly to the hours zi, wu, mao, and you, or were confused by which year, month, day, or hour to “gather the medicine.” Still others saw phrases that seemed to contradict each other, felt doubt, and never looked deeper.

Though the ancients’ wording differed, their meaning was one. “True fire has no fixed timing” means true fire has no dead, fixed clock: when yang arises, advance the yang fire; when yin arises, retreat the yin tally—it does not mean the fire can spin empty with no huohou at all. “Not knowing huohou is idle effort” means that moving the fire always has moments that must be grasped. First refine yourself (lianji) and wait for the right time; yang arising is the moment to advance fire, yin arising is the moment to retreat the tally—it is not about calendar dates carved in stone.

“Originally no fixed timing” and “must know the timing” point to the same key. Hence the Ruyao Jing (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine) says: within the twelve double-hours of a day, wherever intention reaches, one may act. This means that in each of the twelve periods there are times when yin arrives and yang arrives; you must discern them with care—meet yang and advance yang, meet yin and retreat yin; whenever yin or yang arrives, that is a time to work. Once the words are clear, why argue further?

Yet huohou is not of one kind alone: there is internal huohou and external huohou; huohou for gathering medicine and refining medicine; for uniting and forming the elixir; for nurturing warmth, releasing the elixir, and taking the elixir; for forming the embryo and birthing the embryo; for cultivating nature (xing) and cultivating life (ming); and wen peng (gentle simmering) versus wu lian (vigorous refining). Though the names are many, you must always know their proportions and the yao and zhu (the fine gradations of advance and retreat measured by hexagram lines and minuscule weights), and the measure of when to stop, when enough is enough, when it is too aged or too tender—applying them in each moment so that not the slightest error appears.

The principle of the full moon lies in oral formulas; the subtlety of when the moment arrives is transmitted heart to heart—the wonder of huohou, how could it be easy to know? People today do not see how extremely fine huohou is; they latch onto the ancients’ line that “half a phrase opens the mystery,” and think there is nothing left to say or pass on. They do not know that the wonder of that half phrase is the true master whispering at the ear, pointing out a thread of celestial mechanism—it is not speaking huohou out in full. Even a single craft or skill has many rules; how much more a matter of life and nature (xingming)—how could one phrase fully awaken you? Students of the Dao, why not reflect on this carefully?

This exposition is extraordinarily fine-grained and truly belongs to the house method of the Earth Immortal—one who has attained the Way yet still dwells in the human world. As I understand it, what makes it valuable is knowing the right moment and recognizing the signs. When the moment is clear and the signs are recognized, advance and retreat all stay within measure; whether one should apply gentle fire or intense fire can be matched accordingly, and one will naturally not go wrong. How to sustain and nurture what lies in between depends entirely on the student. One must extinguish restless impulse without extinguishing awakened awareness; when an omen appears, one can notice it oneself; one follows the omen and handles each case as it arises, bringing it back to central harmony; the mind does not lean to one side, and transformation occurs in an instant without effort. The only fear is failing to achieve extreme emptiness and profound stillness (xu ji jing du)—the state in which spirit is utterly empty and still, settled and deep—and instead falling into vague dullness or torpor; then when the time comes one does not know, and when signs appear one does not perceive them—a great harm. If one truly applies mind and will to stillness and rests the heart in emptiness, not deliberately “illuminating” yet naturally always illumined, with a trace of numinous clarity always present, how could one miss the moment or fail to see the signs? If one abandons this secret key and seeks elsewhere, even if one masters every line of the hexagrams and their changing lines, the oral formulas become numerous and the items fragmented; that only stirs disturbance, and it is hard to guarantee there will be no slip at all. For the orthodox lineage of the Supreme One (Taishang—the tradition of Laozi), such side branches should all be cleared away; take reaching emptiness and reaching oneness as the root, and central harmony and pure harmony as the application. The two patriarchs of the Southern School (Nanzong), Chen and Bai—Patriarch Chen Nan and Patriarch Bai Yurong—once tested this layer of teaching against the old masters Zhong and Lü of the liturgical-alchemical lineage (here, the Zhong-Lü line associated with Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin). That is why Patriarch Chen criticized the book Understanding Reality (Wuzhen) for not being thorough enough in its intent, and when he inscribed an encomium for the image of Purple Yang (Zhang Boduan) he also had reservations—the remark about “carrying a whiff of lead-and-mercury”—referring to the alchemical metaphor of refining essence and breath in a way that still smells of technique and manipulation—meant exactly this. Still, one must turn the discussion over and over in the mind and quietly savor the essential meaning in each step and each section, again and again. When that essential meaning is fully clear with nothing left out, and on top of that one achieves extreme emptiness and profound stillness with a trace of numinous clarity always present in awakened awareness, then when the hour arrives one is sure to know, and when signs appear one is sure to understand; how then could the various stages of fire-timing—the grasp of when to advance, retreat, hurry, or slow in cultivation—be hard to align with the rule? The great aim of the Zhong-Lü lineage is simply to return single-mindedly to the pre-heaven (xiantian), cultivate until central harmony is reached, and not lose the heart-to-heart transmission of the essential point. As for saying that a phrase or half a phrase is a secret whispered by the true master into the ear—lest later students suspect and drift into heterodox paths—the student should weigh it carefully; such talk is not reliable. Moreover, in my humble view, when Confucian learning speaks of “one thread running through all,” that too is only a single sentence. It is a subtle awakening when study is nearly complete—equally ultimate principle. Even if there were truly a whisper at the ear, it would surely be because the student was sitting before the teacher, blocked in understanding, and it already showed in face and bearing; the teacher, knowing this, pointed from nearby and could not speak loudly, because a loud voice would startle him. When was there ever an intention to confer secrets on purpose? Students must not misunderstand. This passage bears on weighty matters, so I dare not leave it unexplained.

Others' House and My House

The Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Reality) says: Do not take cunning deceit for genuine practice; recognize the deathless method of "others' house." It also says: Such a supreme treasure exists in every home, yet foolish people fail to recognize it fully. These lines point to the place where the pre-heaven (xiantian) medicine arises. Later practitioners who did not grasp the ancients' true meaning saw "others' house" and "every home" and some guessed it meant women, drifting into bedroom "plucking and supplementing" (cai bu) elixir methods—bearing to commit vile acts, accumulating countless wrongs, and falling into a bestial state beyond count. How could they know that pre-heaven Qi (vital energy) comes from emptiness and void? How could one seek it in things that have form and appearance?

Humans receive pre-heaven Qi and, through their mortal parents' essence and blood, gain a body. Thus this pre-heaven Qi is originally present in the human body. But this Qi grows day and night; when yang reaches its peak it must turn to yin. The yang of the Qian palace moves to the Kun palace: Qian becomes empty and turns into Li, while Kun receives the fullness and becomes Kan. What is called Li is yang that has departed; what is called Kan is true yang that has fallen and been trapped. Yang trapped within yin no longer belongs to me, so it is called "others' house." The Wuzhen Pian says: If you wish to know the source where the medicine is produced, look only to the southwest—that is the native place. Southwest is the Kun direction, precisely where yin reaches its extreme and yang is born. Ziye said: The medicine emerges from the Kun position in the southwest; to seek the Kun position, how could one leave the human being? The principle has been stated plainly; you must remember it—only fear that when you meet it you will not recognize what is true. The person referred to here is called the undying person, also named the true person (zhenren). Ancient immortals said: If you wish that people not die, you must seek the undying person. This undying person is the deathless method of "others' house." When we say "my house," my true yang has already departed, so Li represents me. When we say "others' house," my true yang is trapped by yin, so Kan represents the other. Because there is the distinction between Kan and Li, there are the names "other" and "self." The split between other and self applies only while yang has not yet returned. Once yang returns, the other is me and I am the other—there is only one, not two.

Huanghe Fu (Ode to the Yellow Crane) says: To imitate male–female generation, one must first reveal the hidden mechanism of heaven, and only then can one proceed. What is meant by “effect” and “release” borrows worldly affairs to disclose the Way of the Dao; it does not mean that male and female are two things within the Dao, nor that one should take man and woman as “other” and “self” in the practice.

Later people failed to grasp the depth of the ancients’ intent. They took “the other house” (tajia) as literally another person outside the body and engaged in beastly conduct, ruining the teaching. Such people can hardly hope to be reborn as human beings, let alone attain immortality.

Whenever the alchemical classics speak of “other and self,” they mean Yin and Yang. When they speak of “host and guest,” they mean how to apply the practice. When they speak of “inversion” or “turning upside down,” they mean attracting and gathering. When they speak of “being and non-being,” they mean movement and stillness. When they speak of “dragon and tiger,” they mean nature (xing) and emotion (qing). When they speak of “lead and mercury,” they mean what floats and what sinks. Summed up, nothing goes beyond the two words Yin and Yang; examined closely, nothing goes beyond the two words nature and life; in reality, nothing goes beyond the two words body and mind.

Wicked people in the world, ignorant of the sages’ great Way, treat women as “the other house,” take a maiden’s first menses as the supreme treasure, and treat “plum fruit” as the elixir of long life. This is not cultivating the sage’s Way but slandering it; such persons deserve the hell of pulled tongues—the realm that punishes reckless speech and defamation.

Alas! Such a thing exists in every household, yet it is not something one can grasp as private property, for its function is invisible. If one would seek it, the key lies in method and material support (fa and cai), and one must seek it in the divine land of the red counties—the proper ground for cultivation—for what is visible cannot be used. What can be used is invisible; what is visible cannot be used. One’s own body does not yet possess this visible substance; how could another person have it? If it cannot be found within, there is nowhere to seek it outside. The secret within is known only to those who are sharp in Yin and Yang, deeply versed in creation and transformation, and who recognize the innate primordial unified Qi (xiantian zhenyi zhi qi)—how could anyone else understand?

