The Essentials of the Shortcut to the Great Achievement (part 3)
性命双修纲领条目心印口诀密旨灵文
The Guiding Principles of Dual Cultivation of Innate Nature and Life-Destiny
&
the Divine Scriptures of the Heart-Seal
Oral Transmissions
In Daoism there are three skills for cultivating the truth:
“Essence is transmuted into Qi,
Qi is transmuted into Spirit,
Spirit is transmuted into the void.”
The Dao’s initial skill of refining Essence and transmuting it into Qi is called “the small achievement of laying a foundation”. If one wishes to exit sickness and disease, retreat from feebleness and old age, extend longevity and return to a child’s complexion, one should undertake and carry out a hundred days of the skill of laying the foundation. In order to grasp the five elements one must have a certain standard and needs to be prepared, before setting out. One must distinguish the method of the six phases for cultivating Qi, must grasp its practice, and orbit Qi without shortcomings. One must adjust the original Essence in order to refine the external medicine. One must rely on wind and fire, civil and military mysteries. What is meant by Wind and fire? What do civil and military mysteries stand for? One must apply the correct type of breathing. One must gather the true seed to refine the small medicine. A seed needs to be sown and requires sunlight, soil and water. One must make use of the secret workings of the cosmic orbit’s fire talisman. When the fire is sufficient and the orbit’s Qi abundant, the medicine is divine. It is as if a seed springs to life. Once one reaches this fixed level, one is able to perceive it. The turtle head shrinks, .i.e. the genitals, and the elixir releases a fine thread of light. This is the internal power of one’s elixir Qi as it emits radiance. This is an authentic manifestation, not just a thought that arises or a concept:
“One must use one’s intent to gather Qi,
the six roots of sensation will tremble and
the five dragons will present sage-hood.
By retrieving and accumulating the five viscera original Qi,
one will join the ranks of the sages being their equal in powers and abilities.
If one penetrates through the three barriers,
the Spinal Alley, the Spinal Strait and the Jade Pillow,
and passes Qi through the nine orifices of the human body,
one will forever attain a diamond body,
free from harm and poor health.
Ascending to the Qian cauldron, the upper cinnabar field,
descending to the Kun Furnace, the lower cinnabar field,
one has been made into a human of eternal life and without aging. “
With this One Hundred Days Skill of ‘Laying the Foundation’, one has already returned to the original body’s indestructibility. One’s Essence full, one’s true Qi un-dispersed and ample, and one’s Spirit complete, this is the condition for Qian and Kun’s peaceful intermingling and interacting.
“One has become a Human Immortal.”
Yu Hua Zi, a cultivator and internal alchemist, said:
“The skill of refining Qi and transmuting it into spirit is called the intermediate achievement of nurturing of the embryo. If one wishes to know about the past and the future, to pursue good fortune and avoid calamity, to establish your skill and make a name for yourself, to be glorify by the ancestors and lauded by the forefathers, one must continue to implement the ‘Ten Months of the Gong of the Ten Months of Nurturing and Raising the Embryo’.
Conform to the method of the seven deep meditations for cultivating stillness, in order to return to the extinction of silence, a state of absent-mindedness, far and indistinct. One must accord with the six workings, the trembling of the six roots. For instance one will be able to see lightning, perceive the sound of whistling wind and so on. One should change your body and your thoughts and you will reach a point where the stage of your Gong can be verified.”
The main concept is defending the centre and embracing the One, therefore nurturing and raising the embryo:
“Day and night are undivided when you advance.
Time ceases to exist, the sun and moon halt in their orbits.
Movement responds to the storing of stillness;
this is the spiritual mechanism of refining the elixir.
From beginning to end, at any given moment,
one must not be oblivious or forsake it,
equally one must not assist it actively,
however nurture and nourish it naturally and spontaneously.”
