New Book: "Cultivating the Tao", by Liu Yiming (1734–1821)

Golden Elixir Press is pleased to announce the publication of Cultivating the Tao: Taoism and Internal Alchemy, by Liu Yiming.

Cultivating the Tao is a complete translation of one of the main works by the renowned Taoist master Liu Yiming (1734-1821). Divided into 26 short chapters, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the basic principles of Taoism and an introduction to Taoist Internal Alchemy, or Neidan, written by one of the greatest representatives of this tradition.

Liu Yiming was an 11th-generation master of the Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage. Having recovered from severe illness in his youth, he undertook extended traveling that led him to meet his two main masters. In 1780, he settled in the Qiyun mountains, in the present-day Gansu province, and devoted the second half of his life to teaching and writing. His works mainly consist of writings on Neidan and of commentaries on major Neidan scriptures.

Liu Yiming grafts Internal Alchemy onto the teachings of the Book of the Way and Its Virtue (Daode jing) and of the later Taoist tradition. Few other masters have illustrated the relation between Taoism and Internal Alchemy as clearly as he does in this book.

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Publication Data:

Liu Yiming
Cultivating the Tao: Taoism and Internal Alchemy
The Xiuzhen houbian (ca. 1798),
translated with Introduction and Notes by Fabrizio Pregadio

Golden Elixir Press, 2013
Paperback, 180 pages
ISBN 978-0-985547516
List price: US$ 17.95 - € 13.95 - GBP 11.95


New Publication 20% Discount:

US$ 14.35, or equivalent in Euros or GBP
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Wang Jie on the Precelestial and the Postcelestial Breaths

The precelestial Breath is the original and initial Ancestral Breath. This Ancestral Breath is in the real center of Heaven and Earth within the human body. [Placed between] the Secret Door and the Gate of Life, hanging in the middle, it is the Heart of Heaven. The self-cultivation of the divine Immortals only consists in collecting the precelestial One Breath and using it as the Mother of the Elixir.

The postcelestial Breath is the Breath that circulates internally: one exhalation, one inhalation, once coming, once going. "Exhaling touches onto the root of Heaven, inhaling touches onto the root of Earth. On exhaling, 'the dragon howls and the clouds rise'; on inhaling, 'the tiger roars and the wind blows.'"

When [the postcelestial Breath] is "unceasing and continuous," it returns to the Ancestral Breath. The internal and the external inchoately merge, and coalesce to form the Reverted Elixir (huandan).



▶ Quoted from Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine: A Fourteenth-Century Work on Taoist Internal Alchemy, by Wang Jie, page 7— Read more on and from this book

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Liu Yiming on "Doing" and "Non-Doing"

Continue to advance in your practice, passing from "doing" into "non-doing." Nourish [the Embryo] warmly for ten months, keeping it tightly closed [within the womb]. Lessen the excess of strong emotions, and augment the insufficiency of compliant nature. Using the celestial True Fire, and relying on the hexagrams Zhun ䷂ in the morning and Meng ䷃ at night, smelt away the postcelestial Yin breaths. Generate the immaterial from the material, passing from the subtle to the apparent. When Breath is complete and Spirit is whole, "with a peal of thunder the golden cicada sheds its shell," and you have a body outside your body.

When the work is completed and your name is recorded, (*) you will have audience at the Northern Portal and will ride a soaring phoenix. You will fly and rise in the broad daylight, and will become a Celestial Immortal of Pure Yang, free from death. Wouldn’t that be pleasant?

(*) That is, one's name is entered in the "registers of immortality," according to the classical Taoist image for the achievement of transcendence.



▶ Quoted from Awakening to Reality: The "Regulated Verses" of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy , by Fabrizio Pregadio, pages 87-88— Read more on and from this book

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