The Golden Elixir Blog

Golden Elixir Press is pleased to announce the publication of Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Elixir: A Fourteenth-Century Work on Taoist Internal Alchemy The Ruyao jing (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine) is one of the most famous texts of Taoist Internal Alchemy, or Neidan. Written in the 10th century, it describes the foundations of Internal Alchemy in twenty short poems of four verses. Because of its symbolic and cryptic language, it has been subjected to different and sometimes conflicting interpretations. This book contains the first complete translation of the Ruyao jing and of the commentary by Wang Jie, who lived in the 14th century. Wang Jie was a second-generation disciple of the great Neidan master, Li Daochun. His commentary is characterized by a strong connection between the doctrinal and the practical aspects of Neidan. The translator's notes provide details on the main technical terms and on the relation of this work to other important...

Golden Elixir Press is starting a new series entitled Golden Elixir Quote of the Week. Each quote consists of a short passage on Neidan (Internal Alchemy) selected from one of the books published by the Press. To view a sample, click the link below. • Sample Quote of the Week The Quote of the Week is sent by email to subscribers at no cost. To subscribe, enter your email address in the box below, and click Subscribe. ( If you have troubles seeing or using the subscription form above, use the form available on the  Sample Quote of the Week  web page. — You can unsubscribe at any time.  Golden Elixir Press will never sell or share your email address with anyone. )

Fig. 1. Entrance to the Baiyun guan ( Click to enlarge this and the other pictures ) The Baiyun guan (Abbey of the White Clouds, fig. 1) in Beijing is one of the most important Taoist monasteries in China. A Taoist temple already existed here in the mid-8th century, but the present site originally dates from around 1200. From the 17th century, the abbey has been the seat of Quanzhen (Complete Reality) , the main Taoist lineage in northern China. Fig. 2. The Neijing tu stele While Quanzhen allows for different forms of individual practice — especially meditation — and also includes forms of Taoist communal ritual, its methods incorporate a brand of Neidan (Internal Alchemy) that emphasizes the cultivation of one’s inner nature. The Neidan view of the human body  has often been represented in charts and other illustrations. The  Neijing tu , or  Chart of the Inner Warp , is the most famous of these charts. It depicts the body as a landscape and shows...

Fig. 1. Entrance to Mount Qiyun Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734-1821) was one of the greatest masters of Neidan (Internal Alchemy) . Born in Quwo (present-day Shanxi province), he spent the first half of his life traveling extensively to various towns and mountains in northwestern China and to Beijing, in order to search for teachings. His main teachers were a master whom he calls Kangu laoren (Old Man of the Kan Valley, first met around 1755), who gave him teachings on the Book of Changes , cosmology, and Neidan; and another master whom he calls Xianliu zhangren (Great Man Resting in Immortality, first met in 1768), who gave him further teachings on Neidan. Fig. 2. First level of the Zizai wo In 1779, Liu Yiming visited Qiyun shan (Mount Resting on the Clouds). He decided to settle there and built his residence, called Zizai wo (meaning Nest of Being by Oneself, but also Nest of Freedom, as well as Comfortable Nest...). Since then, his main activities were teaching, writing, and ...

An abridged translation of the Cantong qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three), the main text of Taoist Internal Alchemy, is now available in PDF format. This version is based on the complete translation published in  The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of th e Cantong qi, the Source of the Taoist Way of the Golden Elixir  (Golden Elixir Press, 2011), available in both a paperback and a hardcover edition. The PDF contains 32 of the 88 poems of the original text. Each poem is translated in full, and the explications and line notes are the same as those found in the complete version. The Introduction, the tables, the glossary of Chinese characters, and the list of works quoted are reproduced entirely. The textual notes, the appendixes, and the final index of subjects are omitted. ▶ See the  web page  on this PDF ▶ Download a sample (PDF, based on the unabridged version) ▶ Other  materials on the Cantong qi ...

The Golden Elixir website now contains an online slideshow presentation entitled "Who Wrote the Cantong qi ?" , on the author(s) of The Seal of the Unity of the Three . Click the picture above to visit the Golden Elixir web page where you can watch the presentation.

The Japanese alchemical chart of the body reproduced above is entitled Shūshin kyūten tandō zu 修真九轉丹道圖, or Chart of the Way of the Elixir in Nine Cycles for the Cultivation of Reality (the Chinese reading of the title is Xiuzhen jiuzhuan dandao tu ). Although no precisely corresponding picture seems to be found in Chinese texts, it is likely that this chart is either copied from, or based on, an earlier Chinese exemplar that may now be lost. The Chart , which is undated, is now kept in the library of Tenri University in Japan. It is reproduced here from the book by Katō Chie 加藤千恵, Furō fushi no shintai: Dōkyō to “tai” no shisō 不老不死の身体 — 道教と「胎」の思想 (The Ageless and Deathless Body: Taoism and the Idea of the “Embryo”; Tokyo: Taishūkan shoten, 2002), p. 121. Dr. Katō is one the main Japanese scholars of Taoist Internal Alchemy. She has published extensively in particular on the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality) and on the Taoist views of the “embryo.” From top to bottom a...

Of old, those who excelled in doing the Dao were subtle, marvelous, mysterious, and penetrating: their depth cannot be understood. It is only because it cannot be understood that, if I am forced, I would describe them as — hesitant, like one fording a stream in winter; tentative, like one concerned by the four neighborhoods; respectful, like a guest; dispersed, like melting ice; genuine, like an uncarved block; vast, like a valley; murky, like muddy water. ( Daode jing , 25) In generating and feeding things generate but do not own, do but do not be dependent, let grow but to not manage. This is called Mysterious Virtue. ( Daode jing , 10, part.) Those who intend to take over the world and do something to it— I see that they will never succeed. The world is a divine vessel: you cannot do anything to it, you cannot hold it. If you do something to it, you damage it; if you hold it, you lose it. Thus the Saint does not do, ...

Golden Elixir Press is pleased to announce the publication of Vol. 2 of The Seal of the Unity of the Three , subtitled  Bibliographic Studies on the  Cantong qi :  Commentaries, Essays, and Related Works,  by Fabrizio Pregadio. The Cantong qi is the main text of Taoist Internal Alchemy (Neidan). In addition to Taoist masters and adepts, it has also attracted the attention of philosophers, cosmologists, poets, literati, calligraphers, philologists, and bibliophiles. Thirty-eight traditional commentaries written through the end of the nineteenth century are extant, and dozens of texts found in the Taoist Canon and elsewhere are related to it. The present book is the most complete guide to this vast literature available in any language. The book is divided into two main parts. Part 1 contains a catalogue of extant and lost commentaries, essays, and related texts, listing altogether about 150 works with details on their authors, editions, reprints, and bibliograp...

An Introduction to the Classics of Taoist Alchemy. Available for free download from TCCII . These excerpts are reproduced from the post entiled Interview with Fabrizio Pregadio , accessible from the Silent Tao website. Shawn Cartwright, who conducted the interview, is a co-founder of the Traditional Chinese Culture Institute International (TCCII), and a teacher of several Chinese internal arts. His website contains many materials of interest on Neidan (Internal Alchemy). The full interview is available in a PDF edited by Shawn, entitled Interpreting the Ancient Codes of Taoist Alchemy . Interview with Fabrizio Pregadio By Shawn Cartwright  Fabrizio Pregadio, one of the foremost translators of Taoist Alchemy classics, answers several questions about his work translating some of the most important texts of Nei Dan. Here is a selection of questions and his answers from the interview. The full interview can be found in the paper Interpreting the Ancient Codes  availab...