Golden Elixir & Stages of Collecting Jing, Qi, Shen

[Kati]

In my practice I’ve started noticing that “going inward” is not just one single experience, but seems to unfold in different stages and qualities.

• At first, it feels like embodying Jing – through for example grounding through the body

• Then comes Qi regulation and gathering –  through for example movements, orbit, guiding breath and energy.

• Deeper still, Shen returns and collects –  through for example inner smile exercise the heart quiets.

• And finally, in Nei Dan, there is the stage often described as the Golden Elixir – the inner union of Jing, Qi, and Shen.- I’ve only heard about this last stage and can only intuitively sense what it might be like: that the “inside” is no longer just inwardness, but the oneness of all treasures.
   

I’m curious:

• How do you personally distinguish these different inner stages in your own practice?

• What helps you move from a scattered inside (like fantasies or restless Shen) to a collected inside where transformation really happens?

• And if you’ve gone further: how do you relate to this Golden Elixir stage in your own tradition?

I’d love to hear from others walking the Neigong path about how you encounter and navigate these thresholds.

Edited October 2 by Kati

[forestofclarity]

I don't think most people agree on what the Golden Elixir is-- at least, as far as I've been exposed. Do you have a definition you use? 

[Forestgreen]

• They feel different. After a while, you function different. 
• A shitload of proper practice. 
• Jindan = The reversal of Water, also called the replenishing cycle. In the wuxing,  if you move backwards from water you get metal. It is an important step, but in the quest for Celestial immortality it marks the end of the intermediate level of practice. It can also be used for other purposes, leading to develop powers. 
• The way to navigate through the process is to see phenomena as signposts, and continue with the practice. Some of these signs means that the focus of practice must change, a teacher is invaluable here.  Otherwise, one might spend years on aspects that are "good enough". I have years of experience on that one.

 

[Antares]

On 03.10.2025 at 2:12 AM, Kati said:

I’m curious:

• How do you personally distinguish these different inner stages in your own practice?

• What helps you move from a scattered inside (like fantasies or restless Shen) to a collected inside where transformation really happens?

• And if you’ve gone further: how do you relate to this Golden Elixir stage in your own tradition?

Jing and Qi replenishment occurs automatically at the initial stage if you do your practice correctly while working on Ming. 

Good to begin from Wuji stance before you move. 

As for GE your teacher should explain it to you. What neigong system you practice btw?

[SodaChanh]

The Golden Elixir is your true nature, abiding in it with no self involved. 

 

There is no sense of wanting something else, no past, no future. There is just THIS. 

[Mark Foote]

Stages and levels in Tai Chi:

 

The classic literature of Tai Chi appears to identify the ligaments of the body as a source of activity.  The literature describes three levels in the development of “ch’i”, and each of the three levels has three stages.

 

The stages of the first level are:

 

“… relaxing the ligaments from the shoulder to the wrist”; “from the hip joint to the heel”; “from the sacrum to the headtop”.   

 

(“Three Levels” from “Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on Ta’i Chi Chuan”, Cheng Man Ch’ing, tr. Benjamin Pang Jeng Lo and Martin Inn, pp 77-78)

 

 

Unlike the contraction and relaxation of muscles, the stretch and resile of ligaments can’t be voluntarily controlled.  The muscles across the joints can, however, be relaxed in such a way as to allow the natural stretch and resile of ligaments–that would seem to be the meaning of the advice to “relax the ligaments”. 

 

The stages of the second level are:

 

“sinking ch’i to the tan t’ien” (a point below and behind the navel); “the ch’i reaches the arms and legs”; “the ch’i moves through the sacrum (wei lu) to the top of the head (ni wan)”.  

 

(ibid)

 

 

Tai Ch’i master Cheng Man Ch’ing advised that the ch’i will collect at the tan-t’ien until it overflows into the tailbone and transits to the top of the head, but he warned against any attempt to force the flow.

 

Omori Sogen cautioned similarly:

 

… It may be the least trouble to say as a general precaution that strength should be allowed to come to fullness naturally as one becomes proficient in sitting.  We should sit so that our energy increases of itself and brims over instead of putting physical pressure on the lower abdomen by force.   