Wuyuanzi’s teaching here cuts straight through layers of obscurity and did real service to xuanxue—the internal alchemy of Daoism. Yet he never pinned down precisely what the “fang” (method/formula) in “the formula of not dying” means, nor what the “ren” (person) in “never apart from the person” refers to. Wuyuanzi followed the old masters on this point; the shortcoming is that the ancient sages hid too much: their intent was not thorough enough—they let something slip without fully revealing it, and in that way they held later students back. This is exactly why our Patriarch Zhang was thrice punished by Heaven; people wrongly thought he had rashly divulged celestial secrets, and he was even rebuked for it by a sage who dwells in the world and by a practitioner on Jizushan.

That practitioner said: what the Wuzhen text calls the “formula of the person who does not die” is what Bodhidharma called the “Divine Land, the Red Realm” (the ancient name for China)—also what the Daozang names the “Palace of Great Red Heaven.” What Ziye meant by “the person who is never apart” is the “denizen of Great Red Heaven,” hence the title zhenren (Realized Person). This palace is the true seat of renyuan (the human root, the primordial ground of the person). When renyuan is depleted and one seeks to restore it, one must naturally turn toward this palace. Speaking in terms of the body, its place is never far from the heart and belly—then everything the books say and what Bodhidharma sought align. Speaking in terms of principle, the human being “carries Qian on the head and stands on Kun with the feet” (the text’s “gan” is Qian). Kun’s position is due north in the pre-heaven arrangement and southwest in the post-heaven one. Because renyuan rests upon Kun, the old masters spoke of “the person in the Kun direction who does not die.” Again, according to the Falu (registers of ritual law), Qian is the Gate of Heaven, Gen the Gate of Earth, Xun the Ghost Path, and Kun the Gate of Humankind. Should students still fail to grasp it? This teaching comes from the Lujiao (the tradition that stresses precepts); it is recorded here to supplement what this treatise has not yet made fully clear.

Zhenzheng shou jing: the title—meaning the scripture that is truly foremost and most fundamental.

The Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality) says: the White Tiger’s shou jing is a supreme treasure; it also says: when lead (qian) meets the birth of gui, you must gather it at once. Both lines point to the same thing: shou jing is the primordial True One qi (xian tian zhen yi zhi qi).

The White Tiger corresponds to the west and to Dui, metal. “Shou” means the primordial ancestral qi; “jing” means the path along which it always moves. That ancestral qi is stored in Kan, trapped by yin and unable to emerge on its own. The maiden (shao nü) that Dui represents carries the true earth of the Kun palace; acting in the mother’s place, she can draw the yang hidden in Kan outward and return it to Kun, where it appears as shou jing. It is the crescent moon of the third day, also called the heart of heaven and earth, primordial qi, and true lead (zhen qian). Under heavy yin, stillness reaches its limit and then movement begins; as yang first returns, that is exactly the route the primordial ancestral qi normally travels—hence the name shou jing. Speaking of shou jing addresses the substance; speaking of “when lead meets the birth of gui” addresses practice.

Lead here is ren water (ren shui). Ren water is clear; gui water is turbid. When ren water has just arisen, it is like dew or a pearl—hard to catch and easy to lose. The moment it shows, you must act immediately; if you delay even slightly, gui water is born. Once gui water appears, ren water hides, falls into the post-heaven realm, and can no longer serve alchemy. To gather ren water is to gather the genuine shou jing.

This qi is born in the pre-heaven state yet also remains within the post-heaven world; it can generate heaven, earth, people, and the ten thousand things. Follow it downward and you die; reverse it in cultivation and you live. Becoming an immortal lies here; becoming an ordinary person lies here too. Immortal and ordinary were never two different things—only when yang reaches its peak does yin arise: the yang in Qian moves into the Kun palace; Qian becomes empty and turns into Li, Kun becomes full and turns into Kan. Pre-heaven Qian and Kun become post-heaven Kan and Li, and the true scripture (zhen jing) is thereby concealed.

A great practitioner, within a single time period, pursues and captures it, restores the true scripture, refines it into an elixir, and calls that the Golden Elixir (jindan). Swallowed and taken inward, it can turn old age back to youth and grant long life without death. The jindan spoken of here is the internal elixir (neidan) refined from the recovered primordial true qi.

Golden Elixir (the elixir spoken of in neidan cultivation) is precisely “head scripture” (shou jing): before it is refined it is called head scripture; once refined it becomes Golden Elixir. Golden Elixir and head scripture are originally one thing, not two. Later people who were confused did not grasp the ancestors’ deeper intent and went so far as to identify head scripture directly with a fourteen-year-old girl’s first menstruation. Alas! That is merely ordinary menstrual blood, not the utmost pure scripture the sages speak of, but rather the utterly turbid, utterly defiled blood of ordinary people.

Jing (scripture) is jing (path); path is also the Dao. The character for Dao combines “head” with “chi” and “zhi”; chi and zhi signify qi’s movement and stillness. Where qi first arises—is that not head scripture? Thus the Dao is head scripture, and head scripture is the Dao. Such head scripture has no form, no image, no sound, no taste; the moment you compare it to something you miss it, the moment you argue about it you distort it. It cannot be drawn in a picture; it can only be apprehended with heart-and-spirit (shen). Clearly it is not filthy menstrual blood.

As for the saying of five thousand forty-eight huang dao (yellow path), it speaks of the secret of yin reaching its limit and yang being born, of the return of the pre-heaven— not of fixing time rigidly at fourteen years. Fourteen years total five thousand forty days; where do the remaining eight days go? Five is the generating number of Earth (tu), ten is its completing number, four is the generating number of Metal (jin). Earth belongs to the Kun trigram, Metal to the Dui trigram. From Dui to Kun is exactly yin at its limit giving birth to yang. “In the southwest one finds companions” (a line from the Kun hexagram in the Yijing)—the moon appears in the geng direction (west)—is this not head scripture? The so-called eight days are the time of the eighth-day first-quarter moon, when the hexagram is Dui; Metal and Water share equally, yin and yang are in harmony, right in the middle of huang dao; this is yang born within yin, yang qi running along the path and returning to the central way—is that not the five thousand forty-eight of huang dao? Moreover, eight days is seven days plus one more, while heaven and earth themselves come round in seven days.

When yin qi reaches its extreme and yang qi begins to arise, after seven days of return on the eighth day yang runs along its course; vital growth returns to the central Way—this aligns with the teaching of the “five thousand forty-eight steps of the Yellow Path” (the Yellow Path is the track of the sun and moon). The “eighth day” is three and five joining. When three and five unite, yang becomes pure; that single qi returns within seven days, whole and undivided, standing at the center without leaning—like the full moon on the fifteenth, light complete, moving through the center of heaven and earth—again matching the five thousand forty-eight steps of the Yellow Path. “Seven days’ return, the eighth day’s crescent”: three and five merge into one; all describe stillness at the extreme turning into movement, and the person must take his stand at the starting point when yang begins to run. The patriarch’s words are subtle and weighty; how could they be recklessly read as a worldly girl’s first menstruation at fourteen?

A fourteen-year-old girl’s first period is yang at the extreme giving birth to yin—not yin at the extreme giving birth to yang. Blood belongs to yin; menstrual flow is exactly what appears after yin qi has been generated. How could one mistake menstrual blood, something wholly impure, for the innate, originally clear qi before heaven? The Wuzhen Pian (Understanding Reality) says: when bamboo is split, patch it with bamboo; to hatch a chick you need a chicken egg. The Cantong qi (Token for the Agreement of the Three) says: the same kind makes application easy; without that kind of seed, however clever you are, success is hard. When one’s own innate is damaged, it must be mended with one’s own innate—that is the true seed of the same kind. When one’s own nature-and-life (xing and ming) is not firm, one must still continue them with one’s own nature-and-life—that is the same-kind true seed. If you discard your own original substance and seek another person’s thing, how is that a same-kind true seed? Each person has his or her own nature-and-life. Another’s nature-and-life cannot be mine, just as mine cannot be another’s—the principle needs no elaboration. If a man could attain the Way by obtaining a woman’s first menstruation, then why could a woman not attain long life by obtaining a man’s essence?

If men who cultivate the Way must rely on women, then women who cultivate the Way would equally have to rely on men. That point needs no argument to be clear. I urge fellow practitioners: fill in that pit of wrongdoing without delay—those cultivation dead ends that use lust and improper sexuality as their means. Open your eyes at once, distinguish what is heterodox from what is orthodox, and tell right from wrong. Accumulate merit and establish conduct as a lasting foundation. Do not spend your days in the city of delusion, and do not hunt for bright pearls inside a lacquer bucket—pitch black, with no light at all.

This discourse is truly exhilarating! It is like a seasoned magistrate drafting a final judgment (ding'ai shu)—not a single character can be altered. Post it at the city gate and who would dare utter half a word of dissent? This one essay alone would suffice to make him a leader among immortals. Pity that his vision was not fully opened on the subject of kindred true seed (the innate true seed of the same kind that can repair nature and life), and what he said was not thorough enough; one suspects that on the work of emptiness (xukong) he never received complete transmission from a true master.

Human beings stand with earth and heaven as the three, all springing from the pre-heaven true One (the single point of true yang before heaven and earth were divided). Even speaking in terms of kindred nature, the three powers (heaven, earth, and humanity) are still one qi: the One can become three, and three can return to the One. Though the yang in this body, when pushed to the extreme, turns toward depletion, the ancients said "when bamboo breaks, mend it with bamboo"—if you do not seek restoration at the place from which the three powers arise, where else can you find it? The principle is perfectly clear, so one should in every thought never stray from the true One, seeking the One by the One, as mind commands the body. When the true One naturally descends and fills you, what difficulty is there in repair? It is only that people themselves are muddled, blindly flowing downstream after branch tips, not knowing how to return to the root and restore the origin, and so they end with yin growing and yang waning.

