Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Yesterday a few Taoist lay practitioners came and asked me some questions. One said: Before thirty, when I was unmarried, I had so much vigor and no marital relations to release it—where did all that vigor go? And after marriage, with frequent marital relations, where did the vigor come from?
His question is very practical. Some of us here are monastics, and some are householders who have had family life. I do not know whether those of you who have had family life have ever noticed this question.
Later-heaven essence, qi, and spirit—the essence, qi, and spirit of later heaven—did not originally exist; it is precisely because of later-heaven desire that prior-heaven essence, qi, and spirit turn into later-heaven essence, qi, and spirit. That is, the more later-heaven essence, qi, and spirit you consume, the more it affects your prior-heaven essence, qi, and spirit, and the level of your practice will never rise! Because later-heaven essence, qi, and spirit are prior-heaven essence, qi, and spirit that have come down. I once used an analogy: steam comes down and becomes water, and water meeting low temperature becomes ice. Practice is turning ice back into water and water back into steam that rises up.
Taoism and Tantric Buddhism constantly mention the important relationship between the Conception and Governing Vessels and cultivating the Tao, and between the central channel and enlightenment. Our Chinese Buddhism and the Chan school rarely mention them, and even when they do, they use very subtle language. Those who have not entered the Tao or awakened to the Tao simply cannot understand it!
Why did the patriarchs of old express the Tao in this way? To keep those who do not understand cultivating the Tao from slandering it. Also, they feared that those cultivating the Tao would become attached to the body and to essence, qi, and spirit. For truly cultivating the Great Tao has no absolute connection with the body, nor any absolute connection with essence, qi, and spirit. The body and essence, qi, and spirit are only a foundation for cultivating the Great Tao; once the four dhyanas and eight samadhis are complete, this physical body and essence, qi, and spirit are of no further use.
But in our present age, how many people have cultivated as far as the four dhyanas and eight samadhis? How many have cultivated their essence, qi, and spirit well? The essence, qi, and spirit spoken of in Taoism correspond to the four dhyanas and eight samadhis of Chinese Buddhism.
The four stages in Taoism—refining essence into qi, refining qi into spirit, refining spirit to enter emptiness, and refining emptiness to enter the Tao—are close to the four dhyanas and eight samadhis of Buddhism. Completing the left, central, and right channels in Tantric Buddhism is also very close to the four dhyanas and eight samadhis and to the four stages of Taoism, though they still differ in details.
Many practitioners today have not cultivated the body well, so they have no way of emptying the body. If you want to empty the body, it must first be open and clear through; otherwise this physical body cannot be emptied! If your physical body cannot be emptied, you cannot bring your mind into the Tao. Sitting here now, what we feel most clearly is a solid physical body that is also hurting terribly—how can our minds enter the Tao?
If you want to empty this physical body, your qi channels must first be open, and before the qi channels open, essence, qi, and spirit must first be full. If essence, qi, and spirit are not full, how can the qi channels of the whole body be open? It is like a water pipe: first the water must keep flowing freely and without interruption.
If a water pipe has no water in it for a long time, it easily rusts and clogs, and when water does come, it is hard to get flowing at first. You have to knock and bang on it to flush out the rust and debris before the pipe flows freely. If a pipe always has water in it, it does not clog easily, and even if it occasionally clogs, the water soon flushes it open and it flows freely again.
Spiritual practice, entering the Tao, and attaining the Tao do not rely on “qi,” yet in the earliest stage they truly do have to do with qi—prior-heaven primordial qi, not the qi of breathing. Truly entering the Tao relies on “light,” but after entering the Tao, even light cannot be relied on and has nothing more to do with it. And this is only one stage of cultivating the Tao, not the whole process. Why do so many people who practice qigong reach a certain level and never rise further? If you want to rise further, there is no other road than to practice the methods of Taoism and Buddhism!
In the diagram I have drawn, this line corresponds to the Conception Vessel on the front of the chest, this line to the Governing Vessel on the back, and the line in the middle to the central channel spoken of in Tantric Buddhism and Taoism. If these three lines are not open, it is truly impossible to enter the Tao, be enlightened, or realize the Tao.
But I must be clear with you: even someone whose Conception Vessel, Governing Vessel, and central channel are open is not necessarily enlightened or has not necessarily realized the Tao! But anyone who is truly enlightened and has attained the Tao definitely has an open Conception Vessel, Governing Vessel, and central channel! It is just that subtle.
Why do people practicing seated meditation sink the qi to the dantian? Sinking qi to the dantian is only the very first stage of practice. Never take sinking qi to the dantian as the method for the whole of practice; it is completed in a hundred days and then gone beyond. Sinking qi to the dantian also means sinking energy to the dantian. Once the energy at the front has sunk into the dantian, it runs from below round to the back at the tailbone, rises up the back to the crown, and so returns the essence to replenish the brain.
But how many people can sink qi to the elixir field (that is, sink energy into the dantian) without it leaking out through the front? Usually, as soon as the energy sinks into the dantian, sexual desire flares, and ordinary people simply cannot control themselves! If one's resolve to cultivate the Tao is strong and one's vow power great, then when this energy reaches the lower body it easily rises from the tailbone at the back along the spine, and there is no desire.
