The Secret of Everlasting Life

The First Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text on Immortality

Richard Bertschinger

• Publisher: Singing Dragon
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780857010544
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Asian Religions

The Secret of Everlasting Life is the first translation from the Chinese of the second-century Can Tong Qi. This ancient work, the earliest known text on transformation and immortality, echoes the wisdom and poetry of both the Tao Te Ching and I Ching. The Can Tong Qi is also the ancestral text of all Qi Gong exercises in China. This translation reveals for the first time the meditation methods practised for thousands of years by Taoist sages.

Presented here with its original Chinese commentaries, the Can Tong Qi is full of practical information and advice about the process of human transformation and how to nurture and develop the natural life-energy within us. Richard Bertschinger's additional commentary explains the intricacies of Chinese allegory and symbolism for the Western reader.

This book is aninsightfulread for anyone interested in Taoist thought, Chinese philosophy and culture, or Chinese medicine.

WEI BOYANG’S TEXT

1

THE YIN AND YANG, INNER VITALITY AND ENERGY

This first chapter describes the method of the Golden Elixir as involving the ‘embrace of the hexagrams Qian and Kun’. Qian provides the inner vitality or necessary seed, whilst Kun provides the energy. It outlines the ‘dazzling lights’ of Kan and Li, hexagrams or trigrams which represent the moon and sun; and the use of the remaining sixty hexagrams as markers in the process of firing an Elixir. Finally it stresses the mix of the dark inner and bright outer worlds, so crucial to a successful outcome.

Qian is firm and Kun is yielding,

They are fitted to embrace each other,

As Yang endows, then Yin receives,

The cock and hen depend on each other,

Depend on each other in order to create,

And send their inner vitality and energy abroad.

In order to speak about the idea of change in the world, the Zhou Yi or Chou I (Changes of Zhou) adopts the idea of the eight trigrams, Qian ☰ and Kun ☷, Zhen ☳ and Sun ☴, Kan ☵ and Li ☲, and Gen ☶ and Dui ☱; they describe respectively the natural phenomena of heaven and earth, thunder and the wind, water and fire, and the mountain and the marsh. These images describe the interplay of the two powers, Yin and Yang, and form the origin of all the myriad material things in the universe.

In the Can Tong Qi, Wei Boyang is influenced by three main topics: the idea of Yin and Yang, and the eight trigrams; the contemporary tradition of second-century ‘quietest and non-active’ (qingjing wuwei) Daoism; and the methods and terminology of the outer chemical alchemists. With these he establishes his subjects – the inner cultivation and development of an Elixir of everlasting life.

Qian	heaven	father	☰
Kun	earth	mother	☷
Zhen	thunder	eldest son	☳
Sun	wind, wood	eldest daughter	☴
Kan	water, moon	middle son	☵
Li	fire, sun	middle daughter	☲
Gen	mountain	youngest son	☶
Dui	marsh, lake	youngest daughter	☱

Fig. 7 The eight trigrams

This chapter explains how the hexagrams, six-line figures (or trigrams, three-line figures) Qian and Kun, Kan and Li, which derive from the Book of Change, are the key to the inner development of an Elixir. It points out how Qian’s nature is firm and forceful, while Kun’s is yielding and gentle. As the firm and yielding benefit each other, Qian and Kun join together in strength. The trigram Qian is Yang and thus in command of bestowal; the trigram Kun is Yin and thus in command of receiving nourishment. It is just as in the later section: ‘As cocky Yang sows upon the dark bestowing earth, so henny Yin transforms it through her yellow covering’ (Chapter 21).

The Yang cannot be without the Yin, and the Yin cannot be without the Yang; only through their mutual accord can the act of creation take place, and their inner vitality (jing) and energy (qi) be sent abroad. It is the same in the tempering of the inner Elixir.

Master Shangyang says: Confucius [in the Great Appendix II.6 to the Zhou Yi] states: Qian represents all Yang things; Kun represents all Yin things. Yin and Yang join together their strengths and the firm and yielding find substance. Thereby we take as substance the principle of heaven and earth; and can understand the strength of the divine light (shenming).

So as Qian becomes strong, firmness is built up ‘correctly within’, pure as unadulterated vitality; whilst as Kun becomes strong, so the yielding tenderness of ‘favourable devotion’ arises and thus ‘the true individual (chunzi) takes action’ [cf. Hexagram 2, Receptive, in the Zhou Yi]. This fitting together of Qian and Kun is the true method of the Golden Elixir.

He continues: One who can be fully set within the ‘firm and yielding’, is one who grasps the true method of the Golden Elixir. Thence the strength of the Qian-Yang lies in its command of endowment and donation; while the strength of the Kun-Yin lies in its special ability to take and receive within itself. So then, the cock and hen depend on each other to form an ‘inner vitality and energy’; and for this vitality and energy to be sent abroad it demands there be a cock and hen.

Yuyan comments: It is a great matter indeed that man has his breath!

