The root-practice of neidan

Internal alchemy tends to be subject to frequent overcomplication. Great knowledge is not required to practice it but the mechanisms it moves are many and fascinating. Over the centuries the science of internal alchemy has been refined, its terminology fleshed out, its methods expanded. The ancients would call many such things “sideways paths.” Even so, their benefit is often great. There is nothing inherently Taoist about cultivating good health and living a long time, but it is hard to argue against the benefit of such a thing. Afterall if you could be enlightened but sick or enlightened but healthy, who wouldn’t choose the latter?

The appearance of many supplemental methods can obscure Neidan and make it appear intimidatingly complicated to newcomers on the path. It has its own encyclopedia of terms, and those terms are frequently used for different things. Even my own relatively short manual here on this website contains eleven core methods and six supplemental ones. And those are just the essential methods I boiled down from a collection of dozens of others that have overlapping benefits. Some encourage health, some clear the channels, some calm the mind. But what are we trying to get at? Where do these practices lead?

The essential goal of internal alchemy is exemplified in the term “dual cultivation.” That is, the cultivation of mind and body together. This is fundamentally accomplished by allowing the root of mind and the root of energy to spend time with one another until they permeate each other. Eventually, after much practice, energy blends with and follows mind and mind rests quiescently on energy. Even the dense forms of jing, such as the fluids in the body, will begin to move with the mind. When the gulf between mental and material is bridged they “birth” a new kind of form, one which is both and also beyond both.

There is really only one method to it: to let the mind rest in awareness of the body. As the mind quiets it will integrate more into your form. The latent energy within your body, which is also a dense form of mind, will be “warmed up” by this act and gradually increase in activity. As the energy releases and circulates, the body will respond with a sensation we call bliss. On the most essential level this bliss is the substantive union of mind and body. When the self is blissful the mind is naturally quiet and emotions are settled, the body feels light and warm, and good health is supported. 

No matter what method from which tradition, this is the essential root practice. Putting the mind in the Tig-Le to practice mantra while visualizing a deity? You are resting your awareness within the body. Breathing through chakras and chanting beej phenomes? Resting awareness within your body. Vipassana? Dhikr in the heart? Awareness in the body. Qigong, Tai Chi, Dao Yin, Asanas, Pranayama, Tsa-Lung, all are ornamented versions of the same fundamental method. By having something internal to fixate on you can pin the mind to the body. Everything beyond that is just fine-tuning some specific additional benefit. 

From this starting point all methods emerge. How can it be improved? What condition should the mind be in for the best results? Are there better places for the mind to integrate with the body? Do certain locations produce bliss sooner or more intensely? Can the health benefits of it by intensified by concentrating it to specific locations within the body? Does anything unique occur in the mind when it settles on different places? By exploring the answers to questions like these a myriad of techniques were created, but their mechanisms are all based on the same original concept.

In Taoist terms the entire secret is founded upon Heaven, Earth, and Humanity, the Three Powers. Heaven is vast, but needs a place upon which to rest. Earth is dependable and solid, but can not bring forth life alone. Heaven and Earth mutually embracing one another, Humanity appears spontaneously. Thus the Dao De Jing says “Humanity is the guest of Heaven and Earth.”

Likewise, Heaven is the mind and Earth is the body. When mind and body embrace one another there is life, which becomes the guest of body and mind. When they depart, life goes. Heaven and Earth follow the Dao, but the heart-mind of sentient beings is called the Pivot of Heaven and Earth. Why? Because sentient beings can misalign themselves with the pervasiveness of Heaven and Earth and throw themselves into turmoil. We can insulate ourselves from the natural transformations of Heaven and Earth by creating our own transformations using the creative power of the heart-mind and by spending our qi. Thus, now you have a job, and bills to pay, and a thousand other worries that neither Heaven or Earth fabricated for you. Rather, Humanity has created a pocket-dimension apart from nature’s transformations, full of artificial events and meanings. We have become strangers to our divine parents to such a degree that we can no longer see the full night sky in the “developed” world, and we fear plucking a wild berry to eat because we can not even name the plants and trees we walk by every day. 

Thus, letting the mind rest in the body is the essential method, but the mind is scattered and distorted, and the body is unsteady and poisoned. It would be like a weak, cold sun in the sky and an arid earth; these will not support the energy of life. Likewise a scattered mind and poisoned body do not support the abundance of qi and are unlikely to create the conditions for bliss. Seeing this, the ancients realized that for the marriage of mind and body to take place they must both first be healed. 

