Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Why is the lotus bud shriveled and unable to open? Because the energy below has not been sent up. Why is the mind dull? Because one has not achieved full “returning the essence to replenish the brain.” This “essence” means prior-heaven primordial qi, and definitely not the later-heaven sperm that can produce offspring.
Later-heaven sperm is produced because strong desire causes prior-heaven primordial qi to sink into later-heaven sperm. This energy of the body is the light of spirit at the crown of our head; in the middle of the body (around the chest) it is qi—and this “qi” is definitely not the qi of breathing. The qi of breathing only serves as a match. When a person has desire, the qi keeps sinking, falling, and descending, stays in the lower half of the body, and turns entirely into essence; this “essence” is the later-heaven essence that can produce offspring. If there is no desire, it keeps its prior-heaven essence and spirit, that is, “primordial qi.”
Since it is prior-heaven primordial qi, it enters the prior-heaven track, that is, it enters the central channel and is sent to the lotus bud at the crown. Our energy now cannot keep its prior-heaven primordial qi, so it cannot enter the track of prior heaven; and precisely because it has turned into later-heaven energy, it inevitably takes the later-heaven passage—leaking away below!
Why do the great majority of religions require restraint of desire? Restraint of desire taken to the extreme is celibacy. If you have not subdued your physiological desire, the more you practice celibacy in your mind, the stronger your physiological desire becomes. When there is no physiological desire, it is because your physiological energy has already been subdued, has kept its prior-heaven primordial qi, and has entered its prior-heaven track, so there is no later-heaven physiology or physiological desire.
It is like a person who is hungry: if you tell yourself by suggestion “don't be hungry,” you are still hungry; and if you have eaten your fill and tell yourself by suggestion to be “hungry,” you still do not feel “hungry.” For in ordinary people the body always influences the mind; only bodhisattvas of the ninth or tenth bhumi can influence and transform the body with the mind!
Since none of us has reached the level of a bodhisattva of the ninth or tenth bhumi, we have no way to subdue the body with the mind, and can only cultivate the body. Yet many people do not know the method of cultivating the body, and even if they know it and cultivate the body well, that is only a foundation for cultivating the Tao. For cultivating the Tao consists of two systems of work and procedure: cultivating the body and cultivating the mind.
In fact we should find a way to bring body and mind into harmony and unity; only when this is done can we speak of entering the gate of cultivating the Tao. Only when body and mind are balanced and in harmony can the energy in the body keep its prior-heaven primordial qi and continually enter its prior-heaven track, being sent to the lotus bud.
Only after the lotus bud has opened and something has gone out can we speak of completely casting off this thing, the body. Only then does practice truly begin, and only then can we speak of no longer needing this physical body—this “stinking skin-bag”! But we have not gone out at all and have not left the body, so we have no reason not to cherish this “stinking skin-bag”!
Even if you can leave the body and go out, with that thing constantly following along above, and even if your cultivation is complete, you still have to come back, back into this stinking skin-bag. If you are to spread the teaching and deliver living beings, you must still cherish this physical body.
Why do so many people today lack physical strength? Many of you here are losing your hair, going gray too early, with wrinkled, sallow skin; people in their twenties and thirties have the physical strength of old men and women of seventy or eighty! The little energy in your bodies is not enough to cultivate the Tao—it is not even enough to sustain life!
If the energy in your body is not even enough for your body's own consumption, where would the surplus energy for cultivating the Tao come from? If your physical strength fails, your mental strength will not last long either, let alone your boldness and bearing! You have boldness and bearing because your body has energy as a foundation, helped further by the energy of your mind; only then can you have boldness and bearing.
If a person wants to live long and cultivate the Tao, the prerequisite is that body and mind are both healthy. Many people say their cultivation of the Tao has gone astray, but I have yet to see anyone whose cultivation has gone astray! Since you have been walking a wrong road all along and practicing your way into it, how can you speak of going astray? You think you have already walked hundreds of li, but in fact not a single li has been walked correctly. Since you have been walking wrongly all along, how could you go astray? You think you have put in more than ten years of work studying and cultivating the Tao, with body and mind practicing in error all along, but in fact you have been marking time in place! In fact neither your body nor your mind has taken a single step; how could you take a wrong road or stray from your direction?
As for the four dhyanas and eight samadhis of Buddhism, if you have not completed them, I can tell you plainly: you cannot be enlightened or attain the Tao. Only after you have passed through the states of the four dhyanas and eight samadhis and continue practicing onward is it possible to be enlightened and attain the Tao.
The four dhyanas and eight samadhis are a common method that sweeps away crooked and heretical ways; everyone must pass through them. Only after the four dhyanas and eight samadhis have been tested and verified does this stage branch into many forking paths. If you take the right one, you enter the gate of the Tao—the path to the true fruit; if you take a wrong turn, you enter a heretical way!
Which of us here has completed the four dhyanas and eight samadhis? Not one; we cannot even find the state of what Buddhists call the “first dhyana”! If you had reached the “first dhyana,” you would have no later-heaven energy. What does “no later-heaven energy” mean? It means that whether you are a man or a woman, you no longer have periodic physiological responses and have no physiological desire.
Because we do not know the stages of practice, many people even think they have already attained the Tao, become Perfected, become immortals! And when outsiders exaggerate and flatter them, saying they have truly succeeded in attaining the Tao and becoming immortals, they are so delighted they forget themselves! It is precisely because you do not know the stages of practice that you believe whatever others say!
Why do I repeatedly urge you to read the Taoist scriptures and the classics of the patriarchs? Because if you have not entered the gate, you must rely on the Taoist scriptures and classics to guide you; and if you have entered the gate, you must also rely on them for confirmation. From beginning to end, the classics must never be abandoned! If you do not like reading the classics, you must have the guidance of an enlightened teacher who has walked the path; otherwise you cannot do without the classics.