The elixirs of taoist alchemy
There are few subjects in the world of Taoism more confounding than the elixirs. From the onset most practitioners know that they are seeking some elixir or other, gold or jade, reverted or returned, concocted or compounded. No sooner do they think they’ve landed on their definitions than they find some new scripture which mentions other elixirs, or gives an entirely different set of elixirs than they’ve encountered before.
I think there are fundamentally two roots of this problem. The first is the word 丹 Dan itself. Most often this is translated as elixir. However, it can refer to something fluid or fixed such as a stone. It can also broadly refer to alchemy itself as a practice either external or internal. This ambiguity can be misleading. The second issue is that different traditions absorbed and adapted the terminology of external alchemy more or less completely. Those traditions which most completely absorbed alchemical terms naturally have a more complicated set of terminology. External alchemy is objectively observable, and therefore the practitioner could see and name many stages of transformation. It is no coincidence that the earliest internal alchemy traditions tend to be more symbolic and complicated in their descriptions, whereas later ones become more simplistic and revolve centrally around the golden elixir in its permutations. I personally believe that there were also external alchemy manuscripts which entered circulation in medieval Taoist circles and were believed to be entirely symbolic of internal processes, further complicating things.
Historically, therefor, there is a formidable variety of symbolic terms and their meanings between the different traditions of Taoism. This has been somewhat curtailed in modern times by the sheer pervasiveness of Quanzhen Taoism in its Longmen form, which benefits from a highly integrated relationship with the governing body of Taoist affairs in the Chinese government, the Chinese Taoist Association. Quanzhen has a less elaborate depiction of the path, focusing on sitting meditation, essential breath control, lifestyle practices, and the Golden Elixir. As it has dominated modern day China and is one of the only lineages to openly authorize non-Chinese priests and abbots, it has also become the most internationally influential form of Taoist internal alchemy.
So, if you’ve gone out looking for a Taoist lineage and ordained instructor you’ve probably landed squarely in the Longmen Pai. And if you were looking for more esoteric and liturgical teachings like talismans and rituals, you probably wound up in some variation/permutation/branch of Jerry Allan Johnson’s teachings from the Sanshan Dixue. American Taoists are so ideologically aggressive that there hasn’t been much reception of lineages or teachers outside these parameters. The most impactful teacher outside those traditional confines of American Taoism is almost certainly Damo Mitchell, who I tip my hat to for managing to stay relevant without kowtowing to official authorizations, ordainments, and pretty robes.
My own initial exposure to internal alchemy was yogic, the Ha Tha Yoga, literally Union of Sun and Moon. When I eventually began studying Taoist alchemy I approached much of it through that lens. The yogis do a good job of setting their minds on enlightenment like a spear aimed at its target. Though their methodology is vast it is also incredibly internally consistent. There may be 108 kriyas, but they are the same 108 kriyas in basically every lineage with only minor variations. If you learn Mahamudra from two different gurus it will almost certainly be 99% the same technique. Despite many years of direct apprenticeship in Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and Hermeticism, I have never encountered any other system so internally consistent with itself as yogic alchemy.
When I then went on to study the internal alchemy of China and Tibet it was obvious to me that there isn’t enough room inside a physical body for these systems to be talking about totally different things. By way of example: Gorakshanath, the fountain and head of internal alchemy in India, places the kanda behind and slightly below the navel. This “kanda,” he says, connects to all the energy channels in the entire body. The yogi concentrates on it while controlling his breath, and it becomes hot like an inner fire. Kanda is in fact linked etymologically to Kunda, the sanskrit term for fire-pit. The Taoist on the other hand places the dantian in basically the exact same place, says it connects to all the channels in the body, and that if you concentrate on it long enough an inner heat will arise. It seems incredibly unlikely that these are two different things, and more reasonable by far to guess that the kanda of the yogis and the dantian of the taoists are the same.
