Taoist Texts

 

"Alchemy" is based on arabic article "al" and ancient greek "khumos". "Khumos" is exactly equivalent to "dan".

So yeah from a stricly linguistic point of view Neidan = Inernal Alchemy. 

• alchemy (n.) 
• mid-14c., from Old French alchimie (14c.), alquemie (13c.), from Medieval Latin alkimia, from Arabic al-kimiya, from Greek khemeioa (found c.300 C.E. in a decree of Diocletian against "the old writings of the Egyptians"), all meaning "alchemy." Perhaps from an old name for Egypt (Khemia, literally "land of black earth," found in Plutarch), or from Greekkhymatos "that which is poured out," from khein "to pour," related to khymos "juice, sap" [Klein, citing W. Muss-Arnolt, calls this folk etymology]. The word seems to have elements of both origins.

丹 (radical 3 丶+3, 4 strokes, cangjie input 月卜 (BY), four-corner 7744₀, composition ⿻冂亠)

2. cinnabar (native HgS)
4. vermilion (artificial HgS used as pigment)
6. (medicine): tablet, capsule, pill

 

 

You're fighting 

fighting?;

By collecting higher and higher levels of the "immortal medicine". And letting this medicine refine your spirit. You don't even need written language to do this. Though correct words from a true teacher can be a great aid.

Exactly. This is how the neidan pill is done. Something is being manipulated. What is not a part of the equation in neidan though? The manipulator. What kind of a person he is does not matter, his relationship with the fellow humans (De) does not matter, his relationship with the universe (religion) is non-existent.

The latter is attested by the vehement abhorrence of religion by the modern neidanists, the former is proven by textual analysis.

Personal Virtues

The true alchemist seeks sanctity rather than wealth: 'he on whom the Most High has conferred the knowledge of this Mystery esteems mere money and earthly riches as lightly as the dirt of the streets. His heart and all his desires are bent upon seeing and enjoying the heavenly reality of which all these things are but a figure.'3 Thomas Charnock advises the would-be adept that 'if you thinke to obtaine your Intent, / Fear God and keepe his Comandement'.4 Alchemy was not intended for personal benefit, and we are told repeatedly that the Art should be used for 'the glory of [God and] His most Holy Name, and for the good of thy suffering fellow man*.5 If you 'desire to struggle with this process', John Dastin advised, you 'ought not to approach it unless you have a mind that is pure and dedicated to God, and humbly beseech him for help'.6 Purity was an essential prerequisite of success for the alchemist:

Iyfe thow wilt thys warke begyn.

Than schrevy the clene of alle thy Seyne:

Contryte in hert wyth alle thy thowght.

And ever thenke on hym that the der bowght.7

We are told that the alchemist should be 'Sober, Honest, and Meeke'.8 The medieval alchemists sometimes recommended a fairly conventional piety:'take thee to thy Beades and praye', Pierce the Black Monk admonished, and proceed with 'Prayers, Penaunces, and Piety'.9 George Ripley advised the aspiring alchemist to

Live clene in soule, to God doe none offence;
Exalt thee not but rather keepe thee Lowe,
Ells wyll thy God in thee no Wysdome sowe.10

The ungodly excluded themselves from mastery of the Art: 'God gives not this gift to the wicked, who despise His word, but to the godly who strive to live honestly and quietly in this wicked and impure world, and to lend a helping hand to the needy brethren'."

The alchemical outlook sometimes implied a degree of withdrawal from mundane activities. One alchemist advises a quietist asceticism: 'let your minds and thoughts be turned away from all things earthly, and, as it were, created anew and consecrated to God alone'.12 The alchemist, according to Henry Pinell, should 'live a serious and private life, free from all other employment and businesse in the world'.13 The alchemical art, however, required more than a personal cleanliness of spirit and an ascetic quietism.

And he that will come thereby.

Must be meeke, and full of mercy:

Both in spyrit and in Countenaunce,

Full of Cheriti and good Governaunce ...

And all the ryches that he ys sped.

To do God worschyppe with Almes deede.14

William Bloomfield admonished those who aspired to obtain the Stone that they should 'to the Poore be not unkind... be gentle to all men ... Fatherles and Widows have alwaies in thy minde.*'5 A late seventeenth-century alchemist informs us that, although 'Divine Truths are adumbrated' in the spagyric art, *it gives not the possession thereof, which is alone Entailed
upon that Divine excellency that never fails; Charity'.16

Spirituality and the Occult

Brian Gibbons

To pinpoint the difference between the technological approach of neidan and the holistic  way of alchemy lets garner some historical substantiation from the western hemisphere:

Religiosity

Martin Luther,  the father of the Protestant Reformation:

Nicolas Flamel

26. Thou hast now the treasure of all worldly felicity, which I a poor country clown of Pointoise did accomplish three times in Paris, in my house, in the street des Ecrivains, near the chapel of St. Jacques de la Boucherie, and which I Flammel give thee, for the love I bear thee, to the honour of God, for His glory, for the praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

maybe start by defining the neidan pill and what role that plays.