That is dual cultivation. Clarify the heart-mind in all its layers and states so it resembles its father, Heaven. Embolden and steady the body so it resembles its mother, Earth. When your awareness is like the open, indiscriminate sky and your body is like the rich earth, then the heart-mind will behave like Heaven and the qi like Earth. Just like Heaven and Earth did in the beginning, just existing with one another will give rise to life. From the heart-mind and qi come a new form, a new life within you. 

So there are first two great powers: Heaven and Earth. By embrace they create life. Now within life there are two great powers: livingness and innate nature. These come together and create Humanity. Within Humanity there are two great powers: vital energy and the heart-mind. Innate nature or consciousness is the ancestor of the heart-mind, and Heaven is the ancestor of consciousness. Livingness is the ancestor of vital energy, Earth is the ancestor of livingness. Because everything that constitutes us has a more ancient root we are able to reconnect to our source and re-enliven ourselves. 

How do we bring heaven and earth together within us, then? By binding the mind to the body and breath. The breath is the physical analogue of our qi. All qi in the body responds to the breath and is guided and supplemented by it. When mind, breath, and body are aligned then we have set the three powers of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity aright within us. When humans are aligned with Heaven and Earth they grow resilient, strong, healthy, and are at peace. Likewise when the breath is aligned with mind and body the qi becomes full of vitality and waxes strong within us. 

In the body breath represents the third power, Humanity. Humanity is the guest of Heaven and Earth, always coming and going, living and dying and being reborn. Breath likewise is always coming and going, one moment full and another emptied, one moment within us and another outside us. By stabilizing the breath we stabilize our vitality. 

Creative power is received from heaven, created form is received from earth. The creative power in a human shines from the mind through the eyes and leaks through the ears. Using these two bases, the heart-mind fabricates countless things. To have more qi all we need to do is plug up the leak and cut off the expense. Then the energy that is used up in creating and maintaining an imagined world will well up naturally all of its own accord. A thin, trickling creek can become a lake if it is stopped up. Once the dam is full then water can be let back out at the original pace without ever exhausting the lake. 

The Taishang Laojun Nei Riyong Miaojing states, 

“Qi is the mother of spirit;
Spirit is the child of qi.
Like a hen incubating an egg,
Preserve spirit and nourish qi.
Then, you will never be separated from the Wondrous.”

In Taoist ontology to be the “mother” is be that which supports and nourishes, and to be the “child” is to be that which is supported. To say that qi is the mother of spirit does not mean it precedes it ontologically, but that it supports it. The easiest form of qi to grasp is the breath, which anyone can control with relative ease. By enriching and lengthening the breath we stabilize the shen, the mind. The stabilized mind does not scatter and is thus preserved. Because it does not scatter it does not abuse the qi that supports it, and so that qi has the opportunity to grow full. 

The Yinfu Jing states, “The innate nature of heaven is humanity. The human heart-mind is the pivot.” Then later says, “The pivot of the heart-mind is in the eyes.”

Following on its tail, the Jinhua Zongzhi states:
“In the original creation there is positive light, which is the ruling director. In the material world it is the sun; in human beings it is the eyes.”

So what is the essential method? Taoists call it Turning the Light Around. It is simply to turn your attention from the outside world to the inside world, “looking” mentally within your own body. Taoists use the dantian as the focal point for this because energy naturally gathers here and then feeds throughout the body. For dual cultivation no location is as good as this. Traditions less concerned with dual-cultivation usually make the focal point the heart region, approximately between the xiphoid process at the sternum and the spine. 

Because the mind is initially unsettled it is bound to the breath. The breath controls the flow of qi, and the stability of the qi controls the steadiness of the mind. By slowly elongating the breath and making it even, exhale matching inhale, the mind automatically slows. This is universally known; breathing methods make up virtually every self-help process for calming down. No longer scattered to a hundred different micro-attentions, the qi gathers and grows, becoming a firm foundation for the mind, which itself quiets. 

Turn your attention inward to the dantian and tune the breath so it is slow, deep, and even. Keep the body perfectly still. In this condition, Heaven, Earth, and Humanity are aligned and positive creative energy can gather. The creative yang energy that we lose through the eyes and ears turns in and illuminates the space of the dantian with a subtle yang light. That yang lights evokes forth the concealed yang within the “water” of the kidneys. The yang creative light, the dragon, permeates and ultimately merges with the concealed yang potential of the kidneys, the tiger. 