Since Wuyuanzi (Liu Yiming) already understands the subtle meaning of return, why not extend his wisdom and work morning and evening, taking his own person as a model for the world? First verify on yourself: when yin within the body is exhausted, yang within the body becomes pure. Where others do one part, do a hundred; where they do ten, do a thousand. Move from effort to ease, from ease to attainment. Do not grasp at small gains or chase quick results—from one quarter-hour to one watch, from one watch to a day, a month, a year—why seek another method at all? Mountains, rivers, and the great earth are all the cauldron; every sentient being is medicine. How to gather, how to congeal, how to cook and refine—warm it, complete it, transcend it—until you shatter the void (break through all attachment and become one with emptiness). Wuyuanzi already understands all this. To embody it in practice and lead the world—would that not be joyous? Do not say his virtue is not yet great enough; there is also the book Three Nuns Heal the Age (teaching that applies the sages of the three teachings to heal the world)—that can perfectly run in parallel without conflict.

Alas! For one as self-disciplined as Wuyuanzi, learning to have reached such a level. Though the cosmos is vast, to find two or three more whose mind-nature and conduct match his—could you? In the Qianlong and Jiaqing eras several immortals still sojourned in the world, yet Wuyuanzi met not one. Truly incomprehensible—truly incomprehensible. I record this only to warn myself.

Subduing and Refining the Nine Tripods

The Cantong Qi (Zhouyi Cantong Qi, Classic of the Unity of the Three and the Book of Changes) says: The sages of old kept the primordial origin in their hearts and embraced their true nature. They subdued and refined the nine tripods; when the work was complete, their traces vanished and they no longer showed themselves in the world. Ancient immortals also said: one must subdue qi (fu qi), not merely ingest qi (fu qi in the sense of breathing exercises); even if one ingests qi, one must know how to subdue it. Ingesting qi alone cannot bring long life; long life lies entirely in subduing qi. This is a crucial line in elixir scriptures, yet later people did not grasp its meaning.

Those who practice ingesting elixirs think they must use nine cauldrons to refine medicine; those who practice bedroom alchemy (fangzhong caibu) think they must gather qi from nine women in turn. Alas! Can the original meaning of the nine tripods really be iron cauldrons or “female cauldrons”? If one takes them for cast-iron vessels or women’s bodies, one turns the celestial ladder by which the patriarchs deliver people from the world into a guidepost on the road to Fengdu (the underworld)—how pitiful, how lamentable!

What is called fu shi (subduing ingestion) is to hide primordial qi—the original vitality one possessed before birth—and fill the belly with it; it is not swallowing metal, stone, or herbs. What is called the nine tripods is the meaning of the Golden Elixir passing through nine refinements, pure yang without yin; it is not replacing nine cauldrons in external furnace alchemy, nor taking nine women in bedroom alchemy.

Primordial qi cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be grasped by hand; like dew, like lightning, it comes without trace and leaves without shadow—hard to hold, easy to lose. Those who succeed use the solid to complete the empty, the formed to unite with the formless; they gather the year into the month, the month into the day, the day into a single double-hour (shichen). Within that one moment they seize the upright qi equivalent to three thousand six hundred years, recover the pivot of the seventy-two seasonal nodes, subdue this bit of primordial true yang, and draw it into the furnace of creation (the inner place of body alchemy), where it congeals into the sacred embryo—this is called fu shi (subduing ingestion).

After the embryo is formed, one further refines it with natural true fire, burning away remaining yin and revealing the original face of Qian yuan (primordial heaven yang), cultivating an indestructible diamond-like substance named the nine-transformation great elixir—this is called subduing and refining the nine tripods.

This passage concerns the Dharma Body (fashen)—the pure body attained through cultivation: it coalesces from emptiness and has no form such as male or female; it has nothing to do with flesh and blood. Hence the ancient immortals said: the cauldron was never a cauldron, and the medicine was never medicine. What are called furnace, cauldron, and medicinal ingredients borrow only the image of fire in a furnace cooking and refining, to describe the method of cultivating the Golden Elixir; they are not literal furnace and cauldron.

The Golden Elixir is Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate—the undifferentiated primal unity before yin and yang divide). Within Taiji there is one qi; when it moves, yang arises; when it is still, yin arises. When movement reaches its limit it must turn to stillness, when stillness reaches its limit it must turn to movement; when yang reaches its limit it must turn to yin, when yin reaches its limit it must turn to yang—yin and yang are each other’s root. The Four Images, the Five Phases, the Eight Trigrams (Bagua), the sexagenary cycle (jiazi), and the myriad phenomena all arise from this. This is the way creation and transformation run according to their natural course.

If one wishes to fully realize one’s nature and complete life (jing xing zhi ming—to the utmost realize nature and return to the root of life), one must seize the power of creation and transformation, reverse the trend of generating and destroying, invert the Five Phases and turn the flow of qi upside down, and return to that single qi before chaos was divided, completing the original face of Taiji. How could that be refined in a physical furnace and cauldron? What is called smelting and refining the Golden Elixir means completing Taiji. Taiji is a perfect whole; when the circle is complete to the extreme, loss can occur, so one must rely on cultivation to preserve it. Taiji originally has no lack; lack comes only when yin and yang separate. To preserve Taiji, one first harmonizes yin and yang. When yin and yang intermingle, one qi circulates, and one returns to the primal Taiji appearance—this is called gathering the medicine and refining the elixir.

The medicine must be blended, so what blends the medicine is called the cauldron (ding); the medicine must be smelted and refined, so what smelts and refines the medicine is called the furnace (lu). After smelting and refining, what is achieved endures without decay—this is called the Golden Elixir. In truth, cauldron, furnace, and Golden Elixir are all borrowed names and images, used only to reveal the waxing and waning of yin and yang.

Before even names and images had come into being, how could there have been those filthy and heterodox practices—treating a woman as the cauldron-vessel, setting up the furnace and arranging the hearth? Alas! Once I grasped the essentials of long life, year after year I sought on the sea those who truly understood. I do not know who is the right kindred spirit; I can only invite you to savor these words that seem wild and unrestrained.

〔This is writing that discriminates with exceptional clarity and serves the profound learning well; within it lies the subtle meaning of “turning Qian and Kun” (rotating heaven and earth). The way in comes from what the ancient immortal says at the head of the piece; the secret within the secret lies in the four-line gatha at the close; the central aim and method lie in dissolving form and trace and hiding without revealing. When you trace what is cultivated, it is nothing other than embracing the origin (huai yuan) and holding to truth (bao zhen). The origin (yuan) is the root-origin of the “One”; the “One” is the master of the origin: without the “One,” the origin would scatter; without the origin, the “One” cannot abide—hence one must hold to truth within embracing the origin. Holding to truth and transforming the origin is precisely this practice; its subtle use implicitly carries the meaning of borrowing the false to return to the true. The saying “it is thus and yet not thus, it is not thus and yet is thus—in fact there is no ‘thus’ at all” is a way of settling both sides at once. A kindred spirit of this sort is met only when virtue is complete; through the ages, the same sigh has been shared.〕

Xuanguan yiqiao (the Mysterious Pass and single aperture) denotes, in Daoist inner cultivation, that one subtle gate and opening.

The classics say: the methods of the Dao number three thousand six hundred in all, and each person clings to one root-line among them. If you wish to recognize that single crucial pass of the Mysterious Gate (xuanguan qiao—the most hidden gate in neidan practice), it is not to be found within those three thousand six hundred methods. This pass is the most arcane and subtle of gates: life and death divide here, sage and ordinary person are distinguished here; it is the secret transmitted from master to master since antiquity, not something ordinary guessing can grasp.

Later learners who have not met a true teacher may take the mouth and nose for it, or fix on the brow, the fontanelle (xìnmén), Baihui (bǎihuì) at the crown, the throat, Jiaji (jiájí) in the mid-back, Weilü (wěilǘ) at the base of the spine, the aperture of the heart, Huangting (huángtíng) in the body’s center, or Dantian, Yuanguan, and the Sea of Qi (qìhǎi)—none of these is that Mysterious Gate pass.

The Mysterious Gate has neither form nor image; how could it have a fixed location? It does not rest in appearance, nor does it rest in empty nothingness—where could a definite place be? If you identify it with some part or direction, it becomes something with form and image, and can no longer be called the Mysterious Gate. This pass does not attach to the illusory body (the physical form), yet it does not leave the illusory body. “Does not attach” means it is not any visible thing; “does not leave” means you must not seek it outside the body. It is neither outside the body nor inside the body; there must be a locus that is neither inner nor outer—this is the celestial mechanism (tiānjī). So the ancients dared neither write it plainly in books nor keep it wholly secret; they used many names as pointers: the gate of giving life and taking life, the Gate of the Mystery-Female (xuánpìn), the altar of dragon and tiger, the aperture of tortoise and serpent, the Wuji (wùjǐ) gate, the pass of life and death, the gate of punishment and virtue, the portal of yin and yang, the gate of manifold wonder, the realm of rare stillness, the ground of immortals and buddhas, the aperture of nature and life (xìngmìng), the chamber of the original spirit (yuánshén), the cave of emptiness, the land of Weiyin (wēiyīn)—the names differ, but all point to this one pass.

Ziyang (Zhang Boduan) said: this aperture is no ordinary hole; it is jointly wrought by Qian and Kun; it is named the cave of spirit and qi, and within it lies the essence of Kan and Li. In these words the celestial mechanism is already laid bare—only that people cannot recognize it; what can be done?