Sure. According to 

1. It cures diseases just like the waidan does 身病、年病，所治之药而有二等：一曰内丹，次曰外丹。”  

2. it comes from the heart and the kidneys 当以详陈内丹之理，内丹之药材出于心肾

3 i makes the adepts immortal in spirit "Lu asked;"You have told me that when we attain the golden pill, we will  shed our shells, rise to immortality, and return to the ten islands. "

Since the neidanists are unable or unwilling to come up with a simple definition we will make use of the one above and turn to the next issue which is alchemy.

Alchemy is a religious process of making the elixir which includes not just the bodily energies manipulation but the overal human condition of the alchemist. In other words - the making of neidan is the recipe only, the alchemy is the Dao, the cosmos, the gods, the humanity, the alchemist and as a distant last - the recipe. Thats what makes them so vastly different.

Yes now we are ready to proceed. The baker bakes bread. Baking involves taking flour water eggs mixing kneading putting into oven taking out when ready. Thats how a loaf of bread is made. How is the neidan pill made?

The neidan pill is made by manipulating bodily energies according to a secret recipe.

Everybody agreable with this definition? Is this the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I don't think inner is redundant as most associate that to "nei"...   

 

But I think your point is all Alchemy is inner in the end... even outer (ingestion of chemicals) is an inner process (?)

Thats true but there is more to it. Some say that the actual physical manipulations in the laboratory alchemy are only the visual aids for inner work.

So your point is neidan is the object... the end goal...  and Alchemy is the process?

Yes

I play the piano is the object...

the piano is an instrument for  playing which is the process to produce a phenomena of pleasant soundwaves.

I push on the piano keys and produce sounds when linked together is the music I intended to make... the process.

yes thats the process the goal of which is music

. Discussing specific practices is more efficient and more in keeping with rectification of names 

Yes now we are ready to proceed. The baker bakes bread. Baking involves taking flour water eggs mixing kneading putting into oven taking out when ready. Thats how a loaf of bread is made. How is the neidan pill made?

Dear Taoist text,

 

how you translate Nei Dan from Chinese to English if it is not Inner Alchemy?

Neidan is best translated as elixir, which is an object.  Alchemy (the 'inner' is a redundant qualifier really) is the process intended to make that object.

Is your real Alchemy maybe Inner work as we find in Shang Qing Pai,Qing Wei Pai and Tian Shi Pai(all from Zheng Yi)?

Yes. Alchemy includes all of that and more.

I practice guitar on a daily basis. Guitar is an object. 

I practice the jian. Jian is an object.

Thats a good example of what i am getting at. The mode of speech that you have just employed is called ellipsis, an omission of words in a sentence for shortness while managing to get the meaning across. When you say 'I practice guitar' you really mean 'I practice strumming the strings to produce music on my guitar' with the underlined omitted. Now when you say 'i practice guitar' obviously you have the object, the guitar in your possession, your practice does not improve the object.

On the other hand when a neidanist says 'I practice neidan' with neidan being an object, a pill of eternal youth why would not he simply say 'i make the pill of eternal youth' if that is what he is doing? Its the same number of words so it can't be ellipsis.

The reason why he does not say that because if he does that he will beg the question 'Really? How nice. Have you made it already?'. So by saying 'i practice neidan' the neidanist is using a mode of speech called euphemism, which is an evasive language mode to cover his failure to make a neidan.

The primary error here, in my opinion, is to be too focused on the language and not focused enough on the practices.

1. The Rectification of Names (Chinese: 正名; pinyin: Zhèngmíng; Wade–Giles: Cheng-ming) is the Confucian doctrine that to know and use the proper designations of things in the web of relationships that creates meaning, a community, and then behaving accordingly so as to ensure social harmony is The Good.
2. Rectification of names - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

 

 Miserable, shallow and secular 

Neidan, or internal alchemy^[1] (simplified Chinese: 內丹术; traditional Chinese: 內丹術; pinyin: nèidān shù), is an array of esoteric doctrines and physical, mental, and spiritual practices that Taoist initiates use to prolong life and create an immortal spiritual body that would survive after death.^[2] Also known as Jindan ("golden elixir")

What is neidan semantically? Literally it means internal elixir. I.e it is not a practice, it is an object. To say that "I practice neidan" is incorrect, since an object can not be practiced.

A pharmacologist does not practice aspirin, he produces aspirin. A carpenter does not practice a table, he practices carpentry to make a table.

