Daoist Alchemy

When we talk about the Daoist Alchemy, we talk about the psychosomatic system of energy manipulation and cultivation. This is what is known primarily as the nei wan, or internal elixir. There is also wei wan - the external elixir. This one was concerned with transforming iron into gold, discovering the secret of immortality, and I bet no one really practices it in our day, except in laboratories.

But the Nei Wan is practiced by quite a number of people, from the numerous Chi Gong practitioners in China and Southeast Asia that claim traditionalist approach, to the more modern Universal Tao,  to the Tai Ji and other Internal Martial Arts practitioners around the world.


Daoist Alchemy starts from becoming aware of the fact that we are given a limited amount of energy at our birth, therefore the death results from continuously dissipating this energy throughout our lifetimes. DA aims at recapturing this energy and thus reverting to the state of being like a child, who "the horn of rhinoceros can't hurt, and the claw of the tiger has no place to land". And so DA has been called the journey of return, return to the primal state also being referred to in the alchemical literature as the golden fetus.

What is that primal state, and why should one aim to return to it? Well, there is a very good benefit of doing that, and that is in simply being happy. Look at all the Chinese New Year and Feng Shui pictures and you will see what I mean: besides the widespread picture of Hotei -the god of wealth, who is basically a very fat guy with a sack full of gifts you see little kids running around and laughing and that is pretty much it.

Yes, being like a child, care-free and pliable, without worries or concerns makes one happy and especially very content as we are as humans and the members of societies are just the opposite for the most part. The consistent preoccupation which is born from the perception that the world is made from solid objects gives rise to everything else, and so we strive and strive and strive to achieve, to gain, to get, to win, to overcome. Is there end to it?....This approach was hailed by the Tang Dynasty's greatest poet Du Fu, who said

A hundred years full of sickness, I climb the terrace alone.
Suffering troubles, I bitterly regret my whitening temples,
Frustratingly I've had to abandon my cup of cloudy wine.

He basically says that being a part of a society does him no good, he suffers from running on and on without an end so he craves to return to the real source of happiness, the elixir, the Dao.

So the DA being an extension of such viewpoint believes in that. It says "disconnect yourself", think and meditate, release your fears and come back to how you were when you were a pliable child - that is really what is going to make you happy! And really, the child doesn't know much, like the adults do - he just sits, eats, and pees, either smiling or crying, but the world is a small bubble, and there is no need for more.

Of course, for some of us who are adults it is very hard to imagine coming back to being that way, as the baggage is just too heavy sometimes. However, it is an intriguing idea for many, and a good reason why especially the Daoist philosophy is so attractive to a great number of spiritual seekers around the world - it doesn't require much, worship, rules or precepts. Basically it is up to you, as long as you are sure that you are treading the right path for yourself, and that should be the only guideline for anyone. That said, there are traditions and teachers and lineages, and they vary like anything else. For example, the founder of the Tai Ji Quan is considered a Daoist priest Chang San Feng who was known to be very tall with a large long beard, and was probably not Chinese at all as there are no Chinese people with such measurements and ethno type. He was said to be and immortal and it is claimed that several emperors up till the Ming Dynasty has met with him personally.

Besides offering such a free-roaming lifestyle DA has a rich variety of techniques developed through the ages, they aim at understanding jing, or the sexual energy, then transforming it into the chi, the actual energy, which then can be used to feed the shen or the spirit, which in turn is used to feed into the void, which is then crushed. These rather esoteric-sounding  ideas simply mean that you never stop, for no one knows where the final destination is.

A Daoist adept aims to open the back and later the frontal energy channels that unify into a Microcosmic Orbit. This is a long work process, that includes discovering and "opening" of the centers, that are similar to the concept of chakras in yoga, although there is more of them. Please refer to Mantak Chia books for more information on this sort of gong fu. Also there is a good but complicated from the point of view of readability book by Douglas While called "The Art of Bedchamber", which is basically a compilation of classics on the subject,

Although this sort of work is better practiced in couples, there are plenty of instances where they are being practiced by solitary practitioners and in groups. These have historically secluded themselves high up in the mountain layers, and unknown to the outside work have done their work by uniting with Nature undisturbed by anything other than their own minds. Some of these practitioners, are discovered even up to this day....

A couple that is alchemically connected have a chance of realizing themselves as the Universal occurrences that they truly are, they become infinitely more open, more happy and more satisfied. A "win-win" situation become not a theory but a practice and all those crazy phrases from the Chinese Classics such as the Tao Te Ching and the Art of War start to make sense in a more ways than one. It is the Dao that performs this magic on them, and no other force can provide a better backbone for this unique discovery, as the Dao is not really a force, but a consciousness that pervades the unseen world.