DECODING TAOIST ALCHEMY

In reading the various Taoist poetry and information found elsewhere in STI, you will find it a bit elusive and difficult to grasp. Hopefully, this piece will give you a few secrets that will help in the decoding of the mysterious information and to better your understanding.

BACKGROUND

Taoist alchemy is found in China, though under different guises it is also present elsewhere in the world. It is an endeavor to understand the formation and function of the cosmos. "The alchemist rises through the hierarchy of the constituents of being by "exhausting" (Chin. jin or liao, two words also denoting "thorough knowledge") the nature and properties of each stage." He breaks the limits of individuality, and climbs to higher states of being; he becomes, in Chinese terms, a zhenren or an Authentic Man.

While historical and literary sources (including poetry) provide many important details as elusive as they may be, the bulk of the Chinese alchemical sources is found in the Daozang (Taoist Canon), the largest collection of Taoist texts. One fifth of its about 1,500 texts are closely related to the various alchemical traditions that developed until the fifteenth century, when the extant Canon was compiled and printed. Later texts are included in the Daozang jiyao (Essentials of the Taoist Canon) and in minor collections as well. In 1926 the Canon was reprinted and made available to the ever-growing public study.

Through its twenty documented centuries of history, Taoist alchemy has gone through changes, though the underlying principles remained the same. The two main traditions are conventionally known as waidan or "external alchemy" and neidan or "internal alchemy." The former, which arose earlier, is based on the compounding of elixirs through the manipulation of natural substances. Its texts consist of recipes, along with descriptions of ingredients, ritual rules, and passages concerned with the cosmological associations of minerals and metals, instruments, and operations. Internal alchemy developed as an independent discipline around the beginning of the Tang period. It borrows a substantial part of its vocabulary from its earlier counterpart, but aims to produce an elixir -- equated with transcendental knowledge -- within the alchemist's person.

Taoist alchemy has always been closely related to the teachings that find their classical expression in the early "philosophical" texts of Taoism, especially the Laozi and the Zhuangzi. The cosmos as we know it is conceived of as the final stage in a series of spontaneous transmutations stemming from original non-existence. This process entails the apparent separation of primeval Unity into the two complementary principles, yin and yang. Their re-union generates the cosmos. When the process is completed, the cosmos is subject to the laws of cosmology. The alchemist's task is to retrace this process backwards. Alchemy, whether "external" or "internal," provides support to the adept, leading one to the point when, as some texts put it, "Heaven spontaneously reveals its secrets." Its practice must be performed under the close supervision of a master, who provides the "oral instructions" (koujue) necessary to an understanding of the processes that the adept performs with minerals and metals, or undergoes within himself.

DOCTRINES

In order to transcend space and time -- the two main features of the cosmos -- the alchemist must take extreme care of their correspondences to the work he performs. Space is delimited and protected by talismans (fu), and the laboratory (danwu, lit. "chamber of the elixirs") and instruments are properly oriented. According to some texts, heating must conform to minutely defined time cycles. This system, known as "fire times" (huohou), allows an adept to perform in a relatively short time the same work that Nature would achieve in thousands of years -- in other words, to accelerate the rhythms of Nature. Bringing time to its end, or tracing it back to its beginning, is equivalent. In either case time is transcended, and the alchemist gains access to timelessness, or "immortality". The same with space: its centre, where the alchemist places himself and his work, is a point devoid of dimension. From this point without space and time he is able to move along the axis that connects the higher and lower levels of being ("Heaven," tian, and the "Abyss," yuan).

Among a variety of procedures that the sources describe in an often allusive way, and in a language rich in metaphors and secret names, two stand out for their recurrence and importance. The first is based on lead (yin) and mercury (yang). In external alchemy, these two substances are refined and joined in a compound whose properties are compared to the condition of primeval Unity. In internal alchemy, lead is a cover name for the knowledge of the dao (Pure Yang, chunyang) with which each being is fundamentally endowed, but is obscured (i.e., transmuted into yin) in the conditioned state. Mercury, on the other hand, represents the individual mind.

The second most important method, which is proper to external alchemy, is centered on cinnabar (yang). The mercury contained within cinnabar (representing the yin principle contained within yang) is extracted and newly added to sulphur (yang). This process, typically performed nine times, finally yields an elixir embodying the luminous qualities of Pure Yang. This yang is not the complementary opposite of yin, but, again, represents the One before its separation into the two complementary principles.

The final object of external and internal alchemy is represented as the preparation of an elixir usually defined as huandan (lit., "Elixir of Return"). This expression, recurring in the whole literature, originally denotes an elixir obtained by bringing the ingredients back to their original condition through repeated cyclical operations -- an operation comparable to the process that the adept performs within himself with the support of the alchemical practice. The word dan ("elixir") also denotes cinnabar, suggesting that the process begins and ends on two corresponding points along an ascensional spiral. This synonymy also shows the centrality of cinnabar in external alchemy, where this substance plays a role comparable to that of gold in the corresponding Western traditions.