It is as caring for a suckling infant, one must never drop it. There is no time to receive guests or deal with other matters. One single disturbance and it is over. It could be compared to a hen hatching an egg. If she runs off or puts too much pressure on it, there will be no chick. The hen has to pay attention to the outside, and simultaneously give it light care, not forceful, however keep a watchful eye on it. It is necessary to know where the egg is. Let it grow naturally. But one has to be thoughtful and meticulous, constantly stabilizing, constantly illuminating as well as warming and nourishing. One’s spirit and thoughts are a lantern. If it is too close, it burns the egg; if it is too near the egg freezes to death. One must not hasten, but allow the natural cycling of true Qi and move it upwards and the sweet dew move downwards resembling the ocean’s waters rising up as steam and pouring down as rain like purification. Revolve the Mao-You cosmic orbit, i.e. the Golden Liquid and the Jade Fluid which are alchemical stages of one’s saliva. One should open a new orbit in the human body, a celestial equator of the universe, in order to receive the internal medicine. Separate the ascent and descent on the left and right, in order to stabilize the embryonic origin, i.e. one’s true body. One year of 360 days could be considered an orbit, or one breath, or one day. The Mao-You orbit is the macrocosmic orbit, the insubstantial orbit, the East-West orbit, the solar system’s trajectory, whereas the Zi-Wu orbit is the microcosmic orbit, the substantial orbit, the North-South orbit, the earth’s trajectory and the orbit of the Du and Ren-Mai.
Perhaps the elixir light resembles a lotus, coming into utmost bloom, and the golden flower floats upwards to the outside of the cauldron which represents an open portal of universe, a gate to the higher realms where they are able to perceive the light of your elixir. Perhaps a pure infant spirals the sphere, i.e. intermingles of yin and yang. Perhaps a turtle and a snake coils up, i.e. the physical body and true body bind together. Perhaps immortals and Buddhas come to join and test you, perhaps the central Qi, the true Qi the original Qi is abundant and cycles completely, creating light and radiance. Perhaps a lightning spirit exhibits one’s might and inspects the altar, i.e. setting up barriers and trials:
“Perhaps the heavenly paradise and beautiful sceneries appear in order to seduce one.
Perhaps the gardens of the Jasper Palace manifest everywhere.
Perhaps under-worldly wicked shapes of varying spirit heads and
ghost faces emerge in order to frighten people.
The more one moves beyond, the more bizarre it becomes –
in the same way as Shakyamuni was examined and tested under the Bodhi tree.”
One must know the golden elixir’s transformations, perhaps true, perhaps illusory. Always letting one’s heart-mind die, do not care about what you see and hear. Do not have thoughts of a person. That is why the teachers of the past practiced their power of resistance and ability to concentrate for decades. Until the point when the lead and mercury blend with each other, two Qi of Yin and Yang reside in a swivelling mechanism, until the Qi of the sun and the moon naturally stop their movement, stop their wheel. Yang grows; Yin is consumed and vanishes to a state of Pure Yang.
The meridian’s Yin and Yang unifies, therefore no pulse can be detected. The sun and the moon combine harmoniously; naturally one is severed from the sensations of hunger and thirst. As the Qi transforms into Pure Yang, the body is able to tolerate cold, reject summer-heat, muddle-headedness and sleep are completely absent. And the elixir light constantly shines. The heart-mind must reach communication and communion with the sages, attaining the same abilities and powers. From there extinguish to the utmost and stabilize into the ultimate, i.e. bringing everything to a standstill, being without thoughts and entering an extremely peaceful state:
“When the heart is empty,
one’s true heart manifests and
one’s innate nature emerges.”
The spirit has completed the six communication channels. Qi replenishes the two polarities of Yin and Yang. Golden lotuses surge up everywhere on the ground as if water gushes up from a spring and white clouds fly all over the sky. Accumulate the three obscure fires: the substantial outside fire, the insubstantial inside fire, and the unification of the two. One’s true intent unifies with the sun into one’s true Spirit. This refers to cultivation of stillness and the smelting and refining practices of internal alchemy. The “Gong of the Qian Cauldron of the Hundred Meetings” is the opening of the heavenly portal, i.e. the upper cinnabar field. Thunderclaps are crashing and crashing, explosively open the purple mansion’s inner courtyard in your head; lightning bolts are flashing and flashing. Regulate the exit of the Yang Spirit from stabilization and then one truly knows what having another body implies: One will give birth to the immortal infant out of the ordinary human body. The infant is the authentic Yang body which is able to leave:
“If one practices the Yin body,
one’s Essence, Qi and Spirit are utterly wasted,
trapped in the cycle of life and death.