Yet this incorrect word usage is universal both among scholars and the practitioners. Lets turn to the original texts to see what is practiced there if not neidan? For example in 钟吕传道集  a 24 page long medieval text neidan is mentioned 3 times

e.g. 身病、年病，所治之药而有二等：一曰内丹，次曰外丹。the body sickness, the age sickness is cured by two: neidan and waidan. Always as an object to be produced, never as a production process. So what exactly the neidanists do, to produce neidan? They manipulate bodily energies to produce neidan. How is this manipulation named? Curiously, this process does not have a specific Chinese name.

Fangshu Xuanzhong Cuizuan (The Collected and Edited Hinges among the Dark Pivots for the Art of the Chamber, 989 AD) (Fangshu,hereafter). This is one of the texts for the "new" art of the bedchamber started to emerge during the Song dynasty, and is one of the text to have influenced the Ming sexual arts. It explains the purpose of the sexual techniques, which are specifically called neidan (the Inner Alchemy) in this text, by saying as follows: "it is because my body becomes the same object with heaven and earth, and obtain the true breath of the yang,which intersects and inducts within my body by ascending and descending.”

(Sex and Immortality: A Tentative Study on How Chinese Sexual Art Impressed upon the Idea to Become Better-Being in Religious Contexts. Sumio Umekawa, Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies,University of London)

Thanks Dawei, today being friday and all, for starters I would invite ya' all to familiarize yourselves with a fantastic paper by a very respectable scholar 

Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein

its a joy to read

Anyone else have results from their trainings they could describe here?

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

sure, going without food 20-30 days, no problem.

Dear Taoist text,

 

 

Ormus

Ormus certain ppl gonna be upset if we start offtoping here;), if u ever decide to start a new topic on this we can chat there.

 

In English you separate these 2 words, can you do it in Chinese?

 

 

of course I can;) start a topic, lets find out

 

"my point is that neidan does not work"

 

Yes, neidan does not. Alchemy does. There is a huge diff between the two. I will be glad to elaborate on that if anybody is interested and starts a new topic re that.

Then came Plato, and it changed the system. Not only did he say that the "three parts" were parts of the unique soul, that is to say that shen, qi and jign are part of po, but he did something else. The three were now, in his lingo, nous (a contracted form of the word noos), thumos and epithumia. The menos was banished, and the "lower parts" were now a thumos and and even lower thumos. So you have only a po constitued by a shen, a jing, and another jing o_O

 

An then he told that sexual activity was  not "lower part", not thumos attribution, but the result of spiritual activity when it was turned to the external world. So we have to renounce to sexuality, in order to turn the fluids upside and keep it for a spiritual usage. Sounds familliar?

Thats an excellent find thanks for that.

 

Right. That is not what the text you quoted said anyway. But ill let you have it, it's your opinion, and your doubts are fair enough for you. But you are just closing yourself off from any opportunity, and that's your choice. Your choice to keep yourself isolated from Dao.

Thanks luckily that is not the case. I do practice real dao in the form of internal alchemy and  i am very successful in it. 

 

Whats your point you are making with your quoted text in bold?

 

The List is used for marketing (negative advertisement) purposes. The purpose is to belittle all other methods in order to make neidan into a mass product thus maximizing the revenue.

The claim is 'the minor methods are bad, neidan is good'.

Yet the very same text the list was culled from gives lie to this claim, truthfully explaining that

A. minor methods cure diseases and prolong life

B. neidan does not work for an absolute majority of the practitioners.

One paragraph above The List:

Lu said:

"Ever since the beginning of time, people have learned about the Tao, understood its principles, and attained it. After
they attained the Tao, they left the dust of the world and went to the Peng-Iai Islands. Then they ascended to the celestial realm, entered the realm of celestial yang, and eventually reached the Three Pure Realms. Honored teacher, why do you say that although people have heard of the Tao, they could not attain it, and although people have tried to practice its teachings, they could not reach it? Is it because the Tao wants to hide from us?"

Chung said: "The Tao docs not hide from us deliberately. People couldn't attain the Tao because they did not trust its teachings, and those who trusted the teachings did not practice diligently. Some practiced it for one day and abandoned it the next day. Some remembered the principles in the beginning but forgot them later. Some started their training with enthusiasm but soon lost their interest. This is what I meant by the Tao being hard to attain even if you knew about it and tried to practice it."

 

 

Why I speak this?Well because of Immortal Master Lu transmited book with instructions about Wai Dan to Masters on Jingai Shan.How then we can see this and in relation to text we are speaking from the first page?

 

well this text says that waidan is false. period.

The text of your school founder refers to the "external kidneys" several times - that is the genitals indeed.

Thats probably new-age external kidneys, or is it old-new-old age? So confusing.

Anyway Drew i heard there is the taoist practice of bedroom arts where the male conserves his essence..is that  neidan? whats your take on it?