True Yin and True Yang
I’d like to look at the Awakening to Reality Poem #10 which according to Pregadio’s commentary is about “True Yin and True Yang that control one another and join together to generate the elixir.” I’m hoping that others might have some thoughts on this.
Poem 10
Hold True Lead firmly
and seek with intention;
do not let time
easily slip by.
Just let the earthly po-soul
seize the Mercury in the Vermilion,
and you will have the celestial hun-soul by itself
controlling the Metal in the Water.
One can say that when the Way is lofty,
Dragon and Tiger are subdued,
and it may be said that when Virtue is hefty,
gods and demons are restrained.
Once you know that your longevity
equals that of Heaven and Earth,
troubles and vexations have no way
to rise to your heart.
Pregadio's interpretation of the next four lines:
The “earthly po-soul” is True Yang found within Yin; it is the precelestial Original Essence of which the physical body is a Yin manifestation. Analogously, the “celestial hun-soul” is True Yin found within Yang. It is the precelestial Original Spirit of which the thinking mind is a Yang manifestation.
The “Mercury in the Vermillion” is True Mercury, or True Yin within Yang. It is found within Fire, which is represented in alchemy by native cinnabar. The “Metal in the Water” is True Lead, or True Yang within Yin. In the system of the five agents, Metal is found within Water.
In the post-celestial world, the Yang principle tends to rise to Heaven and vanish above, causing the loss of True Yin; the Yin principle tends to descend into the Earth and be wasted below, causing the loss of True Yang. To avoid this, the pre-celestial po-soul (True Yang) should control the Yin principle (the Mercury in the Vermillion), and the pre-celestial hun-soul (True Yin) should restrain the Yang principle (the Metal in the Water).
And my simplification from this of Zhang Boduan's lines:
Just let the (True Yang found within Yin/original essence)
seize the (True Yin within Yang/pre-celestial Original Spirit),
and you will have the (True Yin within Yang/pre-celestial Original Spirit),
controlling the (Yang principle/?).
Original Spirit should control original essence, True Yin should control True Yang.
One line of Pregadio's commentary I found particularly interesting was that "It is the pre-celestial Original Spirit of which the thinking mind is a Yang manifestation." True Yin controls the thinking mind. What does True Yang control? According to Pregadio, True Yang created the physical body, so True Yang controls matter?
