Alchemical Classics V:
大成捷要 [柳華陽]
The Essentials of the Shortcut to the Great Achievement by Liu Hua Yang
Liu Hua Yang [柳华阳] together with Wu Shou Yang [伍守阳] make up the so-called Wu-Liu School with its main focus on Internal Alchemy [nei dan 內丹]. The former is also the author of the Scripture of Wisdom and Life [hui ming jing慧命經].
The following chapter originates from the alchemical classic ‘The Essentials of the Shortcut to the Great Achievement’ [da cheng jie yao大成捷要]. It details vital and indispensable requirements for meditation and stillness cultivation practices. It is a pure translation, whereas the first fifteen chapters from the very same classic are interspersed with explanations by our teacher Li Shi Fu, which can be found on the Five Immortals Temple webpage for free (http://fiveimmortals.com/the-essentials-of-the…/… ). In Li Shi Fu’s own words this scripture is worth being translated…
…in order to transmit it to everyone with destiny in each and every country in the West, in order to explicate the upright principles of cultivation, in order to ignite a Heavenly light , as well as to make it unlikely for anyone to end up in misinterpretations and in losing one’s direction and way.
Chapter 19: [working draft]
採藥天機口訣
The Heavenly Mechanism’s of Picking the Medicine Oral Transmissions
所谓采者何也？祖师答曰 : 直待混沌开基，一阳来复，外肾兴起，活子时到此，即回光返照，神住气穴。一呼一吸之巽风，逆吹命宫之离火，扇开炉焰，而炉中之意，切莫着于呼吸，专意于元气。诀曰 : 要知采时之呼吸，而吸则有心，呼出无意，心力提起，目光射定，一丝不挂，万缘皆空，是用吸不用呼。而呼出乃后随之而已。或十息，或数十息，以外肾消缩净尽为止。阳物绝无动机，谓之采药皈炉，元精归还本位也。
又曰 : 时至神知，始举即采则易伏，倘睡浓觉迟，阳壮性烈。不能强采久战，以伤其气。只凝神照定阴晓一脉，将身心放下，忘形无我，使息息归根，自吹自嘘，待旺际将衰，欲回未消之际，不过吸提三五息之顷，即将元气收回净尽，药即皈炉，即当止住采取之武火，接行半文半武之火，锻炼之法也。
注 : 此乃马祖丹阳研修体证。
What is the so-called ‘picking’? The Ancestral Master answered: ‘One must wait until opening foundation of the primal chaos. When one Yang appears again, the external kidneys flourish, and the dynamic Zi-time reaches up to this, immediately the returning radiance reverse-illuminates,
And the Spirit halts in the qi cavity. One exhale and one inhale of the Xun winds, reverse-blow the life palace’s Li fire, fan to open the furnace flames and the intent inside the furnace. By no means become attached to such inhaling and exhaling. One must focus one’s intent on the original qi. There is a rhymed mnemonic: ‘If one wants to know the inhaling and exhaling for the time of picking; inhaling means having a heart-mind, while exhaling exits without intent.
The heart-mind’s strength raises and the eyes’ radiance is shooting out in fixation. Without a silken thread of worry the ten thousand affinities are all in empty; it is employing the inhale and not employing the exhale. Furthermore exiting the exhale, thus, follows afterwards , that is all. Perhaps for ten breaths, perhaps for dozens of breaths, one must regard the external kidneys disappearing and shrinking completely clean as one’s [point] to stop. The mechanism of severing from yang object and being without stirring; it is called the ‘picking of the medicine, taking refuge in the furnace and the return of the original essence to its principal place’.
It is said, ‘When the time arrives the spirit will know it and when it begins to raise, then pick, it is then easy to subdue. If one sleeps sleeping, and the strong perception is delayed, then the yang will be sturdy, one one’s inner nature will be intense. One will be unable to forcefully pick it or struggle for long, for it injures one’s qi. Only by concentrating the spirit, illuminating and stabilizing the yin qiao vessel, will one cause the body and mind to be let go off, being in oblivion about forms and without self, and then this will lead to the breath return to its root. When oneself is blowing and hissing, wait until the flourishing [reaches] its boundary and will decline. The desires return to the boundary where it not yet has disappeared, but inhaling and lifting to short while of three or five breaths, then take the original qi and retrieve and bring it back to utmost cleanliness. The medicine then takes refuge in the furnace, one should stop the picking with the martial fire and continue to circulate with half civil and half martial fire; this is the method of tempering and refinement.
Annotation:
This [material] has been investigated, cultivated, experienced and verified by Ancestor Ma Danyang.
Post -Scriptum: The pictured Neijing Tu by Jen King can be purchased as print from:
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26th November 2020 /
