Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Someone asked the master about grain avoidance (bigu). The master said: In fact, if you do not eat after noon and take a suitable amount of exercise, you have no need for grain avoidance (the master was referring to deliberately undertaking grain avoidance).
Why do we rarely hear the term “grain avoidance” in Buddhist circles? Because many people there have long practiced not eating after noon, and combined with seated meditation and walking meditation (paoxiang), they have no need at all for “grain avoidance.”
When one's practice reaches a certain level and the stomach qi is full, one no longer needs food (some go without eating for a short time, others for a long time). The primordial qi of our five zang organs and six fu organs is all produced through the stomach. As everyone knows, the food we take in by mouth is first stored in the stomach; it is ground by the stomach and digested by the gastric juices, then passed on to the small intestine. After the nutrients are absorbed in the small intestine, they are sent to the various organs, and the waste is expelled from the body. The internal organs produce primordial qi by absorbing nutrients, and at the same time they have the function of excretion.
People who practice seated meditation, or people whose will is relatively weak—who are highly suggestible—can be led by others (for example, the phrase “when qi is full one does not think of food” acts on them as a psychological suggestion), so that the mind influences the body, and they can go without eating and not feel hungry.
There are also people whose physiological primordial qi has genuinely become full, so that they do not need outside food to supply nourishment; the energy stored in the body is already sufficient for its needs. It is like certain animals that, before hibernating, eat a great deal for a month or two precisely in order to store up energy in the body. Once winter comes, they seal their mouths and stop eating, drawing on the energy stored in the body for their consumption.
Why can they sustain life for a whole winter without eating or drinking? Because enough energy is stored in the body to meet its needs. Just as the winter ends, the stored energy is nearly used up. When spring returns to the land and the yang qi begins to rise, the hibernating animals begin to wake and need to eat.
We humans, whether we practice or not, all have one month each year when food does not taste good. If you are a practitioner, grain avoidance often occurs during this month. Speaking for myself, food never tastes good to me in the sixth month of the lunar calendar each year. During my periods of closed retreat, I neither ate nor drank during this month, yet sat in meditation every day as usual. There are also people who are physically strong and have good stomach function who continue doing physical labor during grain avoidance, but such people are rare. Once the energy stored in the body has been used up during this month, the body begins to accept outside food again.
In the past, practitioners often made great gains in their cultivation during this stage. Food is yin in nature: the more you eat, the more easily you become drowsy and listless. In other words, when you eat no food or little food, the yang qi in the body is relatively ample. Since it is yang qi, it rises upward rather than sinking downward.
That is why many people in the past attained enlightenment in the early hours of the morning during grain avoidance—that is, after two o'clock, once the Zi hour (11 p.m.–1 a.m.) has passed. At this time the yang qi of the earth rises from below, and the energy in our bodies also rises from below. The “opening of the crown” spoken of in Taoism and Tantric Buddhism also mostly happens at this double hour. It can happen at other times too, but rarely, because at other times the energy in the body moves from top to bottom.
It is just like the lotus, which always opens in the early morning. When we get up in the morning, we find the lotuses all in bloom! Why do the lotus buds all close from noon on toward evening? Because once the Wu hour has passed, the energy moves downward and the lotus buds close. Once the Zi hour has passed, the energy moves upward again and the lotus buds all open once more.
The functioning of our physiology is exactly the same as that of plants in nature. Taoism says: “When essence is full one does not think of lust; when qi is full one does not think of food; when spirit is full one does not think of sleep.” The “essence” here refers to a person's vigor. When we commonly say “so-and-so is especially full of vigor,” this is the “essence” meant.
The weaker a person's vigor (or the weaker their body), the heavier their desires. Why? Because their vigor (or primordial qi) is insufficient, there is ample room in the body for it to flow, and so it runs about wildly. When a person is full of vigor, it forms a unified force; the fuller it is, the less easily it moves, so desires seldom arise.
Since it is a complete body of energy, it not only does not go downward but rises upward. For there is a force within our bodies that itself comes from the universe, so it readily resonates, communicates, and draws together with the force of the universe. But because we usually consume too much of the energy in our bodies, it cannot rise and can only sink.