What is the goal of Taoist alchemy? The union of fire and water, which they also name symbolically dragon and tiger, or elevate it to simply yang and yin. What is the goal of yogic alchemy? The union of sun and moon. As in Taoism the sun is also connected to fire and the water is symbolically connected to the moon it is not hard to see the similarity in what they are both saying. The yogis place the sun behind the navel and the moon within the head. The great Qiu Chuij, founder of the Longmen sect, places the life-root (Mingdi) behind the navel and the nature-root (Xinggen) in the head. The goal is to sublimate spirit to the nature-root and revert the five qi of the organs to the life-root. When the former is accomplished then appears the Jade Flower, a white light that blossoms in the head. When the latter is accomplished there appears the Gold Flower, a golden light that emerges from behind the navel. In these same two locations the yogis discovered the Candra-Bindu or white bead and Rajo-Bindu or red bead. They too say that once they have both appeared they must ultimately be united, which results in the supreme achievement. It is worth pointing out that the goal of Tibetan tsa-lung practice is ultimately also to unite these two colored bindus, which they name the white boddhicitta bindu and red sunyata bindu, placing them in precisely the same locations.
These two bindus are the functional bases of the jade elixir (yudan) and gold elixir (jindan), though sometimes the term “gold elixir” is reserved for the after these two are united and the lower elixir is instead called the reverted elixir or gold-fluids elixir. As in Waidan external alchemy, different stages of the same substance are often called a specific elixir. It is not some new product or new material but a further stage of the process upon the same material. Tellingly, though Waidan is the most common modern name for it, Chinese alchemy was long called Huang Pai, meaning literally “Yellow-White” for the yellow of sulfur and orpiment and the white of mercury. So classical alchemy was called Yellow-White, and now here in internal alchemy we see a Yellow behind the navel and a White in the brain.
The red or yellow bindu behind the navel must be roused by a process called Wuqi Chaoyuan, roughly “five qi face the origin.” In Taoist context this is the act of letting the five qi of the wuzang organs (liver-heart-spleen-lungs-kidneys) calm their activities and instead “revert” to their point of origin in the dantian. Within that dantian is the red bindu or yellow flower. When the five qi converge upon it, that flower blooms. This blooming results in flashes of golden light quite visible against the darkness of your closed eyelids, the so-called yellow sprouts which illuminate the dragon bead and give the alchemist a first glimpse of the transcendent bindu we aim to unify with. These convergent five energies become stabilized by the central gravity of the pure yang bindu and encircle it. This in turn creates the very visible appearance of a golden ring in the darkness of the closed eyes, like a circle of golden clouds, which the ancient Taoists name the earth pot or yellow crucible. The yogis sometimes call this experience the eclipse, because the ring of light resembles the corona of an eclipsed sun.
The yogis do not place their five vayus, the internal energies, in exactly the same locations. They do give them quite the same functions though, and also ascribe an element to each one. They circulate, expand, contract, ascend, and descent through the body, and have a relationship with the organs through the mula-marga-mukha structure. Just as the Taoist tries to return these five vital energies to the dantian, the yogi returns them to the same area by the application of techniques such as uddiyana bandha and nabho mudra. By restraining both the awareness and breath in the region behind the navel they constrain the five elemental vayus within the samana vayu, a yellow-colored energy that revolves behind the navel and is capable of balancing the other four. The samana vayu’s relationship to the other four vayus is quite synonymous to the yellow stomach/spleen earth qi’s relationship to the other four organ qi.
In the success of this act we have our first elixir, the reverted elixir, sometimes also called the great medicine. A golden light becomes visible in meditation and the elemental activities of our energy relax into a unified whole, even if only briefly. The next step is to generate and descend first the jade water and then the liquid gold. To do this the energies of the dantian must become so dynamized and prolific that they can pierce the spine and rise up through it into the brain. Prior to that the vapors of true qi will begin wafting out and permeating the other channels of the body, resulting in improved health and overall luster. When those vapors become recompressed and strengthened they enter the spine and ascend. The goal becomes the interaction of this medicine or first elixir with the jade/white bindu in the brain.
