Master Li Yulin
“The alchemical Way” refers to the ancient art of elixir making, a technique of heating and refining invented by the Taoists of antiquity, who esteemed nurturing life (yangsheng) and longevity and sought the way of deathlessness. It is a vast and profound science and technology bringing together natural science, biological science, the science of the human body, and chemical change, and it was achieved through the Taoists' tireless pursuit of everlasting life.
The Taoist “alchemical Way” is of two kinds. One uses metals, minerals, herbs, and plants as medicines and elixir cauldrons and furnaces as tools, refining them with natural fire; this is called outer alchemy (waidan). It was the forerunner of pharmaceutical chemistry—the techniques for extracting Chinese medicines today still use this method—and gunpowder was discovered in ancient times in the course of outer-alchemy refining.
The other is called “inner alchemy” (neidan). Inner alchemy takes the human body as the elixir cauldron and furnace and one's own essence, qi, and spirit as the medicines, and uses the heart-fire of intention to carry out civil and martial refining. From ancient times to the present, this has been the supreme secret of the way of nurturing life, and for those who leave home to become Buddhist monks or Taoist priests, it is the necessary path to becoming an immortal or a buddha. The specific method begins with “dual cultivation of nature and life”: purifying body and mind, embracing the origin and guarding the One, and contemplative seated meditation.
Today's achievements in health cultivation are the summation of humanity's experience in struggling with natural life since China's high antiquity. They also stem from the ancient practitioners' observation of why heaven and earth endure forever while all things are born and die, and their question of how one might model oneself on heaven and earth and become a person who neither ages nor dies.
Through thousands of years of cultivation, the eminent perfected and great recluses of antiquity summed up a complete theoretical system, the scientific crystallization of realizing the unity of heaven and humanity and discovering the body's extraordinary functions. The chapter “On the Heavenly Truth of High Antiquity” in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing) describes the different levels of health cultivation of the worthy, the sage, the Perfect Person, and the Perfected. It also says that if ordinary people model themselves on the principles of yin and yang, the four seasons, and day and night, adapt to whether their surroundings and dwellings are suitable, are moderate and regular in eating, drinking, rising, and resting, and do not exhaust themselves recklessly—if they are at peace in their homes, content with their customs, pleased with their food, without envy, jealousy, or resentment, without bias toward joy or anger, without discrimination of good and evil, beautiful and ugly, simple and sincere, respectful, trusting, kind, yielding, humble, and gentle—then naturally body and spirit will be fully preserved, and they will live past a hundred before departing. But if one takes wine as nectar, drinks wildly without restraint until drunk, makes the restless monkey-mind and galloping horse of the will one's normal state, acts on whim and against reason, calls right wrong, disregards the principles of heaven and human feeling, keeps irregular hours, and squanders one's heavenly truth, one will certainly age early and die young.
The Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan asked Guangchengzi about the most profound and mysterious Tao (the utmost Tao). Guangchengzi said: The essence of the utmost Tao is deep and dark; the extreme of the utmost Tao is dim and silent. You need only not look with your eyes and not listen with your ears, embrace your own spirit and reach a state of clarity and stillness, and your body and spirit will return to uprightness. Be still, be clear. Do not overtax your body and spirit, do not agitate your essence and qi at will, and you can attain long life. Do not look at the colors of the outer world with your eyes, do not listen to the sounds of the outer world with your ears, and do not try to figure out trivial matters in your mind. If you do this, your spirit will guard your body, and your body can live long. Carefully keep your inner spirit, shut off your connection with outer things; the more you know of external affairs, the worse it is for your own cultivation.
The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic is not only a medical classic but even more a treasure of the art of nurturing life. Medicine and Taoist learning share the same root and source. One who is good at nurturing life must have some grounding in medicine, and one who understands medical principles will clearly understand the body's physiology and pathology, and how to sublimate the body's physiological functions further, transcending the ordinary state of life to reach health free of illness, even returning from old age to youth. Hence the old Taoist sayings that “nine of every ten Taoists are physicians” and that “the way of medicine leads to the way of the immortals.”
As for the theory of health cultivation through inner alchemy, one must first understand where human beings come from. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic says: When a person first comes into being, essence forms first; once essence has formed, the brain and marrow arise; the bones are the trunk, the vessels the encampment, the sinews the strength, the flesh the walls; the skin becomes firm and the hair grows. When grain enters the stomach, the pathways of the vessels open, and blood and qi begin to flow. We all know that life comes directly from the reproductive essence of the parents, the union of the reproductive essence of the two sexes.
