Resources / The Taoist body
Internal Alchemy Map
Internal alchemy describes the refining of essence into qi, qi into spirit and spirit into emptiness, in a language taken from the laboratory and the Yijing. The map draws the stages on the three fields of the elixir, sets out the exchange of Kan and Li that restores Heaven and Earth, and glosses the terms.
A map of a symbolic language. It is not a practice manual.
Plate I · the stages of the work
From essence to the Dao
Stage II of V
Refining essence into qi
煉精化氣
liàn jīng huà qì
Essence is refined in the lower field and turned into qi. Later manuals make this the stage of the lesser heavenly circuit, the microcosmic orbit.
- Worked in
- Lower field, below the navel
- In the texts
- The lesser circuit, xiao zhoutian 小周天.
Plate II · take from Kan to fill Li
The exchange of water and fire
Li, fire, stands above as the Heart: two yang lines holding a yin line within, the 'true mercury'. Kan, water, stands below as the Kidneys: two yin lines holding a yang line, the 'true lead'.
Zhang Boduan's Wuzhen pian speaks of taking the solid line from the heart of Kan to transform the yin within Li. The figure is a reading of the trigrams, not a physical process.
Keep this reading
The code
Terms of the inner elixir
Summaries of how the terms are used across the tradition, not translations of a single text.
- Essencejīng精
- The densest of the three treasures: generative essence, in medical theory stored in the Kidneys. The first to be refined.
- Qiqì氣
- Breath, vapour, the vital stuff of all change. The second treasure, between essence and spirit.
- Spiritshén神
- Spirit or numinous awareness, the finest of the three treasures, housed in medical theory in the Heart.
- Emptinessxū虛
- Openness or vacuity: not nothing, but the state before things are differentiated, to which the work returns.
- Field of the elixirdāntián丹田
- Literally 'cinnabar field'. Three are commonly named, in the belly, the chest and the head, though texts place and number them differently.
- Cauldrondǐng鼎
- The vessel in which the elixir is formed, borrowed from the tripod of laboratory alchemy. Texts disagree on where in the body it stands.
- Furnacelú爐
- The stove beneath the cauldron, which supplies its fire. Its place, like the cauldron's, varies by text.
- Fire phasinghuǒhòu火候
- The timing and strength of the 'fire': when to heat strongly and when gently. The texts treat it as the subtlest part of the work, passed on by teachers.
- Medicineyào藥
- The ingredients of the elixir, gathered from within the practitioner, not from outside.
- Lead and mercuryqiān gǒng鉛汞
- The code names of the two ingredients: true lead, the yang hidden in Kan, and true mercury, the yin hidden in Li.
- Golden elixirjīndān金丹
- The end of the work, named after the elixir of laboratory alchemy: what does not decay.
- Nature and lifexìngmìng性命
- Inner nature (xing) and vital life (ming). Later neidan, the Quanzhen school above all, holds that both must be cultivated together (xingming shuangxiu 性命雙修).
The tradition
Internal alchemy, neidan 內丹, took the language of the laboratory alchemists, the furnace, the cauldron, lead and mercury, the golden elixir, and turned it inward. From the Tang and Song onward its writers describe the body as the vessel and its own essence, qi and spirit as the ingredients, refined in stages back towards the Dao from which they came.
Its code is the Yijing's. Kan ☵, water, holds a yang line between two yin; Li ☲, fire, a yin line between two yang. To 'take from Kan to fill Li' is to restore the pure trigrams Qian ☰ and Kun ☷, the state before the world divided. Zhang Boduan's Wuzhen pian, of the eleventh century, is the classic of this reading.
Reading the instrument
- The first plate draws the stages of the work on the three fields of the elixir. Choose a stage to see which treasure is refined into which, and in which field the common later scheme places it.
- The second plate draws the exchange of Kan and Li. Before, Li stands above and Kan below; after, their middle lines have changed places and Qian and Kun stand restored. Before, Exchange and After step through it.
- The glossary below gives the terms with their characters and pinyin. Its definitions are summaries of how the terms are used, not translations of a single text.
Where it descends from
- Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), Zhang Boduan, 1075
- The verse classic of the Southern lineage of neidan: Kan and Li, lead and mercury, fire phasing.
- Zhouyi cantong qi
- The ancient treatise, read by neidan writers as the source of their code, that joins the Yijing's trigrams to the alchemical work.
- Fabrizio Pregadio, The Way of the Golden Elixir
- A modern introduction to neidan terminology and the stages of the work.
- Benebell Wen, Advanced Introduction to Taoist Alchemy
- A modern account distinguishing the lesser circuit as foundation from the greater as attainment.
What this does not claim
This is a map of a symbolic language, for study. It is not a practice manual: it gives no breathing, retention or sexual methods, which lineages teach under guidance and differ on. The stages and fields shown are the common later scheme; texts number and place them differently, and the durations they give are conventional figures. Nothing here claims a physiological effect.