When your practice reaches a certain level and the energy in the body rises, it naturally draws tightly together with the force of the universe, because this force in the body is itself part of what comes from the universe. Therefore it is easily drawn upward again, returning to its source.
Yet very few people today can cultivate their physiological energy to fullness and also keep it from leaking out. If you can do so, this energy will turn back and rise from below. The problem is that few can do it: ordinary people either lack sufficient energy or, once it becomes sufficient, let it leak away.
If you can cultivate this energy to fullness and not let it leak away, it will rise in a circle (rising along the Governing Vessel and descending along the Conception Vessel in a circle, then rising up the central channel). At this point you should no longer sit in meditation on the ground; you can go to a mountaintop or onto a roof—in short, the higher above the ground the better! Because the ground has a pull.
If the ground has a pull, why do branches grow upward instead of toward the ground? This shows that the void of the universe also has a pull. So when a person's vigor is full and kept from leaking, it rises and becomes qi. This qi is not the qi of breathing but primordial qi. In Taoism, the ancient Chinese script writes it with a special character (an old form of qi, composed of “not” above “fire”).
When a person has no desires, essence turns into qi. Desire in the narrow sense refers to sexual desire between men and women; desire in the broad sense refers to human “greed, anger, delusion, pride, and doubt.” For example, all of a person's ambitions may be counted among desires.
Because you have all kinds of desires (broad and narrow), you cannot preserve the primordial qi of prior heaven, and it turns into later-heaven “essence.” Once there is essence, your desires grow stronger and it must leak away. That is why, among the “six supernatural powers” in Buddhism, one is called “the power of the extinction of outflows.” The Buddha said in the Shurangama Sutra that to seek buddhahood without realizing the extinction of outflows is impossible—like cooking sand in the hope of making rice! It cannot be done.
Even if you manage by some means to stop the leaking, you still have to make this force turn back and rise, rising to the middle to become “qi.” If you subdue this qi and let it keep rising, when it reaches the crown it becomes “light.” Below it is essence, in the middle it is qi, and at the crown it is spirit, or light.
It is like a glass of water: meeting cold air it becomes ice, at a moderate temperature it is water, and at high temperature it becomes steam, or turns into a wisp of smoke or a beam of light. This is why people of high attainment in practice have light above their heads. They transform the energy below from essence into qi, and qi into the light of spirit, which radiates outward.
Since the human body can absorb energy through the five grains and other foods and then release the energy within, it can also absorb the energy of the universe. But you must reach the point where all 84,000 pores of the whole body have opened before you can absorb energy from outside.
If you can absorb energy from outside, that also means the energy within your body can be released (through the 84,000 pores)! That is why, when we sit with someone of high attainment, we feel that the fire in their body is especially strong and that their body gives off heat; we also feel ourselves very clear-headed, our minds more lively.
Because their energy field is relatively large, it can affect others. It is like a great blaze: as soon as we get near it, our bodies feel hot; or when we walk beside an iceberg, our bodies feel cold. These are all phenomena of energy affecting others.
As for the so-called “power of blessing”: if a person is highly accomplished in practice and has a large energy field, a touch from them can change the energy field in your body. Even the things they have used—cups, chopsticks, bowls, clothing—carry their energy. As soon as you touch their things, your own energy field can change. This is the so-called “power of blessing” that Buddhism has spoken of for thousands of years!
In fact, once the secret is told, it is simply the action of an energy field. “Energy” is a term of modern science; in the past there was no talk of “energy.”
The more advanced science becomes, the more it proves that what religion teaches is true and not false. Science has a history of only about 200 years, while religion has a history of more than ten thousand years; Buddhism alone has a history of more than 2,500 years! So for now, science cannot prove religion!
Take our Chinese Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing): scientific research dates it to 5,000 years ago, and by popular tradition it is 10,000 years old, but scientists rely on evidence and do not listen to popular tradition. Even at five thousand years, how can science, with only 200 years of history, prove whether the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic is right or wrong?
In fact, Chinese medicine originates in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic. Those who study Chinese medicine must read it, just as those who study Buddhism must read the Shurangama Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. These are the “root scriptures” for studying Buddhism, and the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic is likewise the root scripture for studying medicine!
