Category: Classic

  • The Origin of Five Animal Frolics

    Hua Tuo said to Pu, “The human body needs physical labor and movement but not to the extreme. Movement aids digestion and activates blood circulation. Thus it can prevent disease, just as a door hinge does not rot. Ancient immortals practiced ‘bear—hanging’ and ‘turning the head like an owl’ to stretch and relax the waist,…

  • Book of Balance and Harmony

    The waning and waxing of energy and matter are the movement and rest of things; rising and retiring by day and night are the movement and rest of the body. Everything, including the advance and retreat of the person, the arising and vanishing thoughts, the fortune and adversity of the world, the success and failure…

  • Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine

    Precelestial breath, Postcelestial breath. Those who obtain them always seem to be drunk. The precelestial Breath is the original and initial Ancestral Breath.1 This Ancestral Breath is in the real center of Heaven and Earth within the human body. [Placed between] the Secret Door and the Gate of Life, hanging in the middle, it is…

  • The Natural Mechanism of Turning Attention Around to Gaze Within

    Bai Yuzhan said, “The path of inner refinement is extremely simple and easy; just get the fire of the heart to descend into the elixir field. The elixir field is the chamber of water, while the heart is fire. When fire enters water, then water and fire mix and true yang is produced. Therefore people…

  • The Nei-yeh Inner Cultivation or Inward Training

    Translated by Harold Roth One The vital essence of all things: It is this that brings them to life. It generates the five grains below And becomes the constellated stars above. When flowing amid the heavens and the earth We call it ghostly and numinous. When stored within the chests of human beings, We call…

  • The Wisdom of Dao Yin in Baopuzi

    Dao Yin treats the condition ‘not yet sick’, it releases inharmonious energy. The movements must be practised in order to circulate energy without discomfort in the hundred joints. Without movement, blood remains blocked in the three places. Dao Yin uses this great rule to maintain health and is a subtle and complex technique for eliminating…

  • The Ten Chan Pictures

    (1) In the Wild Troubled by all kinds of thoughts and desires, people are liable to get nervous anal disturbed in daily life and with their natural character con-fused and the ability to sustain themselves lost, they are quite ill with vari-ous worries and diseases. The poem reads: Displaying its horns, the buffalo bellows aloud,…

  • The Ancient Poem of Universal Post

    The universal post is a mystical form of martial arts We can never fully understand the way it is done It seems like an embrace with a smiling face You use your strength from within You are relaxed and use no force It is like clouds floating in the wind from all directions You use…

  • Union of the Triplex Equation

    Let the void be your cauldron Let nature be your furnace for your primary ingredient, take stillness for your reagent, use quietude for mercury, take your vital essence for lead, use your daily energy for water use, restraint for fire, take meditation. Reference: A Complete Guide to Chi-gung by Daniel P. Reid p.81

  • Wondrous Scripture for Daily Internal Practice

    Now, as for your daily practice, Keep your eating and drinking regulated; Restrain your speaking and meditate alone. Do not allow even a single thought to arise. The ten thousand affairs are all forgotten. Then preserve your spirit and stabilize your intent. The mouth and lips are mutually locked up; The teeth should be lightly…

  • Awakening to Reality Wuzhen pian

    1 If you study immortality, you should study celestial immortality: only the Golden Elixir is the highest principle. 3 When the two things meet, emotions and nature join one another; where the five agents are whole, Dragon and Tiger coil. 5 Rely in the first place on wu and ji that act as go-betweens, then…

  • 100 Chinese and Buddhist Health Rules 51-100

    No. 51 – Quiet Sitting To nourish yourself in quietude: lie on your bed, completely relax body and mind, let your whole body melt without using even a tiny bit of effort, so that you feel as if there was no body. Breathe naturally and exert not even a trace of effort in the mind-and-heart—…

  • 100 Chinese and Buddhist Health Rules 1-50

    No. 1 – Sleep Sleep is the first element of nourishing life. Your preferred time to sleep is between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., becausethis time in the course of the day matches the season of winter. If things are not contained in the winter,they cannot grow in the summer, which means that on the…

  • The Understanding of the Thirteen Postures

    1. The Xin (mind/heart) motivates the qi, directs it to sink, so that it can be stored and concentrated into the bones. 2. Let the qi motivate the body without hindrance, so that it will effortlessly follow your xin (mind/heart). 3. If the shen (spirit) is raised, there will not be any sluggishness. This is…

  • The Seven Basic Skills of Dachengquan

    1. Jijizhuang (Combat skill pile-stance): Feet assume a Dingbabu shaped step, Arms form a circle like holding a child. Stand upright, feeling light and nimble, Mind is intense but posture easy and comfortable. 2. Trial of Strength: Strike out the hand is like a steel file, Pull back, the hand is like an iron hook.…