Wuyuanzi (the Daoist epithet of Liu Yiming of the Qing dynasty) now speaks plainly without holding back, painting anew the true likeness of the patriarch and bringing out what earlier masters left unsaid or unstated. Comprehend with spirit (Shen) and align with intention (Yi): he tells fellow practitioners that this aperture—the single Mysterious Pass (xuanguan), where innate vital impulse gathers in internal alchemy (Neidan)—is shaped like Penglai, the legendary gourd-like immortal isle: small without, vast within, depth beyond measure. Neither round nor square, black and white answer each other, dark and bright interflow. The gate stands five zhang high and four chi wide; two leaves open and shut. To the left an azure dragon coils; to the right a white tiger lies low; above a vermilion bird flies; below a tortoise crouches— the Four Images (Sixiang) image Yin-Yang meeting here. In hazy obscurity dwells a True Person named Valley Spirit (Gu Shen), styled the long-lived one. By day he eats millet gruel; by night he drinks Primordial Chaos wine, nourished by primordial yuanqi. At times he sings Qingping; at times he seals his lips. One exhalation opens the mysterious gate; one inhalation closes it. Hence the Daode Jing says: “The valley spirit does not die—this is called the Mysterious Female (Xuanpin). The gate of the Mysterious Female is called the root of Heaven and Earth.” This is the aperture that births Heaven, Earth, and humankind—the homeland of becoming sage, Buddha, or immortal. Setting furnace and cauldron, gathering and refining the medicine, forming and shedding the elixir, action and non-action (youwei and wuwei)—from start to finish, the work is here. Yet this aperture does not cling to the four greats that make up bodily form; it abides in stillness, silence, and emptiness. Pursue it with intent and it cannot be grasped; pursue it without intent and still it eludes you. Cultivators must first penetrate this single aperture with true insight before they can take up the work and seek the Heavenly Treasure, the innate supreme treasure. Without knowing this aperture, however much toil and effort you spend, you gain nothing in the end. How can those who study the Dao fail to urge themselves on and exhaust this teaching with their whole heart?

Respectfully, when this passage of argument is measured against what the master lineage actually transmits, the views of Wuyuanzi (the Daoist name of the Qing-dynasty master Liu Yiming) are for the most part pieced together from books by personal guesswork, without confirmation from a true teacher. The root of the trouble is taking texts alone as the way to recognize the subtle openings, and insisting on seeing “true knowing” with glaring certainty—so the poison goes deep. The three corpses (the three yin disturbances said in Daoism to unsettle the heart-mind) then seize the opening and spread phantoms: scenes that seem high or vast, open or closed, and every sort of color and sound. One learns alone and deludes oneself, recklessly matching various books, confident that understanding is already sharp enough to begin practice—yet without knowing one has already fallen into perilous phantom demon grottoes.

Had one then met a true master who shouted one to wake up, and been told to place this heart-mind in what is prior to the pre-heaven (before rising thoughts), stilling again and again until only a trace of awareness remains, one would not have slipped into withered silence and dead extinction. When visions of being and non-being, boundlessness with nowhere to rest, and mingling of true and false appear and vanish, one should meet them only with the natural movement and stillness of qi (vital energy); what shows and what hides each return on their own. Above all, take the profound scene of clear, still emptiness as what is real and as the right path. Let it renew moment by moment and shift from situation to situation—oneself only watches in silence and savors in silence, without forcing a drowsy, solemn mask, yet remaining as clear as at the start. At this point one must not leave the still concentration. Then whether it is generating, gathering, cooking, and refining, or condensing, rounding, or warm nurturing, on through forming, releasing, and creating transformation—all follow nature; one need only lightly sustain them and not let either side prevail.

This can only be entered through the secret of “no-thought within thought”—the work that follows once the Mystery Gate (the pivotal portal of return from post-heaven to pre-heaven) has opened. Before it opens, simply rest body and mind in what is prior to pre-heaven; from strained effort to ease, the scenery will appear of itself—there is no need to chase it hard. What the ancients called “seeking” meant pursuing return to the pre-heaven; there is no scheming or reckoning in it. In ordinary times, the moment one dabbles in conjecture, phantoms in practice will surely flare up when one sits.

Wuyuanzi (a Daoist sobriquet of an internal alchemy scholar) went astray precisely because, in his daily reading, he speculated and drew analogies in the void. Therefore, the passage in which he describes his own experience is not something students should follow lightly. One must understand that what is called a “pass” (guan) and what is called an “aperture” (qiao) merely indicate that there is such a step in cultivation; they do not refer to real gates or orifices inside the body. Guan means obstruction or barrier; qiao means only that which can open and can contain. If a student can stand firm in what comes before the prenatal (xiantian)—the source before one has fallen into the postnatal—and cultivates deeply until things are natural, the mysterious state before one’s eyes is precisely the mysterious state within the aperture. Why seek further?

My late master, Master Taixu, spoke exactly thus. Zhang the Immortal with the unkempt hair, Li the Immortal of the Mud Pill (niwan), Huang the Immortal of Chicken Foot Mountain, and Li the Immortal with bare feet—all framed and confirmed their teaching in the same way: when this xuanguan (the pivotal pivot of entry in internal alchemy, not a fixed spot on the body) opens, it has no fixed direction, and its appearance has no fixed form. If opening had a fixed location and the vision a fixed shape, it could not be called the xuanguan.

This xuanguan embraces endless eons forward and endless eons backward. Its subtle principle and subtle realm omit nothing, however fine as motes of dust; once touched, it responds at once, as swiftly as shadow follows form or echo answers sound. Whether one can enter depends on the instant when opportunity and stimulus coincide; a moment too early or too late, and one cannot enter. Hence the essential secret of the ancient sages’ cultivation lies in “attaining utmost emptiness and maintaining deep stillness” (xuji jingdu, from Laozi)—carefully examining the pivot when movement stirs from stillness. If one responds at random, the pass will respond at random as well; the stakes are immense—how could such a pivot be moved recklessly?

The ancient sages held that this pass and aperture lack no principle and contain every realm. If a student has not yet purified self-restraint, or though purified has not yet cultivated to naturalness, one can hardly enter the true realm of the xuanguan by luck alone. As I write this, I sigh with regret: it is a pity Wuyuanzi never heard these things in his day. The matter is weighty; whether one can enter the Way and complete the Way depends entirely on whether one’s understanding of this aperture is correct—how could I fail to add this clarification? When I finished this section, I drifted into sleep, not knowing where I was. At first the stars and moon filled the sky; then distant mountains rose like a painting, and a post station stood beside flowing water. I climbed up to look: a vast level expanse of waves, the moon imprinted on the lake’s heart, and a small boat came splashing toward me.

Someone asked, “Will you ferry across or not?” The question was repeated three times, yet there was no reply. If you can grasp the intent of this silence, you see a vast openness: distant mountains like a painting, a post-station pavilion standing by the stream. Climb up and look out—ten thousand acres of calm water, the bright moon mirrored in the heart of the lake, and a single boat cutting through with a splash. Again they asked, “Will you ferry across or not?” Three times still no answer. If you grasp the meaning, you take off your shoes and step aboard. The boatman said, “That will do.” Once aboard, it turned out to be a huge ship. The waves rose high; because the vessel was large, it did not capsize. When the water stilled, they had already reached the shore. At that moment body and mind were already in the realm of nothingness (wuhe you zhi xiang—a state empty of attachment, not clinging to phenomena), so when waves rose there was no alarm, and when they subsided there was no delight. The boatman showed clear approval. They went ashore together, yet the shoes had never been taken off. I did not feel anything extraordinary about myself, but the boatman praised me greatly and said, “In this way you already understand the matter of the xuanguan (the critical gate in internal alchemy where yin and yang meet and essence moves in and out).” As soon as he finished speaking, the shore was no longer a shore but a pure dwelling. Behind it stood a cliff face, and below lay a pool. A youth came in from outside and said, “There is a guest.” Going out to receive him, it was my master Wuyuan: without cap and scarf, dressed in blue-brown, leading four or five companions—two Yellow Caps (Daoist priests), three elders, and behind them a man in white—coming up the slope by a bamboo path. Seeing me, they bowed with great respect; I returned the courtesy. Just as we rose together, suddenly there was nothing seen and nothing heard, and I awoke; the water clock had already struck the third watch. This is precisely the subtle meaning of responsive resonance (yinggan—the mutual stirring of mind and circumstance), though I still do not know who the boatman was; I record it therefore for further inquiry.

Tiangang tidings: Tiangang is the handle of the Northern Dipper; here it denotes the celestial timing and the messages of firing times (huohou) that it reveals.

The Cantong Qi (Zhouyi Cantong Qi, Scripture of the Unity of the Three) says: Follow the Northern Dipper and keep pace with Yaoguang; hold the scales of balance to fix the threads of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi). Zhang Sanfeng says: Turn the Kui star with Heavenly Gang (Tiāngāng), twist the marker star on the Dipper’s handle—in one furnace refine the true sun and moon, and sweep away three thousand six hundred entanglements.

The way of cultivation requires understanding the messages of the Dipper Handle’s (Dougang) rotation before one can reverse creation, turn heaven and earth, and master yin-yang without being ruled by them.

Heavenly Gang is the seventh star of the Northern Dipper, also called Po Jun (Breaking Army), Yaoguang, or the marker star. It is a minister of the pole, wielding the scales of life and death and holding the handle of creation. It drives the Five Phases (Wuxing), turns the four seasons, and begets the myriad things; it is chief among the stars and hub of qi’s movement, bearing the heaviest duty and the greatest merit. Humans are born from the upright qi of heaven and earth and likewise carry this Heavenly Gang qi within, governing life and death and holding life in hand—its role is no different from the Dipper’s gang in the sky. Those who grasp this principle live; those blind to it die. Yet this gang star has pre-heaven and post-heaven aspects, and that distinction must be known.

The post-heaven gang star moves daily through the twelve meridians (the twelve main channels through which qi and blood circulate in the body), threading the blood vessels of the whole person. Those who “refine gang qi” aim to make the gang in the body match the gang in heaven, inner and outer becoming one qi, so as to ward off heterodox influences. Traced to its root, such practice looks outward and loses the inner, empty and unreal; before any outer benefit is gained, the self is already harmed.

The pre-heaven gang star is close to one’s true master within, like ruler and minister of one mind, moving together without conflict. When Primordial Yang (pre-heaven pure yang qi) is once scattered, pre-heaven falls into post-heaven, and it turns its back on the master to seek glory and colludes with outer foes: at first it still guards my life, then it turns to harm life—like a tiger fleeing west to lodge abroad, neither side caring for the other again. Why? Because where the gang star stays is inauspicious and where it points is auspicious; it no longer points at the master but seeks glory and joins outer bandits.

