Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
At a certain stage of practice, some people's physiological energy may rush about at random. If it rushes into the central channel, rises to the crown, and supplies the lotus bud—this lotus bud being our head—the head receives this energy and is no longer short of oxygen. At this stage one may need no sleep through all six periods of day and night, or may sleep very little, and one is not drowsy.
Even if you reach this stage, if you do not have enough energy continually sent upward, it cannot burst out and will come back down. When it comes down, the brain is again short of oxygen, and you have to sleep soundly every day and live without energy.
At this time you cannot sleep soundly, yet without sleep you have no energy, because the energy has gone down. During this stage when the energy descends, physiological desire is especially strong. If you understand that this is a physiological reaction of practice, you can, guided by correct methods of practice, preserve this energy and not let it turn into later-heaven energy and be secreted away. At this time you must rely on the “method” (that is, technique)!
Keep this energy and let it rise once more, continually supplying the lotus bud, and the bud at once has ample energy again and is no longer short of oxygen. At this time there will be a crackling in your head like firecrackers going off; you may hear the sound of thunder, drums, bells, and so on. Between the eyebrows it is like thunder and lightning! If at this stage the energy below is still continually sent upward, the lotus bud may suddenly pop open, and it will burst out!
If at this stage your energy leaks away below—for example, through marital relations, or when desire arises—the energy will come down again. Once it comes down, your desire will be even stronger.
When this stage has passed, because your resolve to practice has not faded and you keep practicing, the energy comes up once more, and reactions appear in the mind again, along with certain illusory scenes—for example, seeing light, hearing sounds, seeing images of divinities or patriarchs, and so on. These are all called “scenery along the way”! They are definitely not the destination.
If your energy is not continually sent upward, it is only enough to serve the lotus bud (the brain) for a while; without enough energy to swell the bud open, it will swirl in the bud for a time and then come back down. If no desire arises below, this energy stays above, swirling in the brain, and does not come down again.
As soon as physiological desire arises below, the energy in the brain comes down at once, and once it has come down, it is very hard work to make it spring back up; at this point you must have a method. Even if you can make it spring back up, the lotus bud will not necessarily open, because a method is still needed here. For this energy in the body does not come up just because you want it up, nor go down just because you want it down. It may often stay here in the middle, which is why many practitioners suffer chest tightness, stomach bleeding, or relapses of heart disease—because none of them know the methods for dealing with it.
As I said just now, even if you open the whole passage and go out, this still does not count as completion; it can only be said that a certain phase of your practice may come to an end. Only after you go out does real practice begin. You may then ask: where does this force in the body come from? This energy was originally present above, from prior heaven; it arrives at the very instant one is conceived.
Speaking of this, we can widen the topic a little. Why are some practitioners especially perceptive, some people especially clever, quick, and highly intelligent, while others are especially slow? Why do some people have especially poor memories, unable to recall what they have done, while others still remember things from when they were two or three? This has to do with how long the spirit-body dwells in the womb!
For example, if a spirit-body flies in at the instant the parents make love and conception occurs, and dwells in the mother's womb for ten months, such people are especially slow, have almost no spiritual acuity, and usually have low intelligence. If it enters only when the mother is four or five months pregnant and dwells in the womb for only five months before birth, such people are rather more clever.
A very few people have spirit-bodies that fly into the womb only when the mother is about to give birth; that is, they dwell in the womb for only an hour or two. The spiritual acuity of such people is not obscured; they are not asleep or drowsy, and they know how to practice from birth. Even if they know nothing of religion, their speech, conduct, and self-cultivation all meet the standard of a person cultivating the Tao.
Why do some spirit-bodies dwell in the womb for only an hour or two, or even only a few minutes, while others dwell for several months, and still others for ten months? This is karma. In the final analysis it is all karma!
So we who are able to study the Tao here can be sure that none of us dwelt in the womb for a full ten months; perhaps only a month or two, and some even only a few hours or minutes! That is why many of us here were able to be ordained as children. Because the spirit-body dwelt in the mother's womb for only a few hours, it is not drowsy and does not fall asleep. Once born, their thinking and minds still follow the ways of a practitioner, so they can be ordained from childhood.
Since this force entered the body from above, there is good reason to make it spring back out of the body and answer the force above, because it is itself a force that comes from above! But after this force came down, we have not used a method to make it spring back up and rise against the current.
Once this force rises, since the force above naturally descends, it will naturally join with the force above. At that point, even if you wanted to lose your resolve for the Tao, you could not! If you wanted to lose your resolve for the Tao, your body would not cooperate. Have you heard that in Tantric Buddhism and Taoism, after practice reaches a certain stage, the physiological (sexual) function is lost? At that point, even if you deliberately engage in marital relations, your body no longer cooperates.
Because this energy of your body has joined tightly with the energy above and is connected to it, it no longer goes downward. Since it no longer goes downward, the physiological function is lost. Have you heard of what Taoism calls subduing the white tiger and beheading the red dragon? Or what Buddhism calls “the mark of the retracted male organ, like a horse's”? It is all the same principle!
But what about us now? Even if in your mind you do not wish to engage in marital relations, the energy of your body forces you to. Even if you do not act on it, the energy of your body forces your mind to think about it! Because you have no way to transform this force of the body and make it rise, the energy now goes downward, and once it goes downward, the body pulls on your mind.
When one day this energy of yours turns round and rises, goes out, and joins tightly with the energy outside, you will feel that you are one body with all things, that heaven and earth share one root with you! Only then will you know that it is not going forward but going back—returning to your own source, your own homeland. There is nothing else to it: you merely came down from above, wandered about for a while, and at last returned to your homeland!
Many people do not cultivate that thing in their lifetime so that it answers what is above. When their life comes to an end, there is no force to hold the qi that came down from prior heaven, and that force will also go out.
Where does it go? It goes wherever your karma takes it. If in life your habit of cultivating the Tao was strong, it enters the level of those who cultivate the Tao; if in life your greed was strong, it enters the realm of hungry ghosts or the realm of animals.