o Inner Smile to cultivate presence of yuan shen, link it to brain, spine, organs.

o Six Healing Sounds to clear 5 vital organ qi and awaken 5 vital organ spirits.

Stage: Develop energy body of adept, preparation for spiritual pregnancy.

Cauldron: lower dan tien

Method:

• Micro-cosmic Orbit to harmonize yin-yang qi flow, mix qi and blood. This "womb breathing" creates an energetic "egg" as subtle body container pure enough to later birth immortal embryo.
• Micro-cosmic Orbit to harmonize yin-yang qi flow, mix qi and blood. This "womb breathing" creates an energetic "egg" as subtle body container pure enough to later birth immortal embryo.
• Circulate sexual essence in orbit to seal leakage of jing and rejuvenate brain and all organs.
• Move qi in 5 Elements Creation (sheng) cycle to nurture virtues of 5 shen, and Control (ke) cycle to transform negative emotional qi.
• Macro-cosmic Orbit: form pearl of post natal yuan qi. Circulate this pearl through 8 Extraordinary Vessels. Governor & conception vessel (ren mo & du mo), thrusting & belt channels (chung mo & dai mo), arm and heel channels (yin & yang wei mo, yin & yang qiao mo)..

Stage: coupling body's inner male & female spirits, conception of Immortal Embryo. Reversal (ni) of post natal qi into pre-natal qi to produce Lesser Elixir.

Cauldron: lower dan tien

Method:

• Sexual self-intercourse via counter-creation cycle (reverse sheng). 5 Elements revert to 3 primal forces (water/metal to yin, fire/wood to yang, earth to yuan). Reverse & couple water/fire, inner male & female shen (Hun & Po), cook 3 forces in cauldron, produce pre-natal yuan qi to nourish organs, nerve, lymph, circulatory system, 3 dan tiens & all qi channels.
• Opening the Inner eye, Cracking the crown.
• Turning Wheel of Law. Simultaneous turning of microcosmic orbit & creation (sheng) cycle to accelerate unfolding of destiny (one orbit in meditation = one year in life).

Stage: birth immortal child, nourish with Greater Elixir.

Cauldron: Solar plexus, inner earth is center of gravity.

Method:

• Absorb higher power yin-yang force of Moon & Sun, interiorize within body.
• Open communication between 5 Human vital organ spirits & 5 Earth Spirits of Directions (North, South, East, West, Center). Interiorize 5 sacred animal protectors, flowers, mountains, & oceans.
• Reverse & couple Sun below Moon, cook in Earth cauldron to generate greater yuan qi, to dissolve sick qi in community or environment.
• yin body travel in dream practice.

Stage: Immortal Child matures, is fed True Elixir refined from Sun & planets. Adept overcomes death/karma (ancestral incompletions).

Cauldron: Heart/middle dan tien, inner sun as center of gravity

Method:

• Absorb & fuse yin-yang power from 5 Planetary Spirits. Saturn as higher earth, interiorize sun & planets in body. Soul travels in solar system.
• Open relationship with Spirit of Sun, develop yang body. Meditation shifts to inner sound.
• Reverse & coupling yin within Yang (water hidden in Solar fire), Yang within Yin, (fire hidden within Earth water).

Stage: Personal Shen and Great Shen couple, Original Spirit crystallizes.

Cauldron: Head/upper dan tien, inner pole star is center of gravity.

Method:

• 5 Shen seal the sensory openings, leave their palaces in vital organs, fuse in center of head.
• Absorb & interiorize qi field of Polestar, Big Dipper's 4 Great Star quadrants..
• Yang body roams freely in heavens, communicates with starry beings.
• Yuan qi of stars penetrates jing of body (nucleus of cells).

Stage: Early Heaven and Later Heaven copulate, open portal to Primordial Origin

Cauldron: all three cauldrons as one. Inner void is center of gravity.

Method:

• Poles of Heaven and Earth reverse and couple within, True Macrocosmic Orbit.
• Original innocence of Humanity crystallizes in middle dan tien: Cosmic Inner Smile.
• Physical sea of jing/body wisdom dissolves into universal field of yuan qi.
• Hun dun, dark primal chaos-unity is interiorized.

Stage: Eternal present moment realized, the three Heavens & Treasures merge into wuji.

Cauldron: Wuji, the Supeme Unknown.

Method:

• Unknown. Arises spontaneously when virtue, destiny, and cultivation are complete.

(1) adapted from Vitality, Energy, Spirit (Shamballa, 1991) T. Cleary, ed.., pg. 185.

(2) The bigu ("without food") phenomenon has left the realm of legend. For conference of western scientists studying students of modern nei dan teacher Yan Xin who stopped eating for months or years without undue weight loss, see www.yanxinqigong/bigu.html. For account by one of my western students that entered bigu using One Cloud's formulas, "Healing Tao Goes Breatharian" by Eve Adesso, at www.healingdao.com/library_index.html

(3)Tao Te Ching, Addiss & Lombardo (Hackett Publishing, Indiana) pg. xviii.