Concerning “essence,” the Divine Pivot (Lingshu), “The Root of Spirit,” says: “That from which life comes is called essence.” It also says: “When the two essences meet and combine to form a body, what always arises before the body is called essence.” So essence is the origin of life. Hence the Inner Classic says: Heaven and earth intermingle, and all things are transformed and made pure; man and woman join their essence, and all things are born and transformed. All matter with the phenomena of life is born and transformed from water. In the natural world, those born from wombs, eggs, moisture, and transformation—plants, trees, birds, beasts, insects, and fish—all first come into being from the meeting and union of the essence-qi of yin and yang between one thing and another. It is like the clouds and rain of Mount Wu: when cloud-qi gathers and yin and yang unite, there must be wind, thunder, rain, and lightning, frost, snow, ice, and hail.
In the I Ching (Book of Changes), earth and heaven in communion make the Tai (Peace) hexagram, in which above and below are matched and yin and yang are in harmony, an image of clarity, brightness, and gentle warmth. When the qi of heaven and earth intermingle, this is the image of all things being nourished, born, and brought to completion. So “three yang lines bring peace”: heaven and earth thaw and all things revive, warm as a spring day, glad as a happy heart—the sense of all things flourishing. Or take the relationship of water and fire: water qi rises and fire qi descends, forming the image of the Jiji (After Completion) hexagram, water above fire; this too is an auspicious and harmonious image of lucky stars and festive clouds. When heaven and earth are at peace, all things are nurtured; when water and fire are in balance, body and mind are healthy and at ease.
The Laozi (Tao Te Ching) is the great synthesis of ancient Taoist learning. It not only sums up the natural origin and laws of the way of heaven and observes the conditions of human society and the true meaning of life, but also sees through phenomena to their essence, awakening to the true conditions of life, existence, and living, discovering the origin of life, and exploring the highest state of the theory of health cultivation through inner alchemy. That is why some say the Laozi is a classic of cultivating the alchemical Way (inner alchemy). Laozi, too, expounds the Tao from its natural origin: “There was something formed in chaos, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, it stands alone and does not change, goes round and does not tire; it can be the mother of the world. I do not know its name; I style it the Tao.” The generation and nurturing of the cosmos, heaven, and earth likewise come from something formed in undifferentiated wholeness, an undifferentiated one qi, silent and mysteriously dark. When stillness reaches its extreme it moves; standing alone, it goes round without tiring. Movement and stillness unite, yin and yang embrace, interweaving and gestating in prior heaven. The yang, light and clear, floats upward; the yin, heavy and turbid, sinks down; earth and heaven commune, water and fire balance, heaven and earth open up, and heaven, earth, people, and things, the five directions and the Five Phases, the five colors and five flavors, are naturally born and transformed. So humans follow earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Tao, and the Tao follows what is so of itself.
The foundation of human life lies in obeying the laws of nature, and also in grasping and applying them, learning from them the eternal and unchanging principles of the natural world, so that one's own life is matched with the eternity of nature and lasts as long as heaven and earth. “With desire, observe its manifestations; without desire, observe its mysteries.” The contrast between having desire and being without desire, between having feeling and being without feeling, is the difference in intent between those who are good at nurturing life and those who are not. Having feeling is ordinary sentiment; being without feeling is great love—the natural way of heaven, of one who acts according to the great virtue of heaven and earth. The virtue of heaven is to move vigorously, and so the noble person strengthens himself without ceasing; the virtue of earth is depth and weight, that is, carrying all things with generous virtue. Heaven and earth united in virtue—ceaseless movement and carrying all things with generous virtue—is the great Tao we follow. Without desire and without feeling, one can observe the mysterious and wondrous; with desire and with feeling, one can know what lies beyond the apertures of form. That is to say: if heaven had feelings, heaven too would grow old. Heaven and earth have no feelings and no mind, yet all things naturally flourish, heaven and earth endure forever without decline, and all things are born and transformed without ceasing. People have minds and feelings, and a hundred years of life are like a flash of lightning or a spark of fire; life and death are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow.
