Correctly Timing “the Return of the First Yang” in Elixir Cultivation

Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism

The “return” in “the return of the first yang” unquestionably refers to the Fu (Return) hexagram among the sixty-four hexagrams of the Zhouyi (I Ching). The Fu hexagram has Kun above and Zhen below—what the Commentary on the Images calls “thunder within the earth” (Zhen is thunder, Kun is earth). The upper five lines of the hexagram are all yin lines and only the first line is a yang line; this special configuration made it the first of the twelve waxing and waning hexagrams devised by later Confucians.

1. “The Return of the First Yang” Tied to the Calendar

“The return of the first yang” stands for the winter solstice in the Chinese lunar calendar, and for the month of Zi that begins the Zhou calendar; this is the mainstream view of Confucian study of the Changes. That the meaning of “the return of the first yang” later grew more complex is mainly owing to scholars of Taoist inner alchemy.

Yu Yan gave a concise and complete summary in his Elucidation of the Zhouyi Cantong Qi (Zhouyi Cantong Qi Fahui): “Fu is the hexagram of the first yang, and its pitch corresponds to Huangzhong. In terms of a day, it is midnight, the hour of Zi. In terms of a month, it is from the first day to the middle of the third. In terms of a year, it is the month when the handle of the Dipper points to Zi.”

“The return of the first yang” refers not only, within a year, to the month of Zi in which the winter solstice falls, but also, within a month, to its beginning, and within a day, to midnight, the hour of Zi (the double hour from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.). At the latter two points too, yin qi is full and yang qi is gradually being born, matching the character of “the return of the first yang.”

Yu Yan's passage explains chapter 49 of The Seal of the Unity of the Three (Cantong Qi), “The New Moon's Dawn Is Fu”: “The new moon's dawn is Fu; yang qi begins to flow; going out and coming in without harm, the gnomon is set up, slightly firm.” Looking at this chapter alone, it may not seem enough to establish that it refers to “the return of the first yang,” but a look at the following chapters puts it beyond doubt.

The first line of chapter 50 is “Lin approaches the furnace and spreads its branches”; chapter 51, “Looking up, it forms Tai”; chapter 52, “Gradually passing through Dazhuang”; chapter 53, “Guai makes yin withdraw”; and chapter 54, “Qian is strong, flourishing, and bright.” These are, respectively, Fu, Lin, Tai, Dazhuang, Guai, and Qian, which exactly match the sequence of waxing and waning hexagrams in which the yang lines gradually grow. Such close agreement cannot be coincidence.

So for masters of the alchemical Way, the winter solstice, the beginning of the month (especially the dawn of the first day, since the original text of the Cantong Qi reads “the new moon's dawn is Fu”), and the Zi hour could all be times of “the return of the first yang.” Why, then, is “the return of the first yang” so important in the alchemical Way?

First, in the realm of outer alchemy (waidan), this is when the fire must be lit. Peng Xiao said: “...therefore the yang fire is raised from the beginning of Zi... the cauldron receives the qi of faint yang and begins to create the foundation of cinnabar and mercury.” Similar statements are too many to list; this one quotation will serve as proof. Moreover, the control of fire timing must also follow the pattern of “the return of the first yang.”

A formula in the Great Compendium of the Golden Elixir (Jindan Dacheng Ji) records the general changes in fire timing through the process from Fu to Qian and then to Kun: “The Fu hexagram raises the hidden dragon; Wu and Ji are adjusted slightly, not yet to be attacked. In the second nine the dragon appears; the Lin hexagram governs spiritual power. From here the furnace grows red by degrees, just meeting the Tai hexagram. The fierce fire burns Qian, borrowing the Xun wind; refine yellow sprouts and white snow to a wondrous achievement, then return to Kun, and the Way first reaches its end.”

The first nine of the Qian hexagram reads “Hidden dragon: do not act.” The first line of the formula refers precisely to the Fu hexagram turning the first six of Kun into a yang line, the first step toward forming Qian. At this point, although the fire has been lit, it should only be adjusted slightly; one must not launch a great fire in a fierce attack. After passing through Lin, Tai, and the other hexagrams, one reaches Qian; now not only must a fierce fire be applied, but wind power must be added too. The “Xun wind” in the formula refers to the Xun trigram at the bottom of the Gou hexagram that follows Qian. Thus, once the work is complete, it returns to the Kun hexagram and the whole process ends.

If the first yang of a day returns at the Zi hour, and that of a month at its beginning, does cultivation at the Zi hour at the start of the month then yield double results for half the effort? The ancients thought so. Furthermore, the Zi hour at the start of special months is even more doubly effective—for example, the Zi hour on the first day of the eleventh month, the month in which the winter solstice falls.

Another special time was also given weight: the Zi hour on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Awakening to Perfection (Wuzhen Pian) says clearly: “On the fifteenth of the eighth month, enjoy the toad's radiance; this is just when the metal essence is at its height. When the first yang comes and rises in return, you may advance the fire—do not delay.” Weng Baoguang of the Song dynasty explained: “The fifteenth of the eighth month is just when the qi of metal and water is flourishing, and the Zi hour is the time of ‘the return of the first yang’; the fire work of the outer and inner elixirs advances together.” On the fifteenth of the eighth month the qi of metal and water is at its height, and the Zi hour is the time of the return of the first yang; so for inner and outer alchemy alike, this is a suitable time for cultivation.

2. The Body Has Its Own “First Yang Arising”

As alchemical methods progressed, however, the interpretation of the first yang arising developed further, giving rise to the following interesting phenomenon in hermeneutics.