(4) Raphael Gamaroff surveys the confusion and disagreements amongst linguists over what "deep language" means at www.und.ac.za/und/ling/archive/gama-01.html

(5)--Organism and Psyche in a Participatory Universe, by Mae-Won Ho. www.i-sis.org/organis.htm

(6) The line between qigong and neigong is necessarily fuzzy, depending on subtle mind intent and skill of each practitioner. "Wuji qigong" is a term often used to denote a "superclass of qigong" that is also a neigong form focused on opening a connection to the Origin. I learned an 800 year old lineage wuji qigong form that came from a 106 year old daoist monk on Wudang Mtn. Based on daoist cosmology and alchemy, it feels qualitatively very different from other qigong forms. Available as video, www.healingdao.com

(7) U.N. reports there are 6-7,000. spoken languages on the planet; nearly 5,000. of them tribal, disappearing at a fast rate. lycos.com/ens

(8) from abstract of study by Prof. Tadanobu Tsunoda, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, unknown where it was published.

(9) By odd synchronicity the 16th cen. mathematician Leibnitz developed the binary number theory at the same time he was exposed to the I Ching's yin-yang patterns, undoubtedly brought back by Jesuit priests.

(10) Disputers of the Tao, A.C. Graham (open Court, 1989), p. 350 notes that correlative thinking in resonant patterns is much faster than analytical systems of psychology, politics, sociology, and thus approximates more closely the "pure" science of physics.

(11) Adepted from Tao Te Ching, Victor Mair (Bantam, 1990), pg. 9.

(12) Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism, Norman Girardot (UC Press, 1983)

(13) "yuan" terms are found in much nei dan literature, here referenced in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilization, vol. V:5 on physiological alchemy, pg. 26.

(14) Organism and Psyche in a Participatory Universe, by Mae-Won Ho. www.i-sis.org/organis.htm

(15) Secret of Everlasting Life, R. Bertschinger (Element Books, 1994), pg. 38 .

(16) The division of Song dynasty dao canon texts into "Three Open Channels" of Reality, Peace, and Spirits reflect a traditional daoist emphasis on clarity of subtle field communication. These channels, also translated as "caverns" or "vaults" within the adept, have a vast inner sky and connect the adept to different inner heavens. cf. Book of Balance and Harmony, pg xix.)

(17) The "squaring of the circle" and vesica piscis are nearly universal icons in eastern and western alchemical systems, suggesting that the symmetries of sacred geometry are an important part of the grammar of Nature's deep language. The "egg" formed by the microcosmic orbit and the vortices inside the egg's axis created by spiralling internal ba gua shapes are another yin-yang pair. In nei dan, these shapes are always moving volumetric geometries found within the adept's interior cosmos.

(18) Hungry ghosts ("po"), the earthbound soul fragments of deceased humans, are the unintegrated body spirits that lack the will and the yuan qi to bind them to the celestial aspect of human souls ("hun") normally absorbed back into Early Heaven at death. These people have often died of trauma or with deep psychic conflict. During my neidan retreats, the group yuan qi field seems to attract them. I often witness (by inner vision) a steady parade of faces passing through the vesica opening which I believe are hungry ghosts. They range in number from dozens to hundreds, and most appear around age 20 -25, the ideal healthy age the dead soul fragments see themselves at even if they died much older. The kinds of faces and their dress varies with geographical location. This occurs spontaneously, without any invocation or visualization on my part.

(19) Kristofer Schipper's The Taoist Body (UC Press, 1993) pg. 195, and entire final chapter.

(20) The Book of Balance and Harmony (North Point, S.F. 1989), trans. Thomas Cleary, pg. 37. has description of similar structure of Lesser, Greater and Greatest alchemical cauldrons. Also see Taoism: Growth of a Religion, Isabelle Robinet (Stanford, 1997), pg. 254.

(21) The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, Jeremy Narby, (Putnam, 1998), pg. 144.

(22) For discussion of the written chinese characters, cf. Survey of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Larre & Schatz (Traditional Acupuncture Institute,1986) p. 79

(23) Seven Steps to the Tao: Sima Chengzhen's Zuowanglun, Livia Kohn (Styler Verlag, 1987)

(24) unpublished study by Gerhard Eggetsberger, Director Institute for Applied Biocybernetics and Feedbaack Research, Viena Austria.

(25) cf Empty Vessel interview on Taoist Internal Alchemy with Winn, posted at www.healingdao.com/library_index.html

(26) Interestingly, the western mystic Rudolf Steiner held a similar view of individual organ evolution. Cf. Reincarnation as a Phenomonon of Metamorphosis, Guenther Wachsmuth (Anthroposophic Press, 1937) p.254. The Egyptians also posited multiple souls within a single human and thus embalmed the vital organs separately in canopic jars.

(27) Esoteric practices of many mystery schools has become available in recent decades, permitting cross school comparisons at a much deeper level. I personally explored a number of these schools, including kriya yoga's 6 stages of samadhi (cf. The Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Kriya Yoga, by Swami Hariharnanda, edited by Michael Winn, published in India, available at kriya.org), the Tibetan bonpo teachings of dzogchen, Celtic underworld ceremonies and pre-egyptian kaballistic alchemy (cf. my work in progress, Stellar Mind Speaks: Shape Your Life Energy). All of these schools had esoteric teachings with principles similar to Daoist trinities of yin-yang-yuan and 5 Elements theory.