A simple introduction to internal alchemy

This newsletter is mainly about the study of Neidan/internal alchemy and although recently we have been talking about more cultural subjects, Qigong and Taijiquan it is important that we don’t forget the original intention.

I hadn’t been paying attention to subscriber count recently and it seemed like at the turn of my head we went from 1300 to 2000+ viewers. That got me thinking, most of you folks who have been around here for a while should already have a decent idea of how Neidan works, but that may not be the case for everyone, so why not have a little article about what it is, what style of Neidan we practice here and a bit about what you can expect.

I have to go to a Gu Qin factory this afternoon (Gu Qin is a famous Chinese classical instrument and my wife is going to start studying), but hopefully I can get this little article out before leaving.

1: What is Neidan:

Neidan is a mainly Daoist, but also somewhat Confucian and Buddhist style of meditation from China. It has around 1200 years of history, but in the period leading up to its development it existed in somewhat less refined forms and if we go by the oldest Daoist documents dealing with this subject it is around 1800 years old if not older.

The founders of Neidan are typically taken as:

• Wei Boyang: an early and mysterious Daoist figure who wrote the Zhou Yi Can Tong Qi, the first major Chinese alchemical document. It uses the theory of the book of changes (Yijing/I ching) to explain alchemy theory. Some scholars believe it was appended over the centuries and it could be the case that sections about meditative concepts were added later, but many people take it to be the first Chinese alchemy document. It dates perhaps to the second century A.D.

• Lu Dongbin: technically Lu Dongbin and his teacher Zhong Liquan are considered as the founders of the Golden Elixir school, the first major school to separate meditative alchemy from external alchemy which used laboratory made medicines consisting of toxic metals. The importance of this school is that meditation became separate from earlier alchemical enterprises and was thought of as a direct path toward spiritual liberation.

• Zhang Boduan: Zhang Boduan is thought of as the founder of the Southern School of internal alchemy and is the person from whom Neidan gets its name. He was the first to record and entire theory of the process in his text Understanding Reality.

• Wang Chongyang: Wang Chongyang founded the Complete Reality School which can in a certain regard be understood as a Daoist religion primarily concerned with the cultivation of immortality through the practice of the Golden Elixir (it is a method which ceremonializes Neidan practice and is very popular even today).

The basic idea of Neidan practice is that the human body contains a small amount of primordial essence derived from the time before the universe was created. This primordial essence is the inheritance of every living thing and required to keep the enterprise of life going from generation to generation. The Yin and Yang energies of our mothers and fathers form our genetic inheritance and this energy is seen as being part of a lineage of creation that goes right back to the Dao. There are various ways of interpreting this concept from religious to secular, although the secular approach got its start in the twentieth century and the religious version is much older.

Neidan is a method of using our minds, breath and bodies to enter a state of profound meditation in which this original essence can be transformed into an alchemical form of Qi which repairs the body and can be stored and grown over time.

When people achieve the basic goal of fully transforming the body through meditation they will develop a second energetic body which is capable of serving as a foundation for further spiritual transformation and eventual liberation from the cycle of birth and death.

Neidan has four main levels of practice:

• Refine Essence and transform Qi: the first stage of practice is when people refine a small amount of original essence material into Qi which begins to travel around and build up in the body,

• Refine Qi and transform Shen: when the Qi is strong enough it begins to transform a person’s spiritual experience as a result of frequently travelling to the brain where it causes a breakthrough into an enlightened state of being over time,

• Refine Shen and transform emptiness: at a high enough level, the person’s spirit can begin to travel outside the body in the environment and gradually return to the empty nature of the Dao,

• Merge Emptiness and the Dao: at the highest level of practice a person can return back to the original nature present before the creation of the universe.

These levels of practice can be understood both as milestones you can pass as a practitioner and as having broader spiritual or religious connotations depending on your beliefs.

What school do I practice:

Myself and my two students who are qualified to teach (Felix De Haas and Wesely Tasker) practice what is called Neidan Zhong Pai/Middle School of Internal Alchemy. Our transmission comes from my teacher Hai Yang who studied with Cao Zhenyang, the past abbot of the White Cloud Temple Beijing, along with Hu Haiya, a major figure in secular Neidan studies, as well as other masters.