In internal alchemy, the central role is taken by lead, that represents original Oneness and is often a synonym of "gold" (jin). The value of gold, and the word "gold" itself, are therefore mainly symbolic in China: the elixir, whether external or internal, and whatever its ingredients, is often defined as "gold," and "Golden Elixir" (jindan) is a name of the alchemical arts.

HISTORY

The extant waidan sources suggest that the two main methods outlined above acquired progressive importance in the history of the discipline. In the Book of the Nine Elixirs (Huangdi jiuding shendan jing) and other texts dating from the first centuries A.D., cinnabar is never the main ingredient of an elixir, and the lead-mercury compound -- sometimes replaced by refined lead alone -- is only used as a layer in the crucible together with other ingredients. In these methods, the substances undergo cycles of refining in a hermetically sealed crucible. This process consists in a backward re-enactment of cosmogony, that brings the ingredients to a state of prima materia. The elixir can finally be transmuted into alchemical gold projecting a minute quantity of the native metal on it. Important details on the early phase of Chinese alchemy are also found in portions of the Baopu zi neipian, written around A.D. 320. Its descriptions of processes that can be compared with extant sources are, however, often abridged and sometimes inaccurate.

During the Tang dynasty, the waidan tradition reached one of its peaks with Chen Shaowei (beginning of the eighth century), whose work describes the preparation of an elixir obtained by the refining of cinnabar. Each cycle yields a "gold" that can be ingested, or used as an ingredient in the next cycle. In the second part of the process, the final product of the first part is used as an ingredient of a huandan. Among the representative texts of this period are several collections of recipes, one of the most important of which was compiled by Sun Simo. The first half of the Tang dynasty also marked the climax of contacts between China and the Arabic world. These exchanges may be at the origin of the mediaeval word alchymia, one of whose suggested etymologies is from middle Chinese kiem-yak (the approximate pronunciation of mod. jinye or "Golden Liquor") with the addition of the Arabic prefix al-.

While the Tang period is sometimes defined as the "golden age" of external alchemy, it also marked the stage of transition to internal alchemy. Among the forerunners of internal alchemy is the Shangqing (Supreme Purity) tradition of Taoism. Based on revelations of the late fourth century, this school attributed particular importance to meditation, but also included the compounding of elixirs among its practices. (Shangqing represents the first example of close relations between alchemy and a major movement of "religious" Taoism.) The relevant sources exhibit the earliest traces of the interiorizazion of alchemy. Among the texts used in this school is the Huangting jing (Book of the Yellow Court), a meditation manual often quoted in neidan texts.

The shift from external to internal alchemy, sometimes taken to be only due to the multiplication of cases of elixir poisoning, or to the influence of Buddhism, requires further study to be properly evaluated. The very incidence and relevance of cases of accidental poisoning (which claimed their toll even among Emperors) suggests that external alchemy had lost, at least to some extent and in some contexts, its soteriological character, and that its practices had become known outside the legitimate transmission. Some masters may, therefore, have transmitted their doctrine modifying the supports used for the practice. In internal alchemy, the adept's person itself performs the role that natural substances and instruments play in external alchemy. In doing so, this discipline avails itself -- in ways and degrees that vary, and which require further study to be correctly understood -- of traditional Chinese doctrines based on the analogies between macrocosm and microcosm, of earlier native contemplative and meditative disciplines, and of practices of Buddhist origin (apparently of Tantric character, through the possible medium of the Tiantai school).

In Song and Yuan times, the history of neidan identifies itself with that of the lines of transmission known as Southern Lineage (nanzong) and Northern Lineage (beizong). The respective initiators were Zhang Boduan (eleventh century) and Wang Chongyang (1112--1170). Both schools placed emphasis on the cultivation of xing and ming, which constitute two central notions of internal alchemy. Xing refers to one's original nature, whose properties, transcending individuality, are identical to those of pure being and, even beyond, non-being. Ming denotes the "imprint," as it is, that each individual entity receives upon being generated, and which may or may not be actualised in life (the word also means "destiny" or "life," but neither translation covers all the implications in a neidan context). The Northern and Southern lineages, and subtraditions within them, were distinguished by the relative emphasis given to either element. The textual foundation of the Southern Lineage was provided by the Zhouyi cantong qi (Token for the Agreement of the Three in Accordance with the Book of Changes) and the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), a work in poetry by Zhang Boduan.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties the neidan tradition is known to have divided into several schools, but their history and doctrines are still barely appreciated. One of the last greatest known masters of this discipline was Liu Yiming (eighteenth century), who in his works propounded an entirely spiritual interpretation of the scriptural sources of his tradition.