At first it could still protect and sustain my life; then it would turn to harm my life—like a tiger rushing west to lodge elsewhere, neither side looking after the other again. Why? Where the gang star (stars tied to the handle of the Northern Dipper—here, the pivot of qì mechanism) sits is inauspicious; where it points is auspicious. When it does not point at me but at the other party, living qi is on their side and killing qi is on mine; as killing qi keeps deploying, my life will collapse. Great cultivators seek the method of long life from “the other house” (the party opposed to me) precisely to obtain the living qi toward which the gang star points.

Taking qi never departs from the gang star: when it sits in my house, living qi is in his house; when it sits in his house, living qi is in mine. You must shift it so it sits in his house—only then is there accomplishment. The shifting method is not hard: simply twist his heel once and he turns his head to look back, returning home to recognize his ancestor (qì mechanism reverting to the source). This celestial mechanism does not rest in sound and form, nor in empty silence and extinction; it is not something ready-made that you originally possess, nor something you can seek and obtain outside the body—it is present and complete, bright and clear. When people meet it they do not recognize it and often miss it face to face. What is meant by “the star before Po Jun (the seventh star of the Big Dipper)—vow not to transmit to others” is exactly this.

So-called “not transmitting” is not truly not transmitting—it is fear of transmitting to the wrong person, whom ghosts and spirits cannot tolerate. For this is rare under heaven: one who obtains it can be master of his own birth and death, life and nature at ease, heaven and earth cannot command him, yin and yang cannot bind him. One who is not deeply loyal and filial cannot bear it; one who is not greatly virtuous and greatly worthy cannot carry it. The gentleman who obtains it can still rest content in poverty; the petty person who obtains it instead holds life cheap. This is absolutely not something side paths and outer schools can guess at in one or two strokes. Alas! One who awakens ascends to sagehood at once; one who is deluded and does not awaken sinks forever in the kalpa. The golden toad and jade old crow (hidden language in the elixir path for yin-yang pairings)—recognize them truly and you count as an adept. Pity that most people do not know this gang star.

This commentary means that students of the Way should sincerely treasure this passage as a precious guideline, because it is a secret path hidden by celestial beings. Wu Yuanzi (Liu Yiming), out of compassion, revealed the essential secret to this extent—I cannot express enough admiration on behalf of learners. Once you understand it and earnestly put it into practice, the Three Corpses (the three yin spirits said in Daoism to dwell within the body, drive desires, and record one’s faults) will naturally be extinguished. I have known this secret for forty-nine years and wished to make it public but never dared, fearing punishment. In former times Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) refined the returning elixir (huandan) three times and lost it three times, precisely because he had not yet obtained this secret; only after he received Cui Xifan’s Ruyao Jing (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine) and had it confirmed by Patriarch Zhong (Zhong Liquan) did he dare to apply the “secret reception of the Celestial Pivot” (tian gang mi shou—the secret transmission and use of the method for turning the Celestial Pivot). The Lü lineage has guarded this secret through generations; it is what is called the Tai Shang Xin Chuan (Heart Transmission of the Most High). Sages of old who obtained this secret could at most align with it in secret—they did not broadcast it. Students in the world know only to “turn the light inward” (fanzhao, gathering the heart-light to illuminate the self), yet how could they know that what is called secret reception is in fact this very method of turning the Celestial Pivot (gang xing)? This is what is meant by “the people may be made to follow it, but may not be made to understand it.” From this, learners have a compass: not only can the returning elixir be condensed, but one can also use it to cut off completely what must be cut off. My late master Master Taixu said: the reason the arcane path is step by step free of demonic hindrances is entirely due to this secret of turning the Celestial Pivot; to obtain it and know it in one’s own body is none other than turning the light inward and returning it (huiguang fanzhao). Since the master has already revealed it, I therefore rejoice privately on behalf of learners.

Sheng, sha, xing, de: four designations used in cultivation for the movement of qi. Sheng is growth, sha is gathering and cutting off, xing is binding and collecting, de is nurturing and transforming—they refer to the advance and retreat of yin and yang qi, not the infliction of life-and-death punishment on people.

The Yin Fu Jing says: when Heaven sets the killing mechanism in motion, the stars shift and the constellations change place; when Earth sets the killing mechanism in motion, dragons and serpents surge up from the ground; when human beings set the killing mechanism in motion, the order of Heaven and Earth is overturned. The Daode Jing says: weapons are inauspicious instruments—not what a person of noble character should rely on; they are used only when there is no alternative. From this we see that killing, though it injures the sprouting of life, can also be used to guard and preserve that sprouting; punishment and discipline (xing), though they harm De, can also be used to complete and fulfill De. The crux lies entirely in whether one can discern them with subtlety and apply them aptly—it all depends on the person.

After birth, one receives the nature of temperament and constitution (the dispositions that come with bodily qi), inherits the jing and blood qi of one’s parents, and on top of that bears the dust and grime accumulated by the acquired mind (shishen) through many kalpas, plus the turbidity of lifelong habits—throughout the body yin qi coils, while a trace of yang qi is secretly hidden within the “mountain of form” (the body), concealed and not yet manifest. What the ancients meant by “the body compounded of the four great elements is entirely yin; one does not know what yang essence truly is” refers to exactly this.

Yet though the whole body is yin, as long as one has not yet fallen into the post-heaven state, what still operates is the pre-heaven—yin qi cannot yet do harm. A person of great wisdom, at this stage, guards against danger and forestalls peril, firmly seals and protects the true yang (the pre-heaven pure yang qi), and does not allow post-heaven yin qi to intrude; one can then reach the other shore (the state of liberation) directly, and methods of punishment and killing need not be applied. Methods exist to remove harm; where there is no harm, methods have nowhere to apply—this is the situation in which punishment and killing are unnecessary.

When pre-heaven withdraws and post-heaven takes charge, yin qi erupts together: the whole body is ill—some ailments already active, some not yet manifest; some rooted in kalpas past, some taking root only in this life; some arising from nature, some from human artifice—strange in every way, demonic obstructions in countless forms. Without means to suppress yin and support yang, and to transform deviance and return to the correct, yin qi will grow day by day until it inevitably extinguishes that bit of yang qi and overturns and destroys life and fate. At that point, punishment and killing must be used.

Punishment, De, life, and killing depend on one another. Punishment is what completes De; De is what governs punishment. Killing is what guards and preserves the sprouting of life; generating and nurturing life is what remedies excess in killing. If one uses punishment without De, or kills without generating, punishment and killing become too harsh and inevitably harm harmonious qi; if one uses De without punishment, or generates without killing, the De of nurturing lacks authority and guest evils (intruding heterodox qi) will surely slip in through the gap. Therefore life and killing must be used together, punishment and De in parallel—only then are there no unforeseen disasters or immeasurable worries.

Punishment and killing are for resolving yin qi; generating and De are for preserving yang qi. When yang qi is vigorous, yin qi naturally recedes; when yin qi recedes, yang qi naturally stabilizes. Generating, killing, punishment, and De—are they merely small supplements? A cultivator who understands the pivot of punishment and De and knows how to deploy life and killing can punish when punishment is due, practice De when De is due, generate when generation is due, and kill when killing is due: De within punishment, life within killing; using punishment to preserve De, using killing to support life. Whether meeting adversity or following the flow, in urgency or ease, advance or retreat—all can be fitting. Nothing is absolutely forbidden, nothing absolutely mandatory; one applies them with ease.

Whether the paired forces of xing and de (restrictive and regenerative modes), generation and dissolution, and the work of gathering the medicine, refining it by fire phases, and gently nurturing it can take effect depends on what was already explained above. As for how to know and how to act, this section adds a solemn supplement. Within it are oral formulas for reaching true understanding and true attainment—nothing more than the four methods of grasping, holding, illuminating, and tending. When these four are carefully and fully in place, the signs of the opportune moment can always be discerned; one is not misled by the shifting transformations of Qi, xing-de and generation-dissolution can be applied rightly, and the Way of the elixir is thereby brought to completion. This is the great pivot of the discipline devoted to cultivating life; yet those whose cultivation of nature is not deep and sincere rarely find it anything but difficult.

The classic distinguishes higher De and lower De: higher De is wuwei (non-action), and does not even set the mind on acting; lower De is purposeful doing, and acts with intent. It also says that the person of higher De relies on the Dao to preserve the bodily form, while the person of lower De relies on techniques to extend life.

Ancient scriptures say: Those of upper De (Virtue) follow and allow Wuwei (non-action)—they do not deliberately set out to accomplish something; those of lower De act with purpose and do so with intent. They also say: Those of upper De use the Dao to preserve their bodily form; those of lower De use technical methods to extend their lifespan. Both statements concern how the bodies of those with upper and lower De differ, and how their practice operates differently.

Upper De refers to persons whose constitution is intact, whose De is complete, and whose Qian yang (the innate pure yang symbolized by the Qian hexagram) has not yet been harmed. “Not yet harmed” means the innate yang has not been depleted—not that the acquired body has never been damaged. When Qian yang is full, essence is utmost purity and all is one unified Qi; the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) gather as one, the four emblems (here, the inner configurations of dragon, tiger, vermilion bird, and dark warrior—Yin-Yang, water-fire, and the like) harmonize with one another, and every treasure is present. Without a method of guarding and holding, yang at its peak necessarily gives birth to yin, and fullness at its peak leads to loss. Those who understand quickly seek the oral instructions of an enlightened master and, before yin arises, apply the method of completing the bodily form through the Dao: they activate the natural true fire and refine away all yin in the body; they can employ the “six” (the number of yin, standing for yin’s operation) without being ruled by the “six,” thereby finishing acquired-stage work. When yin is exhausted and yang is pure, one may attain long life without death.

