The Secret of the Golden Flower: Taoist Yoga as Alchemy

As a young college student, in the early 1970s, I purchased The Secret of the Golden Flower (“A Harvest Book”, 1962 edition) and to this day can actually remember reading and considering the basic meditation practice described in that text.  This is the version that was translated and “explained” by Richard Wilhelm and which includes an extensive section of commentary by Carl G. Jung.  For more background material on this text, read the article preceding this one.

Key to this practice seem to be two areas of focus: the “third eye” region, as a “site” (“…the square inch field of the square foot house [i.e. face] [where] life can be regulated”) representing the core of our being and awareness, and the movement of subtle life or spirit energy.

This meditation practice involves (a) steady focusing on the third eye region, calming agitated awareness and freeing oneself from countless distractions, while (b) feeling and visualizing the circular flow of energy in one’s body.  The circulation of energy, when cultivated to reverse it’s normal outward direction, is meant to “crystallize” an awakened spiritual “body”.  So, this practice of reversing the normal flow of energy and light entails the energy descending down the frontal line of the body (with each exhalation) and ascending up the spinal line (with each inhalation).

John Mann and Lar Short in their 1990 book The Body of Light describe the “Taoist model of the subtle body” (page 96):

The basic elements in the Taoist spiritual anatomy, as in the Hindu and Buddhist, are the energy centers and the channels that connect them.  The most important of these are located in the core, up the back and down the front of the midline of the body.  The central core channels correspond to those in the tantric Buddhist model used for transforming subtle energies into spiritual energies.  The channel in the spine corresponds to the Hindu model.  The channel along the front of the body, in combination with the one in the back, constitutes the Microcosmic Orbit, which forms an inner system for digesting and circulating energies of various types.

So, they explain, the Taoist Yoga system entails three “bodies”: physical, energy, and spirit bodies.  And, while “Hinduism tends to assume the [already in] existence of these bodies” Mann and Short report (page 100) that with Taoist (and also Buddhist) yoga practices an alchemical-like process is at work, where the energy and spirit bodies are developed only by “arduous inner work”.

Excerpt from an old meditation text…..

The German translator Richard Wilhelm, who presented to the world the first English translation of the old Taoist meditation text—-the Secret of the Golden Flower—-in 1929 (and just before dying in 1930), also introduced another text that, he wrote,  “combines Buddhist and Taoist directions for meditation”.    Wilhelm published a portion of this meditation text—–the Book of Consciousness and Life or the Hui Ming Ching—-in the 1920s in the fifth German edition for the Secret of the Golden Flower.  That same excerpt is in the 1962 edition published here (and which I have had for many years).    This text (which Wilhelm only publishes the introductory section of) is described in this quote provided on page XV (“Forward to the Fifth Edition” by Salome Wilhelm in 1957):

The Hui Ming Ching, or Book of Consciousness and Life, was written by Liu Hua-yang in the year 1794.  The author was born in the province of the Kiangsi, and later became a monk in the monastery of the Double Lotus Flower (Shuang-lien-ssu) in the province of Anhui.  The translation is from a new edition of a thousand copies printed with The Secret of the Golden Flower in 1921 by a man with the pseudonym of Hui-chen-tzu (“he who has become conscious of truth”).

Wilhelm describes how he became acquainted with both this text and the Secret of the Golden Flower (which Carl Jung, in his foreward, asserts was very important to him in his own work).  From page 3 of the 1962 edition of The Secret of the Golden Flower (A Chinese Book of Life), translated and explained by Richard Wilhelm and with commentary by Carl G. Jung:

This book comes from an esoteric circle in China.  For a long time it was transmitted orally, and then in writing; the first printing is from the Ch-ien-lung period (eighteenth century).  Finally a thousand copies of it were reprinted in Peking in 1920, together with the Hui Ming Ching, and were distributed among a small group of people who, in the opinion of the editor, understood the questions discussed.  That is how I was able to get a copy…..

The oral tradition for these texts goes back to the 8th Century and is traced to a Taoist sect called the Religion of the Golden Elixir of Life.  This was founded by a famed Taoist adept named Lu Yen (or Lu Tung-pin).   Lu Yen identified with the much older teaching perspectives of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the esoteric and philosophical core of Taoism.

Here (taken from pages 69 t0 79) are the verses that were published from the Book of Consciousness and Life  (only a portion of the full text):

~ Cessation of Outflowing

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no outflowing, Diligently heat the roots of consciousness and life.  Kindle light in the blessed country ever close at hand, And there hidden, let thy true self always dwell.

~The Six Periods of Circulation in Conformity with the Law

If one discerns the beginning of the Buddha’s path, There will be the blessed city of the West.  After the circulation in conformity with the law, there is a turn upward towards heaven, when the breath is drawn in.  When the breath flows out energy is directed towards the earth.  One time-period consists of six intervals.  In two intervals one gathers Moni (Sakyamuni).  The great Tao comes forth from the centre.  Do not seek the primordial seed outside!

~The Two Energy-Paths of Function and Control

There appears the way of the in-breathing and out-breathing of the primordial pass.  Do not forget the white path below the circulation in conformity with the law!  Always let the cave of eternal life be nourished through the fire!  Ah!  Test the immortal place of the gleaming pearl!

~The Embryo of the Tao

According to the law, but without exertion, one must diligently fill oneself with light.  Forgetting appearance, look within and help the true spiritual power!  Ten months the embryo is under fire.  After a year the washings and baths become warm.