In the past, acupuncture and massage in Chinese medicine were all applied according to “midnight-noon ebb and flow” (ziwu liuzhu). This is because at the Zi hour all the energy of our body must return to its source. At this time you should not work or labor; it is best to rest. If you do not rest at this time but concentrate your mind on some task, it is hard for the energy in your body to return to its source.
The “source” refers first to the elixir field (dantian) and second to the various organs of the body. After working all day, the body needs to rest at the Zi hour. When we rest at this hour, the qi and blood all return to the five zang organs and replenish them (the five organs eat their fill); after the Zi hour, the energy is again distributed from the five organs to every corner of the body, and they begin working again.
Practitioners in the past, especially young ones, usually kept practicing at the Zi hour, because at this hour it is easy to subdue the body's energy. People who are physically weak or lack vigor usually need to rest at the Zi hour.
Why do men show clearly strong desire in the early morning? Because at this time the body's energy has all gone downward. At this time you must get up and practice: if you practice by some method, the energy will come up; if you do not practice, the energy will remain below. That is why in our Buddhist tradition we usually get up at four o'clock to practice. When there is an opportunity, I will give a special lesson for these men.
A practitioner must understand physiology and medicine. If you do not understand physiology or medicine, it is impossible to practice; if you want to enter the Tao and spread the Tao, there is absolutely no chance! It simply does not work that way. A practitioner, even if not proficient in the “five sciences,” must at least have some understanding of them.
Shakyamuni Buddha was a great physician, and the world's earliest work of “physiology” is the True Lineage of Chan Contemplation (Changuan Zhengmai) taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. I have recommended it to you before, but you probably have not read it yet! Those who practice “contemplation of the skeleton” must read this book first.
The energy in our bodies is “spirit” at the head, is called “qi” in the middle, and becomes “essence” below. Through practice, essence turns into qi and qi into spirit; if you do not practice and have desires, spirit turns into qi and qi into essence, and where there is essence there is desire. In other words, essence, qi, and spirit are one and the same thing. Take “water”: you can turn it into “ice,” or into steam, dispersing it as a mist. Steam is water and is ice; ice is water and is steam. The three are one, not three.
Why then did the ancients divide it into essence, qi, and spirit? It truly is one thing in our bodies, but when it reaches different levels it takes on different forms. If you have no desires, the body has an inexhaustible supply of primordial qi; if you do not expend your physical strength and have no desires, the body has an inexhaustible supply of the light of spirit.
If you are a person who works very hard physically, the “light of spirit” in your body is scant and your “vigor” is scant, but your physical strength is considerable. If you neither use your mind nor do physical work, the “vigor” in your body becomes especially strong, and physiological desire usually arises easily. That is why the patriarchs of the past all worked for half the day and practiced for the other half, and before practicing they always exercised—walking meditation. Through walking meditation they warmed the body and carried the energy of the lower body up to the upper body. When there is no energy remaining in the lower body, desire does not easily arise.
Our bodies undergo periodic physiological changes, and these phenomena occur only because we have desires. A person who has achieved success in practice, whose attainment is deep, has no periodic physiological changes. This is what the Buddhist scriptures call “the mark of the retracted male organ, like a horse's.” What Taoism calls “beheading the red dragon and subduing the white tiger” means the same thing. A person who has achieved success in practice has no later-heaven physiological responses.
We have later-heaven physiological responses because, once there is desire, the light of spirit turns into qi and qi into essence, and where there is essence it must leak. If you have no later-heaven desires, you will preserve the prior-heaven essence, the prior-heaven qi, and the prior-heaven primordial spirit. It revolves in the body: when you have desires, it turns from top to bottom; when you have no desires, it turns from bottom to top and goes out from the top.
On the subject of physiology, I have spoken to a few of my closer fellow practitioners. Because they longed to practice, and I saw that they were truly striving hard for the Tao but did not understand physiology, I explained it to them. But raising this topic here, I cannot go into it fully, because every field has its conservatives and its liberals, and I imagine we have both here too. Today, please allow me to use the “liberal” way of speaking and talk through human physiology thoroughly! Wherever I am mistaken, or my language is not refined, I ask your forgiveness.