As for those of lower De, once yang has reached its peak and yin is born, the innate has already dispersed: the Five Phases separate, the four emblems cannot unite, and every treasure is lost. If one still cultivates with the way of Wuwei, it is like a cauldron (in Neidan, internal alchemy, the place of practice) with no seed—using water and fire to boil an empty pot: what use is that? Therefore one must steal Yin-Yang and seize creation’s turning, return from the acquired to the innate, so that what one originally possessed can be restored from nothing to something, lost and found again, and one’s household goods returned whole. When the original substance is restored, the root of life is firm; then one sets up cauldron and furnace anew (inner refinement likened to firing a furnace) and practices Wuwei, nurturing the sacred embryo (the achieved inner elixir, pictured as gestation) until, at ten months when Qi is full, one sheds the Dharma body (the body of accomplishment)—and then one joins those of upper De on the same path.

Later people did not understand what upper De and lower De mean and flatly said that leaking seminal fluid is lower De and intact seminal fluid is upper De—a gross error. The essence produced from male-female union is an acquired thing, turbidity within turbidity; how could it serve as proof?

The translation preserves the glossary terms, uses pinyin on first introduction where appropriate, and follows the paragraph structure of the original without adding a prefix.

What people call “breaking the body” at sixteen—the point when post-heaven refined essence begins to leak—is not determined by chronological age. The text cites “two eights make one jin; when yang reaches its peak, yin is born; after yin appears, essence appears.” Two eights sum to sixteen; in antiquity sixteen ounces also made one jin, a metaphor for the full measure of yin and yang. When yang develops to its limit, yin arises; only after yin appears does essence appear. That judgment follows the logic of yin and yang, not a birthday.

If one insisted on age alone, some people already have flowing essence at sixteen, some before sixteen, some after—how would that be explained? Clearly, upper virtue and lower virtue are not settled by post-heaven appearances but distinguished in innate endowment: intact innate endowment is upper virtue; impaired innate endowment is lower virtue. That is the settled view.

Again, those who do not understand the Great Dao may say life is heavy and nature light, or nature heavy and life light—both are wrong. Nature (xinxing) and life (the root of vital breath) must be cultivated together, and the work falls into two phases. For those of upper virtue, one need not cultivate life first and nature afterward; when nature is fulfilled, life is fulfilled with it. For those of lower virtue, one must cultivate life first, then nature; after life is fulfilled, nature must still be fulfilled. Fulfilling life employs youwei (deliberate, structured practice); fulfilling nature employs wuwei (non-forcing, non-artificiality). Youwei and wuwei exist precisely as entry methods suited to upper and lower virtue respectively. Once the Great Dao is complete, youwei is no longer needed—and wuwei is no longer needed either. Beyond that lies another turn of subtle application, no longer within the pair “being” and “non-being.”

Students who do not know the difference between upper and lower virtue, yet rush to grasp the gist of youwei and wuwei—how can they recognize true youwei and true wuwei? Without recognizing these two, nature cannot be made whole and life cannot be preserved. The full reason why nature and life matter is seen entirely through the distinction between upper and lower virtue. How can those who study the Dao fail to investigate this deeply?

Active Cultivation and Non-Action

The Wuzhen Pian (Understanding Reality) says: “Practice begins in youzuo (deliberate, structured work); others can hardly see it.” Each of these teachings counts as orthodox doctrine; later students should read them together for comparison, so they are recorded here as one set.

The Wuzhen Pian says: Cultivation starts in youzuo; others can hardly see it. When wuwei (non-action) is reached, everyone finally knows. People only see the subtlety of wuwei and do not realize that youzuo is the root. This is the rule for how one applies effort from the beginning to the end of true cultivation. Later people do not understand what “youzuo” refers to. Some circulate qi at the zi and wu hours; some turn the “river chariot” (a metaphor for internal qi circulation); some speak of heart and kidney joining; some of the ren and du vessels meeting; some gather qi at the back of the head; some drive qi toward the crown; some only regulate breath; some refine the jing of sexual union; some perform “flying golden essence from behind the elbow” (a method of guiding refined qi upward); some shake bones and swing marrow; some swallow the essence of sun and moon; some ingest cloud-and-roselight qi; some use furnace fire to refine metal and stone; some borrow “bedchamber elixir” through yünnü techniques (the language of sexual arts); some refine tian gang qi; some gather the jing of the five viscera. Such methods number more than a thousand. The paths differ, but clinging to outer appearances is the same. To take these as the Way of youzuo is far off the mark.

The practices criticized above are indeed not the Great Dao; even if one still undertakes them, calling them “far off” is because they are merely youzuo. As I understand it, furnace fire and yünnü methods are also ancient, yet those whose five viscera are weak must never ingest metal and stone; those whose physical body is not yet transformed and who have not yet attained the body outside the body (achievement beyond the flesh) must never rely on yünnü for benefit. Apart from these two gates, if the oral instructions are not authentic, one must not try them in person. That is what the prior master’s teaching says. Wuwuzi’s blanket rejection is likewise born of caution.

People do not truly understand what Wuwei (non-action) really is. Some guard the Huangting (the middle palace in Daoist inner vision), some fix attention on the fontanel, some gaze at the tip of the nose, some visualize the Mingtang (the area between the eyebrows), some hold at a point below the navel, some fix on the Jiaji (the pass in the middle of the spine), some contemplate emptiness, some contemplate the mind, some stop thoughts, some forget the body, some in stillness silently pay homage to the Supreme Lord, some concentrate on their shadow and form, some imagine the spirit-soul leaving the physical shell. There are more than a thousand such methods. Where they apply the mind differs, yet they all alike cling to “emptiness.” To take these as the Way of Wuwei is a grave mistake.

[Of the practices listed above, except for the two gates of “mirroring the form” and “thinking on the spirit,” which should not be learned, the rest may all be used to support progress on the Way—only one must not insist that they are the Great Way itself. This is what the former master handed down.]

Clinging to emptiness or clinging to form is still merely making a living on the stinking skin-bag of the flesh, expending effort on a broken sack of a body. How could they know that the Way of sages and worthies neither rests in emptiness nor fixates on form, and that within it there is something that is neither emptiness nor color (tangible appearance)?

[The critique here is correct. If one understands that this is using the false to return to the true, that is the proper path of cultivating truth. Students should grasp this, so as not to fail the author’s painstaking intent.]

So-called “youwei” (positive, restorative cultivation) is not forced contrivance or hard striving. Once one’s innate endowment from before Heaven is buried, nature and life are no longer stable; without the method of grafting (reconnecting what has been depleted) and the work of returning (restoring what was originally there), how can one extend years and complete the Great Way? Youwei means finding back what was lost and returning what was always there. That is the principle of stealing Yin-Yang, seizing creation and transformation, and turning life and death. When aligned with what is before Heaven, Heaven does not go against it; when one reaches what is after Heaven, one follows the seasons of Heaven. Ghosts and spirits cannot know it; yarrow stalks and tortoise shells cannot fathom it. How could ordinary people see it? Because people cannot see it, it is not a matter of clinging to outer appearances at all.

This line of argument is correct. But one must understand: if the Three Passes (three qi bottlenecks in the body) and the Nine Orifices are not open, and qi and blood are blocked, one can barely keep up with healing—how can one speak of undertaking distant “grafting and joining” (a class of internal alchemy practice that replenishes primordial qi through continuity)? What the ancient sages pointed to was precisely laying the foundation for cultivating this great Way. If it is not for that purpose, one is only seeking a way out in the “stinking skin-bag” (the physical body)—how can that not be refuted?

So-called wuwei (non-action) is not the dead silence of withered wood and cold ash. Because the true seed (the seed of innate primordial origin) cannot be obtained without methods to gather it. Once it is obtained and the original returns to the body, one must at once seal and store it firmly, bathe and nurture it (gentle guarding and warming), guard against danger and anticipate peril, and preserve this original so it is not lost again after being gained.

This line of argument is extremely apt. But one must understand: the loss of the true seed comes from disturbance in the mind. Having used methods to gather it back, how can one not urgently practice methods such as stopping thoughts and contemplating emptiness? Moreover, inner contemplation, outer contemplation, and distant contemplation come from the Scripture of Clarity and Stillness (Taishang Laojun’s Constant Clarity and Stillness Classic). On the aim of stopping thoughts, Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) did he not say: a Daoist must first stop thoughts—if thoughts do not stop, everything else is in vain? Then how can formulas for stopping thoughts and contemplating emptiness be rejected wholesale? What Wuyuanzi (Liu Yiming) refutes is taking withered stillness and dead emptiness as the Dao.

When there is a body outside the body (a yang spirit that can come and go), great spiritual powers, and utmost sincerity enabling foreknowledge—who does not know these? At first one seeks in “another’s house” (external methods and qi); in the end one must preserve “one’s own house” (one’s innate origin)—that is the relation between youwei (deliberate action) and wuwei. To grasp the subtle meaning of “know where it begins and start from the beginning; know where it ends and complete the end”—can those who cling only to form or to stubborn emptiness glimpse its bounds? If students meet a clear teacher, they should first seek the way of youwei, then the way of wuwei, and further the way in which neither being nor non-being is established—only then can cultivation be fully awakened, and one avoid having a beginning without an end or stopping halfway. Students should strive with effort.

By this point, students of the Way should understand why refutation and debate are necessary. What those people cultivate knows only one side and not the other, so their clinging must be challenged. Wuyuanzi (the Daoist name of Qing-dynasty master Liu Yiming) was in fact deeply versed in the Golden Elixir path (the fundamental method rooted in internal alchemy); how could he transmit everything at once? He had to begin by teaching breath regulation, opening the passes and orifices, and similar practices, and only then continue with recovering scattered primordial qi and returning to the original source. Once Lingyuan (the innate, luminous primordial qi and spirit) is restored, by right one must restrain and still thoughts. One engages in contemplating emptiness (guankong), guiding the Gang qi (the true qi symbolized by the Big Dipper) in inward reflection—only then will what has been restored not be lost again; the secret of firm sealing and storing lies precisely here. This is neither attachment to being nor attachment to nonbeing. Without debate and refutation, people cannot be led to insight—that is the earnest intent behind setting forth arguments. How can students of the Way fail to examine this with care?