There is a saying: As you breathe, so the firm and yielding rub against each other, so they form the very image of Qian and Kun, opening and closing.

He continues: Before man is born, he dwells in his mother’s belly, following his mother’s own breathing, seeing nothing, aware of nothing with only the one single breath protected there within. And then he is born, cut off and cast out, away from his umbilical cord so that then the single point of true energy gathers there beneath his navel.

One day passes, and then another; the spirit emerges forth and the energy passes on. Consequently he can never hold on again to that one single breath which was his within the womb.

Now the method of inner development which produces a divine Immortal uses man’s ability to ‘reflect back his brightness to light up within [huguang neizhao]’. His outbreath and inbreath merge together into a stage of supreme peace.

And it follows then that immediately, by ‘turning back to the source and travelling back to his original nature [fanben huanyuan]’, he can restore again his own life and receive back its very first energy.

As the old saying goes: I join with the true vapours within and retain the breath, so that quite naturally created there I see a little child’s face.

Again the Supremely Spoken Spiritual-Source Song says:

One thousand books, 10,000 essays, all discussing the abstruse! But the stalk of life has its origin actually in the true breath! Beyond the true breath, there exist only false views and distractions. They will never guide me onto the true self-actualizing path!

Now when Wei Boyang says ‘Qian is firm and Kun is yielding, they are fitted to embrace each other’, he means the moment you create the Elixir, the Qian-Yang joins itself on beneath the Kun-Yin, causing the outbreath and inbreath to merge together; and the firm and yielding match each other, both fitting together just as husband and wife. If you succeed in this for just a short space of time, your spiritual energies revert to their root, your life rolls up into one and the ultimate medicine is born!

Some would call it the ‘deep intercourse of the dragon and tiger’, or else the ‘metal and wood jointed together’; or else the ‘tortoise and snake encoiled’, or the ‘red and black pitched in together’; or else ‘heaven and earth peacefully entwined’, or the ‘variegated dark and yellow’; or else the ‘infused metals and earth’, or the ‘metals and the mercury at one in the cauldron’; or else the ‘metals and the fire at one in the furnace’, or the ‘mixed up red and white’; or else the ‘sun and moon in one palace’, or the ‘crow and rabbit in a single burrow’; or else the ‘happy union of husband and wife’ or the ‘ox-herd and spinning-maiden keeping tryst’; or else the ‘male and female tailing each other’, the ‘Hun-soul and Po-soul cast together’, or the ‘water and soil on the same territory’.

In the end whatever you call it, it is no more than the mind [xin] and the breath being together as one. It is simply the Yin and the Yang influenced internally with their spirit and energy entwined.

He concludes: In general, the method of the Elixir involves both the dissimilar prenatal inner and postnatal outer worlds, both non-action and action. Within the inner world you focus the mental energies and enter them into the Kun-belly to generate a medicine; when you arrive at the outer world you shift these energies so that they enter into the Qian-crown at the top of the head and finally complete the formation of the Elixir.

The prenatal inner world then is non-active; the postnatal world is active. It is not possible that there can be one exact rule for them both.

As Kan and Li, they come out excelling,

As dazzling lights they are diffused;

Darkened, unseen, and difficult to fathom,

And so impossible to define.

As Qian and Kun join in accord, they produce the trigrams Kan and Li. In the heavens, Kan and Li are displayed dazzlingly above as the sun and moon; they govern all the myriad creatures on the earth. In the human body, Kan and Li form the ‘lead’ and ‘mercury’ – the quintessence of our very selves, which can be fashioned and formed into an inner Elixir. However these are deep and profound truths, which do not easily adapt to explanation.

Master Shangyang says: What is meant by ‘as Kan and Li, they come out excelling’? Qian ☰ is firm and it joins with Kun ☷; Qian ☰ then becomes empty within and forms into Li ☲. Kun ☷ is yielding and it receives Qian ☰; Kun ☷ then becomes solid inside and forms into Kan ☵. Therefore Kan and Li follow from Qian and Kun but excel them, through coming forward out of the mixing of Yin and Yang.

Moreover as the proper positioning of the firm and yielding is attained, the sun’s light within Li and the shining moon within Kan diffuse down to illuminate the world below.

Darkened, mysterious, dull and unseen, this process is difficult to fathom and understand, as it cannot be clearly defined. It is only the sages who are able to ‘guess at an approximation’ to it, and ‘decide upon an order as a foundation’ [see below].

The sages guessed at an approximation,

Decided upon an order as a foundation;

These four in makeshift chaos

Directly enter back on into the void.

While the sixty hexagrams are about them

Spread out, expanded like a carriage:

Being yoked up with mare and dragon,

The enlightened ruler manages the times.

When at peace, he follows ahead

Travel...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction
• Wei Boyang’s Text
• Xu Congshi’s Text
• Addendum
• Terms Used in this Book
• Translation and History of the Text
• Additional Select Bibliography
• Index