It's a great topic. So actually I believe there are 3 ways overall - not just the 2... (assuming we're focusing on spiritual cultivation)   The way you haven't mentioned (but actually described to a certain extent) is the 'consciousness only' method - what most people think of as Buddhist or meditative practice. This is the idea that your body is not real, it's impermanent and it's a hindrance to your consciousness.   The other approach is 'top-down' - the idea here is you transform your Shen through various tantric methods (by tantric, I mean working with the underlying energetic framework)... The changes on the Shen level then cascade down and transform your body in turn. This is, for example, Max's Kunlun method.   The classical approach is the 'bottom-up' approach. It's as you described - you work from the densest aspects, layer by layer, eventually moving into the realms of cosnciousness.   So here's my own experience. Baring in mind that I've had some experience in all three forms of practice and I've spent several years full-time, travelling and meeting teachers all around the world, and particularly all over Asia. I've had the great fortune to meet some extremely advanced teachers and have witnessed things that appear pretty miraculous. By this I'm saying that although I'm no 'master' myself, I have dedicated years to searching and decades to practicing these arts... in a very determined way. So my opnions aren't so much from books, but from personal experience and discussions and meetings with people.   The first approach - consciousness only. This simply doesn't work for most people.   As in 99.9999999% of people. It does work for some - but these people are usually ones who have achieved what's known as 'Path Knowledge' in a past life (or a similar attaniment in the Jhannas). Basically this means they are 80% of the way to full enlightenment and have managed to let go of the majority of their karma - and although they are still on the cycle of death and rebirth, they generally do not accumulate any more karma, and the karma they 'fruit' is generally of the most wholesome kind. They can effortlessly enter samadhi, they manifest all sorts of abilities etc.   These are the 'spiritual geniuses' of the world. I've trained with one (western) Buddhist teacher that demonstrates this. He went to a meditation class in his early 20's and discovered that he could see into peoples bodies, pinpoint illnesses, and access information about their lives (this is the first time he sat)... Within a couple more attempts he entered smadhi and then through a range of coincidences met high level buddhist teachers, discovered he already knew by heart much of the Pali cannon etc. For him, practice is mostly on the level of consciousness - he sits, enters jhanna, and is able to make internal change on the causal level.   The way he teaches his students, however is quite different. His focus is on body first... then moving onto meditative practice... then body-based vipassana. He takes a 'bottom up' approach - however his toolset is not quite as advanced as the Daoist set for this approach and I've not seen many of his students advance that far.   The second approach - Top-down.   This approach doesn't deny the body. But it starts with Shen (or Ling, technically) and moves down. I was also very much into this approach. I trained with Max for a several years. I lived at his house for a couple of weeks at a time, doing this work. However, I started to have doubts about the method. I saw lots of people damage themselves badly. I saw a lot of delusion in the school - and it seemed the only people that made good, safe progress did in fact start with a 'bottom-up' approach before coming to Kunlun. In fact Max himself had decades of 'bottom-up' training with quite traditional teachers. I began to lose trust in the method (I was quite sad about that as it was the first time I discovered that all this stuff is very real, tangible and very powerful).   The bottom-up approach.   When I started to get into the 'inner door' parts of a couple of schools in Asia, that's when I began meeting some extremely advanced people. Both in terms of the meditative aspects, skill with energy, alchemy, healing, siddhi etc. I have met one person who I'd consider 'fully enlightened' and they came from the 'bottom up' approach.   When you start working on aspects of consciousness with advanced teachers (that expect results from you - or you're out), you begin to realise just how much internal strength, stamina, effort and energy is required to achieve something like Jhanna. I know a lot of people think they've achieved Jhanna... but let's just say that maybe they've been misled on what Jhanna really is... For example as you enter and stabilise the 1st Jhanna, you can discern the full cause and effect chain on any body or mind you choose to focus on... that sounds abstract... as an example the whole of Chinese Medicine and it's understandings of cause and effect came from insight at the level of 1st Jhanna... If you enter 1st Jhanna at the moments before death your body will not rot. After death in 1st Jhanna, you're able to choose when and as whom you are reborn...   To even get a chance at entering 1st Jhanna you first must be able to enter and stay in samadhi for several days straight... That in itself is a superhuman ability... Imagine the most intense mental focus - like attempting to solve the hardest puzzle you've ever solved - and keeping that level of focus completely steady and unwavering for 72hrs - and not straining, pushing or using any effort to do so.   To be able to do that you need to have a lot of energy. Your channels must be clear. Your Shen must be bright as the sun. Your body must be strong and resilient. and that's all achieved by the bottom-up method.   I realise I've been using buddhist terminology - because actually at the higher stages it's easier to communicate, but this is certainly the case with the Daoist approach too - just substitute Jhanna with Shen Ming, and samadhi with Xin Zhai etc. In fact I believe that the Daoist approach overall in the preparatory stage is very much superior to the Buddhist appraoch. Once you get to the higher stages though, things are less differentiated.   The Daoist understanding is that the body is the mind. So when you're working with the body, you're also working with the mind - it's just approaching change from the direction of the body is far less prone to delusion and error. Your Ren Mai is either open or not (there are specific physiological signs for it) - an open Ren Mai also has specific qualities of mind - but knowing whether you've achieved them is almost impossible (unless youre teacher is able and willing to enter into Jhanna to check )   There is much wisdom in the bottom-up approach. It's all understandable, discernable, testable and makes 'sense'. The Top down approach is the opposite - you must completely drop any attempt at making sense and surrender your whole self to your teacher and the method... The only teachers I met that I could fully trust in this way have been bottom up teachers... and they don't want all this dependency - they want you to figure stuff out by yourself - to understand what you're doing and why.   Anyway - I hope this makes at least some sense. I know it's all a bit rambling, but I don't have the time to make it more coherent. Happy to answer any questions to clarify anything here though.