Laozi says that “one who holds virtue in abundance” is like a newborn infant: poisonous snakes and fierce beasts do not bite or seize it, and birds of prey do not harm it with their talons. Though its bones are weak and its sinews soft, its little hands can grip firmly; it does not know the way of the union of male and female, yet it is always erect. This is because the essence and qi within are utterly full and complete. It cries all day, yet its voice never grows hoarse; this is because the qi and fluids of utmost harmony are complete! Knowing utmost harmony is called constancy; knowing the reason for constancy is called illumination; enriching life so that it lasts long is called auspicious; being able on one's own to bring essence and qi into complete harmony is called having the strongest vitality. If one is not good at nurturing life and simply goes along with the natural course, things reach their prime and then naturally grow old; this is called “not the Tao”—that is, a person who neither knows the Tao nor cultivates it. Such a person is bound to come to an early end.
In terms of the natural laws of life: at fourteen for girls and sixteen for boys, the tiangui (reproductive essence) arrives; girls begin to menstruate and boys' essence overflows and is discharged, marking adulthood; when yin and yang are in harmony, they can have children. After this comes the period when the functions of the whole body flourish. At thirty-five for women and forty for men, the body's functions, physique, and spirit reach their peak, like the sun at noon; past this point the sun begins to sink westward, and physical strength, essence, and qi gradually decline. At the hour of noon, one should already begin nurturing life. People often act on whim and recklessly when their bodies are at their strongest, adding countless causes of illness to themselves. Only when the essence and qi within decline, the upright qi is insufficient, the causes of illness emerge, and pathogens inside and out beset them together, do they realize they need treatment and need to nurture life. As the saying goes: life is a pot of oil; sooner or later the oil runs out, the lamp goes out, and life ends. So Taoist inner-alchemy health cultivation “extends life and adds oil,” restoring the warm vitality of spring and reshaping the origin of life.
In inner alchemy, the eminent perfected and great virtuous masters of every age have all advocated dual cultivation of nature and life. The reason people age so quickly is mostly related to emotional factors. Although the BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny) fate calculation of the I Ching says that a person's eight characters represent everything in his life, and temperament is inborn—why else would people say, “Mount Tai is easier to move than one's nature”? In fact, heaven and earth give birth to all things, and each thing has its own nature and temperament; that is, each has its own particularity, its nature, qualities, likes, and dislikes being inborn. Yet they also have what is common: all things are born and transformed from yin and yang and all receive the original nature of the Tao. Traced to the root and source, they are originally one family. Let all things and all beings return to the Tao, return to the root and the origin, embody the Tao, complete life and complete nature, and the natural Tao-nature will still remain.
From childhood to youth and adulthood, however, a person passes from unknowing to knowing, and the environment in which he lives and the people and events he experiences inevitably breed a host of tangled and chaotic emotional states. These states are inevitably the greatest obstacle and greatest demonic hindrance to health cultivation through inner alchemy, and the successive barriers to health.
The most common, and the most harmful to health, is the barrier of lust. If, rather than the innocent affection of childhood sweethearts, one feels lust on seeing a person of the opposite sex, even if it is only a passing thought at the time, the information is already deeply imprinted in the subconscious. Even without any actual act, harm will occur in dreams or whenever the body is in a certain state. There are also the entanglements of love and affection. Some, amid glory and wealth, are bound by attachment to the physical body; some cannot free themselves from concern with wealth, profit, or poverty; some have arrogance, jealousy, irritability, or resentment cultivated in daily life or inherent in their temperament; some love to stir up gossip and quarrels and criticize others; some distinguish between self and others and treat them warmly or coldly; some are lazy by nature, fearful of difficulty, weak, self-abandoning, their aspirations fading and their resolve short-lived, giving rise to a mind of worry and hardship; some are self-satisfied and conceited, even boastful, relying on cleverness, cunning, suspicion, and delusion, slighting people and things, and harboring hidden malice; some deliberately mystify, are good at putting on appearances, pretend to know what they do not, boast of their abilities, do not believe in cause and effect, and act recklessly; some are trapped in the arena of cause and effect, life and death, and cannot extricate themselves; some are at a loss, afraid of hardship and fatigue, living as in a drunken dream, frittering away life in illusion; some seek quick results and, careless, cling to emptiness or attach to forms. Such states of mind are too many to list. They seem to be the normal state of human life—almost everyone develops different states of mind as circumstances change—yet all these states of mind are barriers to entering the Tao and nurturing life; unless one breaks through them, one cannot go forward.
There are also what Chinese medicine calls the seven emotions, which are likewise barriers and demonic trials; this is what is called illness caused by the emotions. The seven emotions are joy, anger, worry, pensiveness, sorrow, fear, and fright—seven kinds of emotional activity. Different emotional changes affect the body differently; Chinese medicine holds that anger harms the liver, joy harms the heart, pensiveness harms the spleen, worry harms the lungs, and fear harms the kidneys.