Up until this point the main mechanical focus of practice has been to constrain the five elements so that they return to a unified condition and thereby produce the first elixir. Underlying this is our sexual essence, named jing by Taoists and ojas by yogis. It provides firmness and support to the entire body and our elemental system, but is considered white or pale in color and most directly connected to the brain. As the elements are the functional mechanism of stimulating the gold lotus behind the navel, the sexual essence is the functional mechanism of opening up the jade flower in the brain above the palate.
Jing is the heaviest of our internal energies. The easiest thing for it to do, like all heavy things, is to drop. Thus it tends to drop from its house in the kidneys to the pelvic floor, where it transforms into either cervical or prostatic fluid and then, in men, into semen. As alchemists are in the habit of doing things topsy-turvy, our goal becomes to rarify and sublimate it so that it can ascend. To bring it up as far as the dantian is not difficult and can be accomplished in time with breathing practices and techniques like clenching the perineum. To truly produce the jade water of the jade elixir will require it to travel as far as the brain.
In this we find an ally: the more fiery reverted elixir we have created in the lower abdomen. As long as we have produced that situation and can also lift our jing into the lower dantain, it can “hitch a ride” on those golden vapors all the way up to the brain. As an obvious preliminary to this the practitioner would need to have an abundance of jing to create the best result. The jade waters also help supplement other waters of the body and we want them in their best shape as well. Thus, celibacy and a healthy diet with good hydration will create a strong foundation for this stage of the alchemy.
Depending on the lineage this is where the “water wheel” practice called the Xiao Zhou Tian or “Microcosmic Orbit” comes into play. The Taoists call it the water wheel or water chariot, the He Che. It’s goal? To move water. Like a water wheel, the orbit practice will pull the jing up from the lower abdomen and circulate it with qi into the brain, where it will then spill over into the saliva and front channels of the body to be circulated back downwards as the jade water. This jade water, an increasingly purified version of the water element in our body, will in turn reinforce and replenish our jing. Because the greatest dangers to the brain are dryness and heat this process is also sometimes called “replenishing deficiencies.” How far those deficiencies have to be replenished is the timeline for how long it takes before the jade waters begin to be imbibed by the reverted elixir and transform into gold fluid (jinye).
To my point of view both the Yuye jade water and the Jinye gold fluid are aspects of the jade elixir. They are both aspects of the Amrita, the nectar generated by advanced meditators in the brain which then spills out through the gums and nasopharyngeal tonsils (adenoids) when it reaches fullness. As this occurs in the “house of jade” and pours out from the “jade pool,” in Taoist terminology, I think of no more fitting a stamp. As the jing/ojas reinforces the brain and replenishes the pituitary and pineal glands this substance is created and progressively stronger form.
Taoists hold that the saliva generated during meditation is of more importance than regular saliva. People who have done alchemical meditations for years can easily testify to this fact with their own experience. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that during the course of meditation your mouth will sometimes fill with an oily saliva that smells like incense, roses, and eventually even honey. To produce this there are two requirements: the spiritual heat of the lower abdomen must be strong enough to rise through the spine, and the mind must be settled enough to enter a degree of emptiness. This is why the ancients sometimes called the practice of swallowing the jade elixir, “drawing jade liquid from vast emptiness.” Quietude of awareness and abundance of jing are the two preliminary factors. The heat of the reverted elixir serves as the chariot which allows them to meet one another, since normally their houses are on opposite ends of the body.
Beneath the tongue and behind the bottom row of teeth are the entry points of the submandibular lymphatic system, specifically the submandibular gland. The effectiveness of this gland at filtering and then introducing chemical components into the rest of the body is the reason for the effectiveness of tinctures, and why you are directed to take both tinctures and certain medications (such as nitroglycerin) under the tongue. Chemicals introduced sublingually bypass First-Pass metabolism, meaning they avoid stomach acids and additional liver filtration. This is why, at this stage of meditation, the practitioner is directed to roll their tongue back in the mouth so that the tip reaches for the uvula. This expands the exposure of the submandibular lymphatic system to the chemistry of your saliva. In yogic parlance this helps the subtle moon-like Amrita avoid the harsh fire of the Jatharagni, the digestive fire which incinerates the subtle medicinal properties of the Amrita and prevents it from replenishing us. This area under the tongue is so vital to ingesting the jade and gold fluids that Acupunctural tradition has literally named the two points there after these two fluids.
