An Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels: The Yin Qiao Vessel and the Spagyric Anatomy of the Internal Alchemists
The following is an excerpt from Will Ceurvels’ ‘An Archaeology of the Qiao Vessels’ by Purple Cloud Press. It is an in-depth look at the Qiao vessels of the eight extra channels, a subject next to nothing has been written on, in regards to their traditional sources. Furthermore, this work is highlighting this subject from a Chinese medical as well as a Daoist internal alchemical perspective. The following passage is from Postscript II: The Yin Qiao Vessel and the Spagyric Anatomy of the Internal Alchemists.
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In his Exposition of the Extraordinary Vessels (奇經八脈考), Li Shizhen quotes The Eight Vessels Classic (八脈經), attributed to the Song dynasty Daoist adept Zhang Boduan, which places particular emphasis on the importance of the Yin Qiao vessel:
凡人有此八脈，俱屬陰神，閉而不開。惟神仙以陽炁衝開，故能得道。八脈者，先天大道之根，一炁之祖，採之惟在陰蹻為先。此脈纔動，諸脈皆通…… 倘能知此，使真炁聚散，皆從此關竅，則天門常開，地戶永閉，尻脈周流於一身，貫通上下。
All people have these eight [extraordinary] vessels; however, they are under the domain of the yin spirit, thus, they are blocked and shut. Only the immortals burst open these vessels with yang qi, thus attaining the Dao. The eight vessels are the root and source of the ancestral great Dao, the source of the one primordial qi. This qi is first collected via Yin Qiao. Only when this [Yin Qiao] vessel moves/pulses do all the vessels open … If one can grasp the Yin Qiao and allow true qi to collect and disperse via this pivotal opening, then the gates of heaven will remain forever open and the gates of the underworld forever closed [i.e. immortality] and the pelvic vessel will flow throughout the body, inter- penetrating above and below.
There are some obvious differences between the Eight Vessels Classic understanding of the Yin Qiao and that of the medical canon. Most notably, the Eight Vessels Classic seems to conceive of the Yin Qiao not as a vessel that spans the length of the body, but as an aperture (竅) or difficult passage (關) buried in the lower abdomen.
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Image: Zhang Boduan from ‘Strange Straces of Immortals and Buddhas’ (Xianfo Qizong仙佛奇蹤)