The Yin body is the post-heaven physical, substantial and material body.
The Yang body is the pre-heaven, insubstantial and immaterial original body.
The Yin body could be called a toy,
with which one is able to obtain small and great transportation and teleportation wonders.
Who would not make use of those capabilities?
If one does utilize them, that is where one’s cultivation ends.”
One must gather the golden light amidst this new enlightened body – known to Buddhists as dharmakaya. This method is called “Crossing over the Sea of Bitterness”, which is exactly the high ascension to the other shore – referred to in Buddhism as Paramita. The “Gong of Ten Months of Nurturing the Embryo” already signifies a return to the original, the truth before life, not being born, not dying, Qian’s original appearance, i.e. the origin of heaven and earth, the innate true place of “the self”.
“One has become an Earthly Immortal.”
Yuan Jun said:
The third step is the refinement of the Spirit and the return to the void. It is called the “Great Achievement’s of Suckling the Infant”:
“If one wishes to exceed the ordinary and to enter sagehood,
if one wishes to become an immortal or a Buddha,
to create, rule and control the longitudes and latitudes of heaven and earth,
one must continue to practice the ‘Three Years Nurturing Gong’.
One must refine the spirit in order to return to the void,
the formless and the invisible.
And one will be able to go beyond existence and enter non-existence.”
If one wants to complete the “Gong of the Six-six Suckling of the Infant”, one must grasp the method of the “Path of the Seven-seven Preserving and Nurturing”. The “Gong of the Six-six Suckling of the Infant” represents a complete circle, 360 days, a state where innate nature and life-destiny are firm and the transformations of the spirit are unrestrained. The “Path of the Seven-seven Preserving and Nurturing” alludes to the necessary time involved. This technique is carried out in seven day intervals. Upon witnessing the light, one must exit, once every seven days. During this stage one must cultivate, grow and protect. It could be illustrated by a three-year old child, who has just started to comprehend the concepts of good and bad, a child who begins to control itself, grows wisdom and grasps oneself. One will be unable to pass this barrier without a Daoist friend, whose protection is a prerequisite, similar to the young girl that gave the cow’s milk to Buddha, as he was about to go unconscious and starve to death. Equally without the correct method there is no way of achieving the Dao. This is the phase of preservation and nurturing. When the child gets older, one is able to draw a larger circle, but at night the child still cannot run outside by itself. Rely on the Yang Light’s restrain and release, without the Yang light you cannot retrieve the Yang body. Who would let a child run around at night? Harmonize and adjust the yang spirit’s exiting and entering meticulously on the basis of exact requirements. At starting point a child must not be left alone or set free, this is only temporary:
“But when the Yang Body exits,
it principally stirs and moves.
Movement is appropriate short-term, but inappropriate long term.
It is more appropriate to be closer than further away.
When the Yang spirit enters, it is principally tranquil and still.
This is protecting the Origin, and defending the One.
Stillness is precious long-term, not precious short-term.”
Keep it inside for a long time, like a child deprived of freedom.
This Gong must rest on a brief practice, yet reach a long-lasting effect, i.e. it takes time to get to this phase and cannot possibly be achieved by practicing once or twice. One has to accumulate complying with requirements. This effect must be based on a process from near to far, from short to long. Just like horse stance, if you can stand for five minutes, later you will master 10 minutes. How long were you able to endure it at the beginning? Which child can learn how to walk in one day? Even Inelia Benz could not do it as her eyes were looking skywards!
The more stillness and calmness is built and sealed up, the more firm and unyielding your law body, the Yang Spirit becomes, the brighter the light of wisdom. Like the knowledge of a child. Also the more regulated one’s practice, the more proficient and ripe, and the more skilful and divine the Yang Spirit endowed with special capabilities, the more marvellous the transformations. One is capable of transforming at will.