Zi, Wu, Mao, and You

The ancient classics say: there is no need to seek zi and wu at the edge of heaven—within the body itself lies the birth of one yang. They also say: the winter solstice is not fixed at zi; mao and you are merely nominal comparisons. Thus zi, wu, mao, and you have no fixed hour and no fixed direction. What are called zi, wu, mao, and you are only names taken by analogy according to principle.

When yang first stirs, it is called zi; when yin first stirs, it is called wu. Where yang and yin meet is mao; where yin and yang meet is you. Speaking in terms of timing, these are the points where yin and yang arise and reach fullness; speaking in terms of position, they are where yin and yang stand centered and upright. Thus zi, wu, mao, and you are fixed by yin and yang—not the other way around.

When yang has just been born, yang must be advanced at once and must not be allowed to drain away; hence the saying “at zi, advance the yang fire” (in Neidan, at the moment yang appears, strengthen the fire phase and nurture yang). When yin has just been born, yin must be withdrawn at once and must not be allowed to swell unchecked; hence “at wu, withdraw the yin talisman” (at the moment yin appears, curb yin’s influence).

When advancing yang reaches the middle and upright point, yang becomes even; then one should pause and use yin to balance, lest excessive hardness turns restless—hence “at mao, mu-yu is appropriate” (mu-yu means suspending aggressive firing and warming the practice in gentle harmony). When withdrawing yin reaches the middle and upright point, yin becomes smooth; then one should stop and use yang to balance, lest excessive softness turns timid—hence “at you, mu-yu is appropriate.”

Zhang Sanfeng (a Daoist Neidan master) said, “When you meet zi and wu, apply the fire phase single-mindedly; when you meet mao and you, bathe the Golden Elixir”—exactly this meaning.

Later heterodox paths without true transmission took the celestial zi, wu, mao, and you as clock hours: guarding the kidneys at zi, settling the heart at wu, sitting quietly at mao and you; or nourishing yang at the winter solstice and restraining yin at the summer solstice, doing nothing in the mao and you months. That is heaven’s zi, wu, mao, and you—what has that to do with me? Heaven has its timing; I have mine. Humans are born endowed with the upright qi of heaven and earth; the body already carries heaven-and-earth’s creative work and already has yin and yang within—why seek yin and yang of heaven and earth outside again?

If a person seeks only the yin and yang of heaven and earth, that is merely the yin and yang of the post-heaven realm—already formed, with shape and image. How could such seeking restore one’s innate supreme yang qi and rise above post-heaven yin and yang? Post-heaven yin and yang follow the course of creation and transformation; there is birth and there is death. If one clings to post-heaven methods in cultivation, one can never escape the refining of the Five Phases (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth). When the four elements (earth, water, fire, wind—the constituents of the physical body) disperse, the slightest trace of spirit-consciousness is hard to retain, and one inevitably migrates elsewhere to find a new dwelling. Only at zhi wu mao you (midnight, noon, dawn, and dusk—the four critical junctures of yin-yang advance and retreat in Neidan) can one find a foothold—not by seeking within the body, nor by seeking outside the body, but broadly by seeking within emptiness and non-being.

What is called “yang arising” is not the body moving, not the heart-mind moving, not the kidneys moving, nor the eyes, ears, nose, or tongue moving. It is Kun carrying Zhen—pure yin Kun gestating the Zhen trigram, the first stir of yang. It is the pre-heaven manifesting within the post-heaven. What is called “yin arising” is not spirit growing dim, not qi turning turbid, not essence leaking, nor the six sense-objects (form, sound, scent, taste, touch, and mental objects) stirring one. It is Qian hiding Xun—pure yang Qian concealing the Xun trigram below, the first appearance of yin. It is the post-heaven suddenly entering the pre-heaven. When yang advances and returns to the central path, half of the pre-heaven is restored. When yin retreats and returns to the central path, half of the post-heaven is dissolved. Then one applies the yang fire and withdraws the yin talisman (matching the rise of yang and fall of yin to regulate the firing process), yin and yang balance each other, neither the greater nor the lesser is harmed, and both sides are preserved. The utmost centrality and rectitude of heaven and earth lie here; the teaching of the sages to hold fast to the one with pure concentration (jingyi zhizhong) also lies here. If the learner can investigate to this point, the subtlety of true cultivation becomes clear. Yet most people mistake these four moments and refuse to investigate carefully—why is this?

What a compassionate revelation! He actually set forth in full the esoteric experiences he had lived through, and had them carved on pear wood for printing so they would circulate for a long time. What philosophers of old never dared to disclose, Wuyuanzi (Qing-dynasty Daoist Liu Yiming) accomplished. Later students may truly burn incense and bow in homage, thank Heaven and Earth, straighten their robes and kowtow toward the void, and again express sincere gratitude: to encounter this book is indeed good fortune.

Alas! What the Yinfu Jing calls the “living zi and living wu” at the moment when “Heaven and human activate together”—not the fixed clock hours of zi and wu, but the timing that appears when celestial time and the breath in the human body align—has any of the myriad volumes on the elixir ever leaked it? Our Lüzong (precept-keeping lineage of the Dao) transmits the Tianxian precepts by mouth alone; Wuyuanzi had them carved and printed. After publication, this is what Heaven has conferred; it is also the turning of the Dao community’s qi-yun (fortune in the Way). One who obtains this secret gist—how dare he be arrogant and careless? The Tianlü (Heavenly Precepts) say: to treat the true formula with arrogance and neglect is to cut away the linggen (root of spiritual capacity) and block the xuanqiao (mysterious aperture); to confer it privately without prior warning brings disaster upon ancestors for nine generations. How could one be negligent? My master Taixuweng said: if the master has warned and the other will not listen, the fault is not the master’s; the recipient must hold it in awe and must not treat it lightly or defile it. Because this book sets down secret gist rarely leaked in the past, how could I fail to inform fellow practitioners?

Sheng si you wu—life and death, being and non-being.

The Yijing says: “In the southwest one finds companions; in the northeast one loses companions” (from the judgment of the Kun hexagram— broadly, turning toward the southwest brings kindred support, turning toward the northeast brings loss of kindred). The Yinfu Jing (Huangdi Yinfu Jing, a classic Daoist scripture) says: “Life is the root of death; death is the root of life.” Such sayings point to the root of life and death and to the pivot between being (you) and non-being (wu).

Practitioners who do not grasp this principle often take “having breath” as life and “having no breath” as death. Alas—to fix life, death, being, and non-being by that alone is far wide of the mark.

Human life and death do involve breath-Qi, yet the root does not lie in breathing itself. From birth, the body holds innate Jing, Qi, and Shen to nourish the Dharma body (the “true body” of Neidan); from outside it receives acquired Jing, Qi, and Shen to sustain the illusory body (the flesh-and-blood form). At “double-eight” age (sixteen), the acquired begins to govern and the innate steps back; following ordinary creation-and-transformation, Yang-Qi wanes and Yin-Qi waxes, and the root of life and death is fixed at that moment. Day after day, year after year, Yin flourishes while Yang declines; upright Qi cannot overcome yin influence; within a single day myriad births and deaths occur. When Yang is exhausted and only pure Yin remains, who can avoid returning to the great transformation (dissolution and death)?

As for infants and young children who die before fully handing over to the acquired—this is simply because their allotted innate endowment is insufficient: Yang-Qi cannot arise, and in time it disperses on its own.

Only the great cultivator knows the pass of life and death and understands the subtlety of being and non-being. At the source where this body receives Qi and life begins, he works against the usual course of creation (Neidan’s “reverse cultivation”: not following the acquired in outward dissipation, but turning inward in return). He both helps Yang-Qi grow step by step and restrains Yin-Qi from forming step by step; moreover he can keep Yang-Qi living long without dying, and Yin-Qi dying long without reviving. “Seeking life within death” and “generating being from non-being” mean precisely this.

Ancient immortals said: When the conscious spirit (shi-shen—the mind-spirit of posterior awareness) is born, it must die in the end; when the original spirit (yuan-shen—the innate primordial true Shen) seems to die, it can in fact be reborn. Awakening to Reality also says: You must turn the gate of death into the gate of life, and not stubbornly call the gate of life the gate of death. That gate of life and gate of death are not in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or intention; not in Jing, Shen, hun, po, Qi, or blood; not in the five viscera and six bowels; and not in the hundred vessels of the whole body or the three Dantian (upper, middle, and lower energy centers). They lie in the vast empty valley that the four great elements (earth, water, fire, and wind—the tangible physical form) cannot touch—clear and bright, fully present and ready-made, there all along. Only people refuse to resolve themselves; they are scattered by worldly affairs, bound by affection, and dazzled by wealth and desire, so they meet it face to face yet do not know it, and let the treasure slip by when it is right before them. Those who truly grasp the principle fix on this portal and stand firm; where life arises they return to the root origin, where death occurs they turn back to the foundation. White emerges from black; the male harbors the female (Yin and Yang mutually contain each other, and the true mechanism shows itself). To seek long life without death—what difficulty is there?

What is called “life” is giving birth to the true body; what is called “death” is letting the illusory body die. If the illusory body does not die, the true body can hardly escape; if the true body is not born, the illusory body cannot die either. Life and death cannot coexist; the true and the illusory do not follow the same path. This is unlike heterodox side paths that take the life and death of the illusory body as real and the life and death of the true body as false; that treat innate empty-and-void Qi as false and posterior breath Qi as true.

Those who study the Dao and wish to escape birth and death must first thoroughly investigate the principle of birth and death. When the principle is clear, one can attain long life without death, and then reach the state of no birth and no death. Only when cultivation reaches no birth and no death has one truly settled birth and death. This is what Zhuangzi meant by “gather in the spirit and live long; forget the spirit and be without birth.” When birth and death are understood to this point, life and death are equalized, being and non-being are no longer clung to, and the great Dao can be fulfilled.

When discussion of the Dao reaches this depth, how many people in the world truly understand? It is not that they do not know—they simply will not speak plainly. My teacher, the venerable Taixu Weng (a senior in Neidan), if he did not speak, would say nothing; once he spoke, he would explain it through to the end. Fearing that later students would be misled, he dared not leave things vague or silent.

