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Daoist
Meditative Alchemy - Quotations from the Preaching of Primordial
Sovereign Sun Bu'er
Brief Account of the Author's Life: Sun Bu'er (1119-1182)
was born at Ninghai (today's Muping in Shandong province)
in the Jin Dynasty. Her name was Fuchun, her sacred name Bu'er,
her alternative name Quiet Dispersed Person, and people called
her Female Immortal Sun. She was the only female among the
" Seven Perfected Ones" of the Complete Perfection
sect. She was the wife of Ma Yu, who founded the Encountering
Immortality Sect. She was from a distinguished family. In
the seventh year of the Dading reign, Wang Chongyang went
to Ma Yu's family and tried to convert him to Daoism. Two
years later, Sun Bu'er became a female Daoist priest at the
Golden Lotus Hall, and Wang Chongyang passed the secret formula
of celestial talismans and cloudy writing to her. She cultivated
at Fengxiangu cave at Luoyang and founded the Purity and Tranquility
Sect. In the sixth year of the Zhiyuan reign in the Yuan Dynasty,
she was conferred the title of Perfect Woman of Purity and
Tranquility of True Depth and Virtue.
The Quotations from the Preaching of Primordial Sovereign
Sun Bu'er1:
This book inherited and developed Wang Chongyang's ideas on
the " Female Golden Elixir". Most important of them
are the fourteen poems in the Process of Female Inner Alchemy.
These poems gave a brief account of the steps to follow when
refining the Female Golden Elixir, and the main points in
each step. The first step is to concentrate one's mind, to
subdue one's wild fancy, and to focus on the Elixir Field.
The second is to nourish one's breath, to practice breathing,
and to return to Pre-existence. The third is to concentrate
one's spirit and to circulate one's breath in the Cosmic Orbit.
The fourth is to cut the dragon, which means to stop one's
menstruation and change one's feminine physiology, which is
a characteristic of Sun Bu'er's feminine alchemy. The fifth
is to cultivate one's elixir, fix one's attention, and guard
the jade pass. The sixth is embryonic breathing, which requires
eliminating illusions, making the mind and breath depend on
each other, and returning to the origin where yin and yang
have not separated. The seventh is fire, which refers to keeping
the spirit clear and quiet, without slacking off. The eighth
is to receive the drug. At this point, the Inner Elixir has
been refined, but it still demands careful nurture. The ninth
is to refine the spirit, to leave the worldly dust, and to
keep the spirit clean. The tenth is dietetics, to take in
the essence of the sky, earth, sun, and moon. The eleventh
is abstaining from grains, to eat taro and fungus instead
of cooked food. The twelfth is facing the wall, to meditate
by sitting in a small shrine. The thirteenth is the birth
of the spirit; by now the Original Spirit has formed into
a " body outside the body". The fourteenth is to
ascend; the Original Spirit rises out from the crown of the
head and enters the realm of Immortality.
Implications:
The fourteen poems describe the effects and people's experiences
at different steps in feminine alchemy; making feminine alchemy
develop with the transformation of physiology. It is a mature
book on feminine alchemy and had a strong influence on the
later development of Daoism.
Author:
Jiang Sheng
Translator: Chen Xia
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