After three years the Gong is completed, the innate nature’s body is formed, the yang body:
“When one senses that the physical flesh exceeds the boundaries of its shell,
granted that the deficient Qi has been replenished,
the Yang Spirit precisely takes the great void and the universe,
the outer space, as its residence.
One can go wherever one wants.
If one enters water one will not drown.
If one enters fire one will not burn.
One is capable of treading on the sun and playing on the moon.
This undying body however is achieved through decades of bitterness.”
The great earth, mountains and river are all familiar; everywhere is one’s home, fields and gardens. One is travelling, enjoying the sights, and sojourning anywhere. At the time of retrieving and entering stabilization after coming back, when the Yang Spirit also takes the material body, the body with form, as its bedchamber, room, and house, then you know there is a true ‘You’ inside this body, and that all the others are fake. Let the resident return, let the infant return into the interior courtyard and the central palace, i.e. the Cinnabar Field. In Buddhism there is also a small Buddha contained within the big Buddha. It is an image that represents your true life. This palace is your true home providing everything you need: bed, pillow and a small table. Everywhere is a true resting place: lying, standing and sitting. One can raise a foot a thousand miles, travelling everywhere, to the ten thousand nations. Distance is limitless and exerts no control over you, truly void and marvellous, hiding one’s presence, invisible to others and unfathomable. One chooses to be let seen by people or not. In three steps in Beijing to buy two cucumbers, this is true freedom, coming and going at any time. One communicates with heaven. Having understood reality, the wisdoms and the true appearances, one connects with earth. Stepping on the sun, playing on the moon, entering water without drowning, one has left the domain of the ordinary. Entering fire without being burnt, one is capable to survive on the sun. One is capable of entering metal and stone without obstruction. There is no possibility of danger.
How could one not be content and unrestrained?
“Yin and Yang are unable to mold and cast one,
but on the contrary one has the ability of molding and casting yin and yang.
The five element-phases are unable to change and shift one,
but in reverse one has the ability to change and shift the five element-phases.
The Yama King of Hell is unable to rule over one’s death,
God and Shakyamuni are unable to govern one’s life,
vertically and horizontally, the self exist freely,
exiting and entering depends on oneself,
wishing to stay less in this world,
in that case one is able to rise up high and leave to higher realms.”
One can shed off the third dimension. It cannot hold back and restrain one. Ascend to the heavens, rising on rosy clouds, fly skywards, become an immortal and select a residence. Because this body one can leave at any time, one can take one’s residence with oneself or not. Regardless whether they are in the dust, the world of mortals, or leaving the secular world, departing to the deep mountains, they all are able to help and benefit society and all living beings, supporting the upright and getting rid of evil, relieving droughts and floods, expelling disaster and calamities.
“Why do they not remove all hardships?
Why is not every single person rescued?
Why were so many people murdered in the Second World War?
The reason is destiny and because there is a heavenly will. One cannot reflect upon these things through the lens of right or wrong. The deities stand on a different dimension, with different agendas. Even during the times of the bible there were entire cities wiped out. Perhaps they speak about the mysteries and lecture through the scriptures. Perhaps a person similar to Jesus, similar to Patriarch Lü or similar to the Bodhisattva of the Great Vow bestows ten thousand words in one day to the people. Therefore they are expounding on the Dao, as their knowledge never dries out like oceans. Perhaps establishing the law and bequeathing the teachings.
As it is their heart’s wish, otherwise what would be their purpose of descending to the cities?
They are delivering all living beings, as well as passing on the light. Their behaviour is free and unrestrained:
“All spirits communicate with one without exception and the divine responds.
nothing is impossible, anything can become true,
just as Jesus cured people,
transformative and unfathomable,
perhaps ten, hundred, thousand,
ten thousand, one hundred million transformations of the body,
as many as could fill the boundless universe and
as innumerable as the grains of sand in the Ganges;
infinite and countless like the Primordial Chaos.