Patriarch Lü Chunyang wrote an alchemical lyric to the tune “Spring in the Qin Garden”: “For the sevenfold returned elixir, a person must first refine the self and await the time. Just as the first yang begins to stir, deep in the night as the water clock runs long, the warm lead cauldron's light shines through the curtains.” “Sevenfold returned elixir,” “a person,” and “refine the self” show that this is about inner alchemy, while “await the time,” “the first yang begins to stir,” and “deep in the night” fit perfectly with the theory of “the return of the first yang” described above. So, in fact, Patriarch Lü held that inner alchemy cultivation must wait for the moment of “the return of the first yang” at the Zi hour.

However, Xue Shi, Perfected Daoguang Zixian, known as Piling, explaining Lü Chunyang's lyric in his Song of the Elixir Marrow (Dansui Ge), held: “To refine the elixir you need not seek the winter solstice; the body has its own first yang arising.” In other words, one can naturally feel the first yang arising within the body; since the changes of inner alchemy all take place inside the body and are to some degree controllable, there is no need to wait for the winter solstice to practice. This line mentions only the winter solstice and says nothing about whether the rule of practicing at the Zi hour must be kept, so it does not contradict Patriarch Lü's lyric; yet it seems already to have set a precedent for later opposition to keeping to set times.

Xiao Tingzhi developed Xue Shi's idea further: “The universe is in one's hands; all transformations arise within the body. Master Piling said, ‘To refine the elixir you need not seek the winter solstice; the body has its own first yang arising.’ Within each hour there is the work of the hour; within each moment there is the work of the moment.” If there is work at every hour and every moment, then naturally not only the winter solstice and the first of the month, but also the rule of practicing at the Zi hour, need not be kept. But the phenomenon of “the first yang arising” still exists. Without a specific time as the necessary basis for its occurrence, how is the first yang arising to be defined?

According to Hu Wei, it is what Yu Yan called “the moment when, at the snap of a finger, the Xun gate opens wide and the mind feels hazy and indistinct.” This passage of Yu Yan's is an overly subjective description, and it does not appear in Yu's own works but only as quoted in Hu Wei's Clarifying the Diagrams of the Changes (Yitu Mingbian). In it, Yu also makes a mistake, attributing the line “To refine the elixir you need not seek the winter solstice; the body has its own first yang arising” to Bai Ziqing's Pearl and Jade Collection (Zhuyu Ji). This inevitably raises doubts about its authenticity. Comparing the sense of the lines, I found that Yu Yan does indeed make a similar statement in the Elucidation of the Zhouyi Cantong Qi. Explaining the original line “Issue commands in accord with the seasonal junctures; do not miss the time when the lines move,” he writes: “Earth-thunder shakes and the Xun gate opens; the dragon comes leaping toward the eastern pool. This is the time when the one yang line stirs within the body; at this time warm qi surges and blends, the mind feels hazy, and one may advance the fire—it must not be delayed.” Yet since this speaks of the “Xun gate” and also of “the one yang line stirring,” it seems to fit the change from Qian to Gou better than the change from Kun to Fu. Apart from this, the only sentence proving that Yu Yan accepted that “the body has its own first yang arising” is one in the Elucidation of the Zhouyi Cantong Qi explaining “The eldest son succeeds the father's body; through the mother the foundation is established”: “knowing that ‘to refine the elixir you need not seek the winter solstice; the body has its own first yang arising,’ one does not cling to theories of year, month, day, and hour.” So we can see that his theory went no further than Xiao Tingzhi's.

In short, although its specific sensations and states are somewhat hard to grasp, the first yang arising is necessarily one of the very first stages of inner alchemy cultivation. As Chen Zhixu said in the Great Essentials of the Golden Elixir (Jindan Dayao): “The whole body, within and without, is yin; do not look for the yang essence inside it.” And Pointers on Nature and Life (Xingming Guizhi) says: “For in the human body, from top to bottom, whatever has form is nothing but yin, pathogenic, dregs, and turbidity.” All that has form in the body is yin and pathogenic, and the aim of cultivation is precisely to obtain yang essence. It is not hard, then, to understand why the return of the first yang in the Fu hexagram became an important symbol in the theory of the alchemical Way.

How, then, is the first yang arising to be sought? “The Great Way has no words, yet it is not without questions; forget form and forget images to seek lead and mercury. Guarding the center, let not one thing remain; with single-minded intent, body and mind must be kept settled. When breath answers breath, the spirit is clear; the six pulses naturally pay court to nature and life. Essence, spirit, hun soul, and po soul each return to the origin; at this point body and mind are silent and unmoving. The first yang arises and the second yang advances; just wait, and now apply the warm fire.” According to Yu Dongzhen, only after meeting these basic requirements—body and mind kept settled, breath answering breath, the hun and po souls returning to the origin—that is, only when one truly enters the right path of cultivation, is the first-stage achievement of the first yang arising attained, followed by the advance of the second yang and so on. In addition, one must begin slowly with a gentle fire, which is similar to the requirement in outer alchemy described above.

In short, although the concept of “the return of the first yang” is mostly called “the first yang arising” in inner alchemy, its development is as this article has discussed: it originates in “the return of the first yang” of the Fu hexagram in the Zhouyi; after the Han dynasty it was often read as referring to calendrical times, and so, through books such as the Zhouyi Cantong Qi, it influenced the choice of timing and fire timing in outer alchemy; and in the end it became a term for a state in inner alchemy cultivation. Its line of development and its logic are therefore coherent and clear.