Isabelle Robinet - The World Upside Down: Essays on Taoist Internal Alchemy

Isabelle Robinet

THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN

ESSAYS ON TAOIST INTERNAL ALCHEMY

Edited and translated by

Fabrizio Pregadio

Golden Elixir Press

Golden Elixir Press, Mountain View, CA

www.goldenelixir.com

Paperback edition 2011 Golden Elixir Press

ISBN 978-0-984308262 (pbk)

Kindle edition 2014 Golden Elixir Press

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover : The xuanpin (Mysterious-Female), a Taoist symbol that represents the unity of Yin and Yang. The two trigrams are Fire (Yang, above) and Water (Yin, below), which respectively enclose True Yin and True Yang, represented by their inner lines.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The World Upside Down in Taoist Internal Alchemy was originally published as Le monde lenvers dans lalchimie intrieure taoste in Revue de lHistoire des Religions 209 (1992): 23957. English translation published with the permission of the Collge de France.

The Alchemical Language, or the Effort to Say the Contradictory was originally published as Mystique et rationalit: Le langage dans lalchimie intrieure taoste ou leffort pour dire le contradictoire in Asiatische Studien / tudes asiatiques 47 (1993): 64562. English translation published with the permission of the Schweizerische Asiengesellschaft.

Role and Meaning of Numbers in Taoist Cosmology and Alchemy was originally published as Le rle et le sens des nombres dans la cosmologie et lalchimie taostes in Extrme-Orient Extrme-Occident 16 (1994): 93120. English translation published with the permission of the Presses Universitaires de Vincennes.

On the Meaning of the Terms Waidan and Neidan was originally published as Sur le sens des termes waidan et neidan in Taoist Resources 3.1 (1991): 340. English translation published with the permission of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions.

The World Upside Down

in Taoist Internal Alchemy

Introduction

Internal alchemy, or Neidan, is a technique of enlightenment whose earliest extant written records date from the eighth century. It appeals both to rationality, which gives order to the world, and to what transcends rationality: the unspeakable, the Totality. Its main tools are the trigrams of the Yijing (Book of Changes) and a number of key metaphors, some of which are alchemical in nature, whence the name, internal alchemy.

Alchemy begins with a binary structure made of two complementary and antagonistic terms: pure Yin and pure Yang. However, their binary structure admits complexity with two other mixed terms, born from the union of the first two: Yin containing Yang, and Yang containing Yin. A neutral term, the Center, is beyond the conjunction and the disjunction of the other two.

The principle consists in ordering the world by means of multiple and complex reference points built on the basis of these initial data and of a multi-layered structure. Here lies the rationality of alchemy, in the sense of providing order and intelligibility. However, being a didactic technique oriented toward mysticism, alchemy also involves the denial of its own system. This denial is achieved by several means: the reminder that silence is the foundation of the word; the continuous evocation of Unity, which merges and abolishes all reference points; the adoption of a fundamentally metaphoric language that must be surpassed; the recurrent disruptions in the continuity of discourse; the use of images that play at several levels, operating now in one direction, now in the opposite, levels that are related to one another until being unified; the ellipsis that handles two different entities as equivalent; the reciprocal encasing of all images, so that the child generates its mother and the contained is the container; the multiplicity of facets, times, and reference points superimposed above one another, which counteracts the fragmentation wrought by rational analysis.

The alchemists, therefore, use a highly structured language, but transgress it by introducing a negation of their own system, and by expressing, through a system of reciprocal encasing, a duality absorbed into Unity, a rationality traversed by irrationality. The language of alchemy is a language that attempts to say the contradictory.

One facet of this system is the theme of the world upside down.

Look at the gate of death as the gate of life,

Do not take the gate of life to be the gate of death.

The one who knows the mechanism of death and sees the reversal

Begins to understand that the good is born within the evil.

The Sun in the West, the Moon in the East. Heaven is Earth, Earth is Heaven. This symbolizes the growth and union of Yin and Yang, the reversal [of the course] of the five agents.

Reversal (diandao ) is one of the basic principles of internal alchemy. This principle takes many forms and is applied in different ways. To obtain the Golden Elixirthe equivalent of the Philosophers Stoneone should go through several reversals. According to a sentence often quoted in the texts, Those who go in the ordinary sense give birth to human beings; those who go backward find immortality.

Li Daochun (fl. ca. 1290) explains that there are two directions. One of them follows the ordinary course and goes toward the end: it is the operation (yong ), the actuation. The other goes backward, and consists in returning to the Origin: it is the substance or the body (ti ) of all things.

If you know the origin and ignore the end, you cannot expand; if you know the end and ignore the origin, you cannot attain the foundation of subtlety. Those who go back to the Origin are vaguely and indistinctly joined with the Ultimateless; those who go to the end are born, transform themselves, and die endlessly. Going backward and going forward are necessary to one another, because the origin and the end are not two.

However, the ordinary persons who follow the course generate other beings. The seekers of immortality, who go backward, generate an embryo of immortality within themselves: they self-regenerate.

The ordinary course follows the sequence of the seasonswinter, spring, summer, and autumnand the sequence of four of the five agents associated with the seasons: Water, Wood, Fire, and Metal (see tables 1 and 2). The alchemists often insist that the opposite course causes Water to generate Metal, and Wood to generate Fire. Since Metal is related to the West and its traditional emblem is the Tiger, they say that the Tiger emerges from Water and the North. Similarly, Wood is related to the Dragon and the East, but emerges from Fire and the South. Therefore the backward rotation is performed by going from North to West, and from South to East. Time is traced in a backward sequence. The normal flow of time leads to death; those who seek immortality move toward youth and birth.

The wheel of Heaven turns to the left; the Sun, the Moon, and the planets turn to the right. The wheel of Heaven turning to the left causes the movement of the four seasons; the Sun and the Moon turning to the right transform the ten thousand beings.

Therefore red cinnabar, which symbolizes Fire, is placed in the South, and is the Red Bird. As it moves to the East, this cinnabar generates Mercury, which is of a green color and symbolizes Wood; it is placed in the East and is the Green Dragon. Black lead belongs to Water, is placed in the North, and is the Dark Warrior. As it turns to the West, black lead generates White Silver.

Therefore it is said that Fire turns to the East and is the Dragon (while Fire traditionally is the Red Bird and turns to the West), and Water turns to the West and is the Tiger (instead of being the Dark Warrior).