~The Birth of the Fruit

Outside the body there is a body called the Buddha image.  The thought which is powerful, the absence of thoughts, is Bodhi (liberation).  The thousand-petaled lotus flower opens, transformed through breath-energy.  Because of the crystallization of the spirit, a hundred-fold splendour shines forth.

~Concerning the Retention of the Transformed Body

Every seperate thought takes shape and becomes visible in colour and form.  The total spiritual power unfolds its traces and transforms itself into emptiness.  Going out into being and going into non-being, one completes the miraculous Tao.  All separate shapes appear as bodies, united with a true source.

~The Face Turned to the Wall

The shapes formed by the spirit-fire are only empty colours and forms.  The light of the human nature [essence], shines back on the primordial, the true.  The imprint of the heart floats in space; untarnished, the moonlight shines.  The boat of life has reached the shore; bright shines the sunlight.

~Empty Infinity

Without beginning, without end, Without past, without future.  A halo of light surrounds the world of the law.  We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.  The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and heaven.  The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface.  The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.  Conciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon-disk rests alone.

Revisiting a Eureka, California meditation group from the 1970s

I am following up on one of my previous posts here, “The 1970s and It’s Spiritual Influences, part one”, due to  seeing someone finding this blog as a result of an internet search for a “picture of Bruce Avenell”.  First, here’s the link to that article:

http://atiasrama.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/the-1970s-and-its-spiritual-influences-part-one/

And, here’s the relevant section of that article:

Then, there was experimentation with a practice that clearly was goal oriented or a search for experiences.  But, what the hell, I wanted to travel to exotic lands!  So, I was exposed to “surat shabda yoga” in my late teens (in Eureka, California, of all places!) and even though I never joined the Ruhani Satsang, got Initiated by Kirpal Singh, or took those classes Bruce Avenell was offering, I had obtained the details of the practice and started in with that.

I did my own google searching and see that Bruce Avenell’s old meditation group, founded in Eureka, California at the very end of the 1960s, appears  to be going strong still!  I used to visit him in his small Eureka apartment when I interviewed him for an assignment for a journalism class at Humboldt State University.  (And, one time I loaned him a book on the old “I AM Society” associated with the Mt. Shasta metaphysical scene, a book loaned to me by an elderly neighbor.)  Here’s what I found:

http://www.eurekasociety.com

And, a yahoo group founded by his daughter:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Audinometry

“Election Retreat” hosted by Berkeley Zen Center students in Reno/Carson City for campaign

It looks like the Zen practitioners (from the Berkeley Zen Center’s “socially engaged dharma group”) who will be in this area to canvass for Obama, from October 21st to November 4, will be staying at a private Carson City residence where there’s a meditation hall!  And, they are hosting an “election retreat” that incorporates meditation, mindfulness, and loving-kindness in their campaign activities:

http://www.nevadadharma.net/renospks.html#election

Sadly, I won’t be in Reno throughout most of that time period.  (Back in Point Arena, the last week plus in October.)  But, this is so interesting to see happening in our area, reportedly one of only several counties and regions that will “decide” who becomes President (according to recent punditry).

The “Classical” system of Yoga and its 8 limbs.

 

When people commonly think of yoga, they typically picture the third limb of the Classical system of Yoga,  hatha yoga (asanas or yogic positions and exercises).  Classical Yoga is one of the 6 Orthodox Schools recognized in Hindu philosophy.  While the dualistic aim of Classical Yoga (extrication of Spirit and Soul from the material realm) did not become the dominant philosophical sentiment in Hinduism, the practices outlined in the system of Yoga have basicly been adopted in all the other Schools of thought.

The structure and practices of Classical Yoga was put down in words around 2000 years ago in a work called The Yoga Sutra(s) by Patanjali.  (Not really anything is known about Patanjali.)

Essentially this piece of work describes an eight step (i.e. eight limbs) process of liberation from the disturbing flux of the material world and of the mind into a realm of Blissful Spirit.  Each limb lays the foundation for subsequent limbs or practices:

1) Yama: the practitioner avoids harmful and unethical behaviors.

2) Niyama: the practitioner practices positive disciplines that discipline and strengthen his/her life.

3) Asana: here are the familiar hatha yoga practices of gracefully moving into different positions.

4) Pranayama: breathing exercises to enhance, stabilize, balance and ground one’s life energy.

5) Pratyahara: movement of attention inward, away from sensations.

6) Dharana: movement of attention towards a single object of focus.  (“Object” could be your breathing, a mantra, or something visual.)

7) Dhyana: the practice of meditation, through maintaining focus on a single object.

Samadhi: ecstatic states, the fruition of a meditation practice.

A clear, simple description of meditation.

I recently read this clear statement in Deepak Chopra’s book,
Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (1995):

…The aim of Yoga is to unite the thinking mind with its
source in pure awareness. In modern terms, “pure awareness”
means quantum space, the silent, empty void that is the womb
of all matter and energy. Pure awareness exists in the gap
between thoughts; it is the unchanging background against
which all mental activity takes place. We would not ordinarily
suspect that such a state exists because our minds are so
preoccupied with the stream of thoughts, wishes, dreams, fantasies,
and sensations that fill waking consciousness. This is why
the ancient Indian sages had to devise the specific technique
of meditation, in order to show the mind its own origins in
the quantum depths.