What else is there left to do for a great man
who has attained and reached this point of cultivation?”
This brave man is capable of eating any degree of bitterness and is capable of going through any extent of suffering. What else could he possibly be in need of? Through such bitterness and effort, life’s truth is attained. It is something anyone with this mindset, with this intention, must go and explore. This is not for experimentation or curiosity. The day when the Gong is successfully accomplished, one will earn the respect of the common people without seeking fame or gain. When human life arrives at this condition, what could there be lack of? How could there be lack of happiness? Anyone dreams about becoming an immortal or an angel. The more riches people have the more afraid of death they are and the more they want to take their money to the heavens. This is the ‘Three Years Gong of Suckling the Infant’, thereafter one returns to the Yang body, i.e. the unification of innate nature and life-destiny, the unification of consciousness, the merging of one’s insubstantial character and one’s substantial life-destiny. This Yang body becomes unyielding, strong and indomitable. The Yin body is wisdom. It is the sixth sense, the post-heaven spirit of knowledge. One’s character is divided into post-heaven and pre-heaven. The post-heaven character is your thoughts and consciousness after birth. Original Qi is also categorized into pre-heaven and post-heaven. One’s breath is one’s life, also split into pre-heaven life and post-heaven life; the life before birth and the life after birth. The state of embryonic breathing has already gone beyond the physical body, as one uses the skin pores and thoughts to breathe. Only then can one grow the Yang Spirit’s seed.
The Spirit transforms into a state beyond rules and regulation, a condition without restraint and inhibitions, free and unperturbed. There is nothing left that is impossible, the transformations happen following one’s will.
“One has become a Spirit Immortal.”
Yin the Great Perfected One said:
“I observed the Han, Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties.
Many of the immortals of the past generations transcended worldliness and
escaped from this place, separating from and leaving this body.
But although the spirit is marvellous,
the physical form is not yet marvellous,
as there can be no turbidity within the boundless infinite.
Although it is called entering into the immortals registry,
being free and footloose,
yet it is lacking to return the final one step:
the ‘Gong of Refining the Void and Returning to the Dao’.
One must know that there are some unsafe areas, necessitating caution.
Thus there is higher Gong that one must embark on.
Without attainment of it
there will not yet be the boundless frontier. “
I today show the thousand Buddhas’ secret treasures, the ten thousand abilities of the ancestral heart-seal, the truth imprinted directly in one’s heart by the spirit of the Buddha. The final and last move, the highest and greatest achievement is the “Gong of the Nine Years Facing the Wall.” As one has already returned to the nirvana without anything remaining, it is the place of the great awakening as the Golden Immortal. This last stage may be called the “Immortal of Deliverance of all Multitudes”. As this will be explained in detail in the scrolls below, it will not be appended here again. People of the common world are ignorant and follow the clockwise mechanism, i.e. the wheel of life and death, as well as meeting and welcoming material objects. They seek and lust for worldly attachments, the destiny of dust, by means of losing their essence and spirit, wearing down and fatiguing their tendons and bones until they are feeble and reach old age and at last die of illness, falling back into the wheel of life. Without exception people sink into the sea of bitterness, as well as greatly missing out on the awakening to the road. Thus one must welcome this mechanism of the wind blowing and the fire smelting; regulate the original essence in order to foster the original Qi and the true Qi, and move the cosmic orbits and grow the medicine. Nurture and raise the elixir mother, i.e. the Cinnabar Elixir Qi, perpetually pressing it down to the lower Cinnabar Field. Push the boat of enlightenment with a pole and call out into the labyrinth in a loud voice to those missing the ferry, guiding those who have strayed from the right path.
“Thus the ancient saints and former sages,
Buddhas, immortal masters and kindred spirits
orally transmitted to each other and
passed on formlessly this ‘Gong of Preserving and Understanding the Principles’,
The ‘Gong of Nurturing and Cultivating Qi’.
Moreover it was disallowed to simple-mindedly and
presumptuously leak it to the wrong people,
to the ones inhumane and unsuitable.”
This means that all that has been revealed presently are the secrets of this book.