The Basic Questions (Suwen) says: All illnesses arise from qi. With anger, qi rises; with joy, qi slackens; with sorrow, qi dissipates; with fear, qi sinks; with fright, qi is thrown into disorder; with pensiveness, qi knots... Illness caused by the emotions first harms the spirit and qi, then the internal organs and the body, throwing the qi dynamic into disorder, putting the meridians out of harmony, and disrupting the functions of the organs. In the short term it causes discomfort; over time, serious illness.
A person's temperament, likes, and dislikes seem inborn and unchangeable, shaping the person naturally from birth to death. Only Laozi said, “Returning is the movement of the Tao”: going against the ordinary course and returning to the primordial beginning, in the midst of primal chaos and dim obscurity, dark and silent—this is returning to the root and the origin. Everyone's original nature is perfectly round and vividly alive. The Three Character Classic says: “At birth, human nature is good. By nature people are close; by practice they grow far apart.” They differ because of later environments and experiences and differences in their own cultivation.
Illness caused by the emotions disrupts the body's functions of rising and falling, opening and closing, throws the circulation of qi, blood, and channels out of balance, makes the activities of the organs excessive or deficient, and seriously unbalances qi and blood, yin and yang. What modern medicine calls the four highs, nodules, cysts, fibroids, inflammation, and cancer—almost every disease, apart from those caused by external pathogens and trauma—are internal injuries from the emotions. They are all triggered by abnormal psychological obstacles, obsessive worry or wild imaginings, narrow-mindedness, excessive sentimentality, resentment and anger, fear and dread. So the emotions do enormous harm to health. Add staying up late and overwork, all harmful to health, all depleting the upright qi and making people overdraw their reserves and weaken too early—surely these are man-made! How could they be the laws of nature?
Emotional illnesses are also psychological illnesses and should be addressed from childhood. Parents are the first teachers, and schools should begin with primary education. Absorb more of the content of fine traditional culture, and from childhood establish a correct, positive outlook on life, the world, and values. Have standards for oneself, one's family, society, and human affairs that take others' positions into account; do well by oneself and live one's own life well. Benefit oneself and others, act for oneself and for others, do not hinder or affect others or cause them trouble, and establish an idea of self-reliance, self-strengthening, and self-confidence. In doing things, have confidence, determination, and perseverance, and you will get twice the result with half the effort and realize your ideals. So it is with nurturing life too: proceed step by step and persevere; and all the more so in studying the ancient Taoist inner alchemy.
How does one achieve the aims of dispelling illness, extending life, and returning from old age to youth through health cultivation by the alchemical Way? The alchemical method of the Northern School of Quanzhen began with the transmission of the Tao from Zhong to Lü, and their disciple Wang Chongyang set out the “Fifteen Discourses”:
First, dwell in a hermitage, keeping to the constant and content with one's lot;
Second, go wandering like the clouds, visiting masters to inquire into the mystery;
Third, study books, learning from the ancients and exhausting principles;
Fourth, compound medicines, studying medicine to aid the Tao;
Fifth, build a dwelling, a livelihood that shelters the body;
Sixth, join with companions in the Tao whose aspirations are alike;
Seventh, on sitting in meditation: movement and stillness have their constancy;
Eighth, on subduing the mind: stillness and concentration bring the light of wisdom;
Ninth, on refining nature: tight and loose in due measure;
Tenth, harmonize the five qi, uniting them in the central palace;
Eleventh, blend nature and life, uniting body and spirit;
Twelfth, on the sacred Way: accumulate merit and good deeds;
Thirteenth, transcend the Three Realms, the mind free of cares and thoughts;
Fourteenth, on nurturing the body: model it on the formless;
Fifteenth, leave the ordinary world, with no dust in the heart.
Patriarch Sa's Song of Refining Nature says: Cultivating the inner elixir differs from ordinary methods of nurturing life. First, the earlier one begins the better, while one is still young and essence, spirit, qi, and blood have not been excessively depleted. Practice compassion, frugality, and restraint, and do not compete to be strong or to win. Step back quickly, practice softness, adjust long and short to fit square or round; take stillness amid movement and snatch leisure amid busyness. One who refines nature avoids the urge to compete and win and does not show off before others; he rids himself of selfishness, corrects his faults, accepts losses, yields to others, and keeps an open heart. His conduct is such that his conscience is clear. Let others belittle and insult him, list his faults and merits—his mind stays calm and his qi even, as if a wind had passed; his face does not change color, his breath does not quicken, the heart-fire descends, and the light of wisdom is warm and gentle. When the belittling and insults are over, the account is settled, the matter is done, and the mind is not troubled—this is the true sign of success in refining nature.