In this condition Taoists say you are Facing the Origin and Guarding the One. To face the origin means to have your attention and therefore the flow of all your qi focused on the dantian, which is the origin of vitality and life. Guarding the One means to not let quiet awareness be bothered and dispersed. 

The more abundant your sexual essence(jing) and vital qi are, the quieter your mind is, the more powerful the meditation becomes. All spiritual practice requires that you have some abundance of energy to work with. Our jing is dispersed by too much sexual activity, poor diet, poor air quality, poor sleep, and poor physical activity. Our qi is dispersed by too much activity, emotions, and excessive talking and listening. Our mind is dispersed by hopes, fears, aversions, attractions, memories, and fabricated ideas. We do not have enough energy to spare for internal alchemy if we are living hedonistically and not taking care of ourselves. 

Hence, in the Jin Zhenren Yulu, “Perfected Jin” tells us, “This cultivation begins with preserving the Three, embracing the Origin, and guarding the One.”

In other words do not drain and diminish your jing, qi, and shen, but instead use a healthy lifestyle to preserve them. That done, spend your time keeping the mind quiet and open, with your awareness turned inwards on the dantian. That is all there is to it.

All other practices are built from or depend upon this single concept. The left and right eyes are the sun and moon of the shen. The left and right nostrils are the sun and moon of the qi. The left and right ears are the sun and moon of the jing. Look inward, listen to the breath, and balance your breathing. Then the two luminaries shine inward and a golden energy coalesces in the dantian. Hence the Yu Huang Xinyin Jing says:

“The sacred sun and sacred moon
Illuminate the Golden Court.
One attainment is eternal attainment.”

So this is the base practice. If we were to add a single layer of fabrication we could follow the old edict to “rouse the dragon in the morning and tame the horse in the evening.” This means to stabilize the heart-mind in quiet meditation in the times from midnight to noon, and to cultivate our qi from noon to midnight. In its simplest form this means to still the mind and empty the heart during the double-hour of solar noon, and to breathe deeply into the dantian with a quiet mind during the double-hour of solar midnight. Attention can be kept on the middle-dantian in the sternum at noon, and in the lower-dantian at midnight.

This simple extension of the practice merely encourages the qi in its own natural daily cycle. It utilizes the natural processes already occurring in your body to further support the alchemy, aligning you with the actual movement of the sun and its impact on your qi. Resting in the heart at noon, the heart-fluid is born in a more refined state before it begins its descent back to the kidneys. Resting in the dantian at midnight, the frail breath of pure yang is born with full support and the yin staleness is chased out. 

What about all the myriad techniques that are out there? My own manual provides over a dozen. Some systems make mine look like a small and simple thing, so elaborate are they. The Jinhua Zongzhi says:

“The minor techniques of circulating energy can enhance the body so as to extend the life span, but if you therefore suppose that the great Way requires work on the physical body, this is a tangential teaching.”

As I mentioned earlier, all methods hinge on this fundamental concept: let the mind and the body sit quietly together. The creative energy of the mind’s attention will rouse the creative energy of the physical body, “heating” our jing to produce the steam of true qi. Bliss arises, simultaneously healing the body and driving out all distractions of the mind. The Taoists and Yogis discovered that as this qi arose it could be circulated by moving attention more specifically. The also discovered that the dantian area is connected to the entire body, and so allowing this refined qi to arise here easily spreads it everywhere. Few places in the body are fit for coalescing energy and mind for prolonged periods. In the dantian it is not only safe but highly effective. 

So don’t be overwhelmed by the infinite boat of methods! There is really just one method, and it is one we can do at all times. It may not be the most technical, might not cause the most interesting signs and symptoms of attainment, but it is the root of all else. Even if you practice more advanced methods you can and should still supplement your meditation by maintaining this inward mindfulness as much of the day as possible. 

As the Nei Riyong says, “During the twelve double-hours of the day, constantly seek clarity and stillness.” This is what Wang Che points to in his fifteen discourses when he says, “To sit authentically, you must maintain a heart-mind like Mount Tai, remaining unmovable and unshakable throughout the entire day, whether standing, walking, sitting, or lying down, whether in movement or stillness.”