We mainly practice according to the teachings of the following texts:

• Dao De Jing Chan Wei: this annotation of the Dao De Jing is the only text to use the Dao De Jing as a a guide to internal alchemy practice and is a very beneficial document for learning the method of the single opening of the mystery gate, our most important practice concept.

• Le Yu Tang Yu Lu: this series of notes taken by students of Huang Yuanji, the author of Dao De Jing Chan Wei further clarifies the practice concepts and allows for a deeper, more nuanced understanding,

• Zhong He Ji: anthology of central harmony, this is the first text of the middle school tradition and clearly explains key Daoist concepts through the lens of Confucianism and Buddhism,

• Xing Ming Gui Zhi: this is by far the most complete document in Neidan and teaches all the way from the beginning to attainment of final Buddhahood,

• Thirteen Rules of Nurturing Life: this Daoist Qigong/Daoyin document teaches methods of inner practice which are fast acting and less abstract than Neidan meditation. We usually like to teach it to beginners so they can sense Qi quickly and make faster progress.

We also read many other texts, but those are our key ones.

Our method is secular and largely uses the teachings of Chen Yingning, the founder of secular Daoism through his Immortality Study School as a theoretical background. Our basic conceit is that Neidan can be treated as a lifestyle activity and a hobby which can help you attain better health through energy cultivation and can lead to realization of one’s essential nature. Our students include martial artists, Qigong practitioners, Chinese Medicine practitioners and even Daoist priests and some Buddhists.

Although we do not teach with religious belief in mind, we are also not adversarial to Daoist or Buddhist religious beliefs (or any other religion for that matter) and view ourselves as being part of the larger community. I have personally been lucky to interact with many Daoist priests over the years in a sharing capacity and understand this as being similar to the post opening environment in China in the 1980s when secular practitioners and religious practitioners cooperated without judgment.

What to expect:

the first two levels of practice (small and large heavenly orbits) take between five to ten years to complete normally. Neidan is not a huge repository of techniques, it really comes down to your own personal effort and the job of a mentor is to guide you in the right direction.

If you study seriously, focus on detail and come to understand the practice and core theory you can expect to make progress. Don’t expect to be enlightened early in practice or fly away on a cloud, but if you keep going you are likely to eventually transform yourself energetically and realize who you were before you were born as well as many other benefits.

If you want to study I have prepared many introductory courses and if you live near the Netherlands or Boston you can seek our Felix or Wes who you can study with in person.

After learning core foundations the best thing you can do is learn document reading and the bulk of my teaching is in the context of teaching documents of the tradition.

I charge for programs and private classes, but I do not charge my students for email consultation about practice (within reason) since meditation requires guidance and I view it as my responsibility to help my students as they make progress.

Feel free to reach out by email, you can reach me at immortalitystudy @ gmail . Com

All the best.

A brief description of rending, one of the eight forces of Taijiquan

Now that I’m getting into full swing here in China I thought I’d do a few short articles about Yang style middle frame Taiji. I’ve been studying this style since 2012, but hadn’t seen my teacher master Yin Qing since 2018, so recently when I was able to visit him for some revisions it was very illuminating.

The study schedule is set up for every two weeks and I anticipate being in China for around two years, so I should be able to book fifty sessions with him which is wonderful.

One of the things that especially stuck out to me about his middle frame from Tian Zhaolin is how frequently the energies of Lie and Cai occur. Li and Cai are translated as rending and plucking respectively and are two of the “Ba fa” or eight methods of Taijiquan.

In the Yang style 108 these movements are often contained within other movements, for instance Lie is frequently found in aspects of single whip, slanted flying, etc... often people think of Lie as a rending, snapping, or hard horizontal or upward pulling motion, but in Tian style the movement is expressed in a few very direct was as a hard strike with different sections of the hand.