When ignorance is ended and the measure of sin and suffering is full, turn back and do not meddle in others' affairs.
Give up the skin-bag, never mind your face; close the six gates tight and kindle the heart-fire.
Seek out a famous master, learn to be idle; care nothing for filth or cleanliness.
Amid things, do not fix your eyes on them; never be stained by wine, lust, wealth, or anger.
Speak not of others' merits nor talk of their faults; cut off the red dust of the world with a single stroke.
Through the twelve double hours let intention not scatter; when mind and form are one, the true nature appears.
Value accumulating virtue, and demons keep their distance; when merit and practice are complete, naturalness is attained.
In general, only with inner brightness and a transparent state of mind can one enter the best state of health cultivation through the alchemical Way; this is already a fairly high level of cultivating nature. Even after reaching this level, one cannot say it is the highest. Among the eminent recluses cultivating perfection through the ages, transmission was from master to disciple, and “the method is not heard by six ears”—that is, it was passed on by word of mouth and not made public. Even when the three flowers gather at the crown and the five qi pay court to the origin, at the moment of transforming from the ordinary to the sacred, there may still be some slight worldly thoughts and attachments.
History records that when Zhang Daoling transmitted to his disciple Zhao Sheng there were the Seven Trials, and when Zhongli Quan transmitted to Lü Dongbin there were the Ten Trials. With great practitioners like these, our patriarchs, even at the point of spiritual transformation, still feared that latent worldly thoughts might remain and ruin the great work, so the masters devised tests to see whether they had reached the stage of perfect mastery.
If worldly thoughts have indeed been dissolved and the mind of the Tao made firm, one will surely advance a thousand li a day, leave the ordinary and enter sagehood, achieve an imperishable golden body, and become a deathless person. Now that the idea of dual cultivation of nature and life and of cultivating nature is clear, how then does one cultivate life? The cultivation of life, as the name suggests, concerns the functions and latent powers of the body. Mencius said: “When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a person, it first tries his mind and will, labors his sinews and bones, starves his body, exhausts him, and thwarts his undertakings, so as to stir his mind, toughen his nature, and increase what he is unable to do.” This too is a model of dual cultivation of nature and life.
The human body and mind need a combination of movement and stillness, labor and rest, and inner alchemy is the same: what concerns the body needs more movement, and what concerns the heart needs more stillness. Only with movement and stillness in proper balance can the meridians, qi, and blood flow freely and the sinews, bones, muscles, blood vessels, stomach, and intestines be regulated.
For the specifics of health cultivation through inner alchemy, one can begin to understand its principles from the Diagram of Internal Passageways (Neijing Tu). The diagram shows a person sitting in meditation: body upright and mind correct, gathering the spirit, withdrawing sight and turning hearing inward, the heart-qi sinking, the tongue touching the upper palate, the eyelids lowered like a curtain, the eyes watching the nose and the nose watching the heart. Men keep the mind on the lower dantian (elixir field), women on Danzhong; simply keep the mind there, neither forgetting nor forcing. The sinking of the heart-qi is the descent of the heart-fire, which warms the lower burner and allows kidney water to be warmed and transformed. The steaming kidney water, through the turning of the River Chariot, then passes up the back of the spine through Weilü (the Tailbone Pass), Jiaji (the Spine Pass), and Yuzhen (the Jade Pillow Pass) to Baihui, Qianding, and Yintang (the upper field), causing saliva to arise in the mouth. When the mouth is full of saliva, it can be poured down to the dantian to moisten the numinous sprout. Circulating like this continuously, water rises and fire descends, water and fire are in balance, earth and heaven commune, and there is a warm spring harmony, a gentle rising warmth, joyful and full of life. Keep at it without slackening, and one will surely be healthy and free of illness, live past the years heaven has granted, and die without illness. If one wishes to live past a hundred, or several hundred, or a thousand years, one must persevere and keep at it forever, becoming one with the Tao, embodying the Tao, cultivating the Tao, and practicing the Tao.
(Master Li Yulin, head of the Taoist Medicine Clinic at the White Cloud Temple in Beijing)