The breakthrough into ingesting the jade and gold fluids is the real step into supernaturally supporting your health and visible vibrance. Everything we’ve done up until now was “deep” in the body, happening in a box of sorts. You’ll undoubtedly have felt better and more energetic, but some of this is owed to spending lengthy periods in a state of metabolic relaxation, deep breathing, and straightening out the health of your organs. With the jade elixir, alchemical medicine is actually entering the circulatory and lymphatic systems. This is what leads to the rosy cheeks, bright eyes, clear skin, strong nails, oily hair, lack of body odor, and all the other more visible transformations mentioned in the scriptures.
Like the oil of an herb slowly entering its clear aromatic vapors through repeated distillation in a glass lute, the color of the reverted elixir will gradually enter the jade water. The practitioner’s saliva will take on a subtle hue, like a drop of honey added to a handful of water. The taste of your saliva will become sweeter, and at this point the aroma of the jade elixir becomes strong enough that someone sitting right next to you might smell it. The circulation of the water wheel must now be slowed and breathing must be elongated to the point of near disappearance so that the gold fluid can enter the glands and descend back to the dantien by careful, slow guidance. This is the Jinye Huandan, the “reverted elixir of liquid gold.” When it returns to the dantien to mingle with the purified yin of your jing, then as the ancients say, “smelt it and name it the true elixir.”
To me, this is the actual creation of the gold elixir. The original medicine created by returning the five elemental qi to their origin has been rarified and sublimated so that it can interact with the jade elixir in the brain. That jade elixir itself has become receptive enough to it that they have wedded, sun and moon coming together as a single substance. This was then guided back to the dantien to be imbibed into the yin jing of the body, giving it coherence and substantiality instead of flightiness. The subtle mercury of the elixir has its wings cut, so that it can withstand the heat necessary to forge the Lead and Silver. In the brain the subtle elements of the two elixirs are wed, and in the lower abdomen their dense elements are wed. Then our internal alchemy agrees with external alchemy in form and result.
As with external alchemy, this stage is sufficient for long life and attainment. The subsequent stages are for ever-expanding realization and subtlety. For once the philosopher’s stone has finally been made it can be strengthened so that it’s projection power grows ever stronger. In the body this is done by now refining the elixir so that it can move freely as an entire force, rather than separated into dense and subtle parts. This is the unification of the three elixir fields of the body into a single oneness which pervades the self, and parallels the external process of giving the stone the power to penetrate into all metals and transform them. Then, using the omnipresence of the elixir within the body, the elixir serves as the medium to gather the most purely refined yang jing, yang qi, and yang shen and bring them to the final crucible at the top of the head. This is called “three flowers enter the summit,” and can only truly be accomplished when all the yin ghosts of the body have been incinerated by yang. This stage is also referred to as concocting the golden elixir, meaning everything the elixir is and has, has been released into subtle yang substances. At last, unified into the media of the Dao itself, the bodily husk can be cast off and these three flowers form a single Dao-body which is nowhere and yet can be anywhere. This is a stage beyond what we would consider to be bodily life, and is truly Celestial Immortality.
It is obviously impossible to compass the entirety of the alchemical path in a single essay like this. I have purposefully skipped over parts, such as the training of the immortal embryo, because a lengthy enough article could be written only on that. In truth an entire essay could probably be dedicated to each paragraph of this one. My goal here, instead, was t0 hone in on the elixirs and how different traditions view this process.
As stated in the beginning, one of the reasons for the apparent disagreements and diversity in naming the elixirs is because lineages often view them differently. To some lineages every significant step in the above processes is named an elixir. To others, groups of related processes are labeled together with their most significant sign of success, and that becomes an elixir. To yet a third group the entire process is just stages of a single gold elixir, though most at least acknowledge a second jade elixir involved in the process.
Hopefully I have dispelled some of this uncertainty in my readers, and provided a visible if crude map of these mysterious but important substances. The template given here will not satisfy every lineage nor is it meant to, but I hope it gives you a starting place for enriching your understanding.