In Taoism this place (the Huiyin point) is called the “Three-River Mouth,” the point where the Conception Vessel, Governing Vessel, and central channel meet. This is where energy leaks away; that is, for people with frequent marital relations, all their energy leaks out through the front.
This represents the male and female sexual organs. When a man and a woman engage in marital relations, the man releases yang qi and the woman releases yin qi; when the two qi of yin and yang collide and unite, a pleasurable sensation arises in the body. When we have completed the first dhyana and enter the second, that too is a time of the union of yin and yang, and the whole body has a feeling of intoxicated bliss, as if one had become an immortal!
That feeling is who knows how many times stronger and more delightful than what ordinary people feel doing that ordinary thing! This is why, when those cultivating the Tao reach a certain point, they have no need at all for marital relations, because they can completely transcend it.
In the four dhyanas and eight samadhis spoken of in Buddhism, the first dhyana is called “the stage of joy and bliss born of separation”; the second, “the stage of joy and bliss born of concentration”; the third, “the stage of wondrous bliss apart from joy”; and the fourth, “the stage of purity of equanimity and mindfulness.” “Joy” refers to a psychological sensation, and “bliss” to a physiological sensation.
If your energy has not leaked away below, “essence” turns into a kind of heat. The body's heat is produced by essence; this “essence” means prior-heaven essence, not the later-heaven sperm that can produce offspring.
If you can keep prior-heaven “essence” from turning into later-heaven sperm, it can turn into a kind of qi. This “qi” is primordial qi, definitely not the qi of breathing. As you continue to practice, it turns into a kind of “spirit.” Or, to put it more plainly, it turns into a kind of light; in the region from the chest upward, it is spirit, that is, a kind of light.
We see divinities. Why do the images of the patriarchs all have light around them? Because from the chest to the navel the energy is a kind of “qi”—not the qi of breathing, but primordial qi; from below the navel to above the knees it is a kind of “essence.” Many people find their knees, hands, and feet ice-cold as soon as winter comes; this is because their “essence” is insufficient. The essence here means prior-heaven essence; do not take it to mean later-heaven sperm. When you practice, essence turns into a kind of heat, and qi becomes a kind of strength. With further practice it transforms into spirit, and this spirit becomes a kind of light.
Its normal operation in the body is this: we take in the five grains and other foods, which the stomach digests and absorbs, producing a kind of energy stored in our dantian—that is, it becomes “essence.” The essence at this point is still prior-heaven essence. Through practice, it begins to travel down the Conception Vessel until it reaches the “Three-River Mouth” below.
If you are celibate, or restrained in desire, through practice it turns round to the tailbone and rises up the groove of the spine. Why is it so hard to rise further once our practice reaches this stage? Why, when those of us practicing seated meditation reach a certain level, does the back feel as if a brick or a stone were pressing on it, making it very hard to push further upward?
We have a cross on the front of the chest and a cross on the back as well. If the cross on the back is opened, the back will certainly emit light! But few people open it. Once it is opened, the energy rises further up along the back of your neck. At this point, the area between your eyebrows will certainly shimmer with golden light!
At this moment you may mistakenly think you have attained the Tao, or even opened the heavenly eye, but in fact it is only a phenomenon of one stage. After this stage, it enters the space between the eyebrows, passes the bridge of the nose and the upper lip, then passes the nasolabial folds on both sides, and passes the chin to the throat. The throat is very hard to open. For a person whose throat is open, the voice in speaking and chanting incantations will certainly have a resonant power—what we usually call magnetic—and contain a kind of energy.
There are also people who have not practiced at all; why do their voices also have that magnetic quality? Such people already have ample energy of their own, which has come up the back and reached the throat. Their own energy is very ample; though they too have marital relations, they still have surplus energy that goes round to the back and rises. Once the throat has been opened, the energy passes through the chest and goes downward.
As it passes through the chest, you will feel very oppressed and uncomfortable, and may mistakenly think you have a stomach ailment. In fact it is not the stomach but the chest. The bones of the chest will ache; we often see people who have long practiced seated meditation pounding their chests. A person whose chest has opened definitely has no vexations and does not get angry. Even though when they scold someone they sound like a roaring lion, they are definitely not truly angry. Some people do not lose their temper, yet their anger is pent up in the chest.
When a person is about to lose their temper, they breathe out, that is, they expel all the qi in the chest; once the qi is no longer pent up there, they cannot lose their temper. Their so-called losing their temper is merely scolding and shouting the qi out of the chest. Once the chest is empty and relaxed, there is no anger left to vent. So-called “losing one's temper” is qi forcing one to lose one's temper.
If this qi continues downward, everything below the dantian is opened. Once the whole lower half is open, the body definitely has no desire. This “desire” means physiological desire, what is commonly called sexual desire. Why do ordinary people have sexual desire? Because the energy at the tailbone cannot turn round and up the back; it is pent up at the front, and so it must be released.
If it is not to be released, then through practice the energy must be turned round to the back and brought up. Once there is no longer a mass of energy pent up in this place, this physiological phenomenon of ordinary people no longer appears.
How long does all this usually take? If you do not know the method, or it is incorrect, or you do not put in enough time, you will not finish in a lifetime! Under normal circumstances, it is completed in a year. That is, after a year, these methods are no longer of any use and all count as “crooked and heretical ways”! They no longer have anything to do with cultivating the Tao.