Here are a few specifics:

• zheng lie: zheng means vertical, so zhen lie is an upright rising rending action where the back hand holds a posture such as peng, and the attacking hand rises upward with the hand bent at the wrist. In this attack the back of the wrist is used to strike the crotch, body or under the chin while the defending hand keeps the opponent tied up,

• heng lie: heng means horizontal and in this case the radial side of the hand or forearm performs a chopping inward motion somewhat similar to a haymaker or cross punch, or even similar mechanics to a jab, but without retracting the hand.

The direction and mechanics of these strikes is different, but the basic principle is that the defending hand either performs peng or a grasping technique to control the opponent’s arm, then the striking hand attacks the body, neck or head.

The interesting thing is that while many large frame variations hide the strikes in the form and require direct pointing out by a teacher, the middle frame contains the strikes prominently visible in the form, although they require guidance to really understand.

Master Yin says that the monicker of “old frame” to define the middle frame routine is not correct, since Yang style has always had large, middle and small frames, but that the large frame has historically been more popular since it is easier to learn. He claims that the small frame is the most difficult and requires expertise in another frame before learning it or else the practitioner is likely to be injured and that while the middle frame is more difficult than the large frame, it is still possible for beginners to learn under the guidance of a teacher.

Anyway, the plan is to make more of these posts going forward, so let me know if there are any yang style Taiji specific topics you are interested in and I’ll see what I can do!

Hi friends, this is a quick reminder of the upcoming classes this month which include (click the links to view the full ad scripts including schedule, contents and pricing):

1: Introduction to the Tian Zhaolin lineage of Yang Style Taijiquan:

Introduction to the Tian Zhaolin Middle Frame linage of Yang style Taijiquan through transmission from Yang Jianhou - Wang Chengjie - Yin Qing - Robert Coons.

Get it here

https://immortalitystudy.gumroad.com/l/tianstyle1

2: Overview of the Small and Large Heavenly Orbits:

An introduction into the small and large orbits, two key stages of practicing Neidan.

Get it here:

https://immortalitystudy.gumroad.com/l/biwllo

3:Eastern School Hundred Character Ancestor Steele:

A full reading and analysis of Lu Xixing’s eastern school interpretation of the hundred character stele. Very useful for novice and intermediate students or anyone interested in the Eastern school.

Get it here:

https://immortalitystudy.gumroad.com/l/orlioi

4: Internal Alchemy of the Dao De Jing Chapter 8:

Get it here:

https://immortalitystudy.gumroad.com/l/dvhfag

Lu Xixing, founder of the Eastern School of Neidan, one of the secular branches not directly associated with the Long Men religion said this in his annotation of Lu Dongbin’s famous ancestor stele:

“People’s one heart is not dual at its root, but because we become lost in thought we split true and false.”

Neidan practice is an art of cultivating life energy (ming) through the use of nature (xing) and refining nature (xing) through the development of life energy (ming).

Xing and Ming have different meanings at different stages of practice and if we want to begin at the start and really cultivate the golden elixir so we stand a chance of later becoming enlightened and maybe something more, we must start by quieting the mind and forgetting ourselves. This is the foundational basis of using Xing to revert to the life root (what is called the “ming base,” similar to the base of a fruit where the stem inserts). To do this we must understand the formula of “forget to speak, protect,” an essential piece of information contained in Lu Dongbin’s hundred words (the foundational Neidan document). Every school of Neidan comes from this one document and all of them return to it. There is no Neidan without Ancestor Lu and incidentally my wonderful (verging on magical) friend Annie Pecheva told me that yesterday was Lu Dongbin’s birthday, so this seems like as good a time as any to talk about his deepest and most important ideas.

The secret doctrine of forgetting to speak is to break duality and enter the oneness of the pre-heaven so we can borrow directly from the one Qi of the Dao.

This is not the same as just closing the mouth and sitting quietly, it has a method, a small but important secret which is found in the way our spirits and breath merge. Beyond this secret is where the basic methods of each Neidan school differ, but the core secret is always the same, so in the end all schools revert to one.

People are disturbed because they are of two minds about things, but if we learn from the Dao De Jing and daily reduce and reduce again, we may find the real path to achieving non-duality and that it is very easy to practice, but hard to maintain.

Keep going in your meditation and don’t give up,

I wish you one day to fly away on a cloud and freely wander in the azure sky :)