 

(“An Introduction to Zen Training: A Translation of Sanzen Nyumon”, Omori Sogen, tr. Dogen Hosokawa and Roy Yoshimoto, Tuttle Publishing, p 59)

 

 

I would posit that the patterns in the development of ch’i reflect involuntary activity of the body generated in the stretch of ligaments. There is, in addition, a possible mechanism of support for the spine from the displacement of the fascia behind the spine, a displacement that can be effected by pressure generated in the abdominal cavity and that may quite possibly depend on a push on the fascia behind the sacrum by the bulk of the extensor muscles, as they contract. 

 

 

 

 

The final level in the development of ch’i concerns “chin”.  According to the classics, “chin comes from the ligaments” (“Cheng Tzu’s Thirteen Treatises on Ta’i Chi Chuan”, as above). 

 

The three stages of the final level are:

 

“t’ing chin, listening to or feeling strength”; “comprehension of chin”; “omnipotence”.   

 

(ibid)

 

 

Another translator rendered the last stage above as “perfect clarity” (“Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai-Chi Ch’uan”, tr. Douglas Wile, p 57). In my estimation, “perfect clarity” is “the pureness of (one’s) mind” that Gautama associated with ...the fourth concentration.

 

(A Way of Living)

 

 

Gautama’s metaphor for the fourth concentration:
 

… it is as if (a person) might be sitting down who had clothed (themselves) including (their) head with a white cloth; there would be no part of (their) whole body that was not covered by the white cloth.

 

(MN 119, © Pali Text Society vol. III p 134)

 

(Just to Sit)

 

 

“Imagine that a lump of soft butter, pure in colour and fra­grance and the size and shape of a duck egg, is suddenly placed on the top of your head. As it begins to slowly melt, it imparts an exquisite sensation, moistening and saturating your head within and without. It continues to ooze down, moistening your shoul­ders, elbows, and chest; permeating lungs, diaphragm, liver, stomach, and bowels; moving down the spine through the hips, pelvis, and buttocks."

(Hakuin's account of Hukuyu's teaching, from "Wild Ivy, The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin", translated by Norman Waddell. © 1999 by Norman Waddell)

 

 

I can testify to the sensation of a white cloth covering the head and the entire body. I believe that sensation has its roots in reflex activity of the body as a consequence of the placement of attention by the necessity of breath, reflex activity that works the muscles against the ligaments of the sacrum and spine to align the vertebrae and allow the displacement of the thoracolumbar fascia:

 

The suffusion of the body with “purity by the pureness of mind” in the fourth concentration can allow the thoracolumbar fascial sheet to sustain an openness of nerve exits along the sacrum and spine. Such an openness is accompanied by an ability to feel throughout the body to the surface of the skin.

There is a relationship between the ease of nerve exits from the sacrum and spine and feeling on the surface of the skin. Here is a chart from the early 1900’s of the specifics of that relationship on the front of the body:

 

 

 

The free placement of attention in the movement of breath depends on an ability to feel throughout the body to the surface of the skin.

(Just to Sit)

 

 

The emphasis on the collection of ch'i at the lower dan t'ien corresponds to Gautama's second concentration, and to the Rinzai Zen focus on the hara that accompanied Hakuin's practice of the golden egg. That's the emphasis that Omori Sogen warned against, in the passage I quoted above.

 

I discuss my approach to the concentrations in Applying the Pali Instructions, and again in Just to Sit.

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 06:44 PM by Mark Foote

[Antares]

2 hours ago, Mark Foote said:

The stages of the first level are:

 

“… relaxing the ligaments from the shoulder to the wrist”; “from the hip joint to the heel”; “from the sacrum to the headtop”.   

 

It is not a stage, just requirement. IMO the first stage is:

Quote

The One cavity is the root of the void. It has neither shape nor form. When the original vapor emerges, the cavity appears; when circulation is at rest, the cavity disappears. The One cavity is the place where the sacred is hidden. It is the altar of life, and it has many names—the Palace of the Dragon at the Bottom of the Sea, the Land of the Snowy Mountain, the Western Realm, the Original Gate, the Land of Great Happiness...

from Huiming - jing - one of the Wuliupai texts