“Pre-heaven and post-heaven Kan and Li” refers to Kan and Li in their pre-heaven and post-heaven aspects. Neidan often uses post-heaven imagery, treating the heart as Li (fire) and the kidneys as Kan (water). The scripture, however, says: there is another locus, wondrous upon wondrous—the heart and kidneys in themselves are not Kan and Li. The secret here can be stated openly: the Kan and Li that are taken up are not the physical heart and kidneys of the body. The venerable Taixu Weng, if he did not speak, would say nothing; when he spoke, he was always thorough. I fear misleading later students, so I dare not leave this unclear.

The scripture says: “There is yet another thing, strange upon strange: the heart and the kidney were never Kan and Li to begin with.” This layer of the secret can only be told to those who already understand; it is hard to make clear to those who do not. Pre-heaven creation has no form and no image; it neither clings to “being” nor falls into “non-being.” Though itself formless, it can give rise to what has form; though itself imageless, it can give rise to what has image. How could such pre-heaven reality be identified with the heart and kidney as Kan and Li?

Heart and kidney are post-heaven organs with form and image. They are not only not pre-heaven Kan and Li—they are not even post-heaven Kan and Li; they are merely the dregs left over from post-heaven Kan and Li.

True Kan and Li must be understood through water and fire: Kan is water, Li is fire. Within water hides true yang; within fire hides true yin. This true yin and true yang are the qi of Qian and Kun—firm, yielding, and centrally balanced. Thus Kan and Li inherit from Qian and Kun.

Originally yin and yang were one qi. Once pre-heaven Taiji (Supreme Ultimate) divided, yin and yang appeared. When yin and yang emerged, Qian and Kun interacted: the yang in Qian went to Kun’s place, and the yin in Kun entered Qian’s place. Qian thus became hollow within and turned into Li; Kun thus became solid within and turned into Kan. Pre-heaven Qian and Kun thereby became post-heaven Kan and Li.

Li means yang has departed; Kan means true yang is trapped within. The Li trigram is yang outside and yin inside—the yang is not solid, so the outer yang is false. The Kan trigram is yin outside and yang inside—true yang is covered and trapped by yin, so the outer yin is also false. Yang is not pure, yin is not genuine: this is post-heaven Kan and Li.

Although the outer yin and yang are not true, the yin hidden within yang is still true yin, and the yang hidden within yin is still true yang: true yin lies within false yang, and true yang lies within false yin. In Neidan (internal alchemy) terms, what is to be gathered is precisely this true yin and true yang hidden inside false yin and yang—not the visible heart and kidney.

True Yin is concealed within false Yang, and true Yang is concealed within false Yin—this is the pre-heaven Kan-Li (Kan as Water, Li as Fire; here meaning the pre-heaven true Yin and true Yang) hidden within the post-heaven realm. Pre-heaven and post-heaven have nothing to do with the heart and kidneys as such. Later generations of Daoist practitioners not only fail to understand the pre-heaven, but do not even grasp the post-heaven: they take heart and kidneys alone as the real Kan and Li, or treat male and female as Kan and Li—an error of the gravest kind.

Human Kan-Li are like the sun and moon in the sky. As sun and moon cycle and move, they drive the four seasons and give life to the ten thousand things; in the person, when Kan-Li stir and rest, they harmonize Shen (spirit) and Qi (vital energy) and guard life and nature (xing and ming). In heaven the sun and moon have no fixed place—how then could human Kan-Li occupy fixed positions?

Once a person enters the post-heaven state and follows ordinary creation, false Yin-Yang hold sway while true Yin-Yang lie hidden; pre-heaven is veiled by post-heaven and cannot show itself—hence birth and death, and no enduring life without death.

Only a great practitioner who knows both pre-heaven Kan-Li and post-heaven Kan-Li can return from post-heaven to pre-heaven and walk the path of immortality within the ordinary way: draw the pre-heaven true Yang qi hidden in Kan to fill Li, and return the pre-heaven true Yin qi hidden in Li to Kan. Then the post-heaven Yin-Yang of Kan and Li merge and revert to their true nature—again Qian (Heaven) and Kun (Earth) unite, Yin and Yang become one qi, and Taiji (the Supreme Ultimate) is complete. As an old saying puts it: “Pre-heaven qi, post-heaven qi—whoever obtains both is often as if slightly drunk” (when one holds both pre-heaven and post-heaven qi, it is like mild intoxication).

Ancient immortals said: a speck of Yang essence is secretly stored within the form-mountain (the human body)—not in heart or kidneys, but in the Mysterious Pass, the single aperture (xuanguan yiqiao, the pivotal site of inner cultivation). From this one knows that heart and kidneys do not hold this Yang essence and are not true Kan-Li. As for the pre-heaven great Dao, there is also a Kan-Li that borrows Yin to hide Yang and Yang to withdraw Yin—a separate secret, not the usual pre-heaven and post-heaven distinction. Alas! Whether one can illuminate these principles depends entirely on the person. Kan-Li are not easily understood.

(Annotation) This discussion is very precise. If one can grasp it, one will understand that what is meant by Kan and Li (Kan is water, Li is fire—in internal alchemy they stand for the pairing of yin-yang and water-fire), whereby yin wraps and holds yang and yang in turn is borrowed to dissolve yin, holds a further hidden meaning and does not belong to the same kind of classification as “pre-heaven” and “post-heaven.” Alas! Whether one can intuit it inwardly depends entirely on the practitioner. Kan and Li are not easy to understand!

(Annotation) This discussion is very precise. If one can grasp it, the oral formulas of the practice stand out clearly—deeply attaining the subtle points of what the ancients transmitted—not merely “waking the deaf and opening the eyes of the blind.”

Refining the self and establishing the foundation (Neidan entry: first refine and nurture one’s own mind-nature and lay a solid root).

Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) said: Whether the sevenfold return that forms the elixir—bringing Jing, Qi, and Shen back to their source—can succeed depends entirely on oneself; one must first refine the self (lianji) and wait for the right moment. Ziyang (Zhang Boduan) said: To complete the nine transformations, one must first refine the self and guard the heart. The Cantong (Zhouyi Cantong qi) says: Begin with rectitude and the final cultivation can be completed; when the Qian body stands firm, one must not yet cling rigidly. Therefore, to walk the great path of the Golden Elixir, one cannot do without refining the self and laying the foundation.

Refining the self and laying the foundation are not two separate matters but one and the same principle. Laying the foundation is not apart from refining the self; refining the self is within laying the foundation. It is not refining the self first and then laying the foundation elsewhere, nor finishing the foundation and then returning to refine the self. “Refining the self” speaks from the angle of applied effort; “laying the foundation” speaks from consolidating Qi. When refining the self is pure and mature, there is hope for returning the elixir; when the foundation is solid, the spirit chamber (where the original spirit is settled) can stand steady. Are refining the self and laying the foundation trivial matters?

Patriarch Lü attained the returned elixir only on the third attempt because his self-refinement was not yet fully mature; Ziqing (Bai Yuchan) met wind and thunder at midnight because his foundation was not yet firm. These two were the eyes and ears among immortals and leaders in the teaching—yet when their work was incomplete they still could not finish the circle; how much more so for others?

What is refining the self and laying the foundation? “Self” means selfish desire—having a self, having “me”; “foundation” means solid ground, the root. People fail to become Dao because of this me-and-self. Once me-and-self appear, private motives fill the person and one cannot stand on solid ground; a hundred demons and a thousand obstructions block the spiritual aperture—every step is yin-stagnant, every affair muddled. The six thieves (attachments of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) swarm; the seven emotions band together; conscience is lost, true nature is harmed, the root of life is shaken, spirit grows dim and Qi turbid—everywhere are deluded and deviant thoughts. In such a state, can one still advance in virtue, cultivate the work, and achieve the great Dao? One cannot.

The patriarchs teach people to refine the self and lay the foundation first so that they work on real ground, from low to high, shallow to deep, step by step. From birth onward, the illusory body carries the essence-blood Qi of one’s parents, hides the yin quality of the acquired consciousness (shishen) accumulated through kalpas, and is also steeped in postnatal Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) Qi.

In human beings, both inner and outer aspects are wholly yin in character; only a trace of yang essence—the primordial point of true yang before birth—lies concealed and never shows itself. Correct qi cannot prevail over deviant qi; deviant qi veils correct qi. That yin is the yin amassed over countless kalpas of rebirth by the acquired consciousness mind (shishen), further tainted by the qi of the postnatal Five Phases (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—the temperament received after birth). Hence inside and outside are purely yin, and yang essence remains hidden. Unless the yin within and without is refined away through the firing process, how can yang essence return and manifest? Therefore the work of refining oneself (lianji) and laying the foundation (zhuji) cannot be skipped. Refining oneself means cultivating one’s heart-nature; laying the foundation means establishing a stable base for deeper practice.

The key points are these. Restraining anger and blocking desires is refining oneself. Feeling cool and detached toward worldly affairs is refining oneself. Forgetting lust and severing idle thoughts is refining oneself. Not indulging in wealth and rank, not abandoning integrity in poverty, is refining oneself. Not craving fame and gain, not clinging to sounds and sights, is refining oneself. Being willing to lose for others’ gain and humbly learning from others is refining oneself. Doing all good and avoiding all evil is refining oneself. Holding firm to one’s aim and advancing boldly is refining oneself. Once the resolve is fixed, never changing it until death, is refining oneself.

Keeping yin essence secure and not harming spirit and qi is laying the foundation. Releasing the whole body and emptying both things and self is laying the foundation. Taking heaven and earth as one’s embrace and the ten thousand things as one’s own body is laying the foundation. Not deceiving oneself in secret, not failing in conduct even in a dark room, is laying the foundation. Not fearing the tiger and rhinoceros (ferocious beasts), not bowing to overwhelming force, is laying the foundation. “Birth and death” means human life and death.