Important Texts in internal Alchemy: part 1

Course 2:

Important Documents in Internal Alchemy part 1:

At a glance:

This prerecorded course will be delivered over two Sunday mornings starting Feb 16 and ending Feb 22 2025. The course includes the Neidan reading of the Clarity and Stillness Classic and Heart Engraving Classic, two essential Neidan documents especially used by the Northern School.

What are the most important documents of Daoist Internal Alchemy?

This question is not so easy to answer since there are many documents, so a couple of friends and myself have made up a core curriculum of documents including:

• documents about Daoist theory and beliefs,
• simple documents about meditation,
• simple documents about the golden elixir,
• essential classics of the golden elixir,
• long texts about the golden elixir.

These documents are arranged from most easy to most difficult in order to gradually offer students a view into the inner workings of Daoist Internal Alchemy so they can understand the key principles before trying to tackle more complex Neidan books written in code.

I am gradually implementing level one of the syllabus during 2025 and have already taught a course about the embryonic breathing classic, which is the most basic meditation document in the syllabus.

This February I will present two key theoretical documents:

• Clarity and Stillness Classic: this Tang Dynasty Daoist document describes the formless nature of the Dao and how to use it in meditation and day to day life to overcome the negative implications of attachment and karma. This text is commonly understood to be the foundation of the method of “First refine innate nature and then refine life energy,” popular in the Northern School. This mode of meditation practice places emphasis on first achieving profound stillness, opening the mystery gate (a mysterious aspect of practice which connects the pre and post heaven states) and “illuminating the heart to see one's innate nature.”

• the Jade Emperor Heart Refinement Classic: this document is emblematic of the “First refine life energy, then refine nature” approach to Internal Alchemy in which the Pre-Heaven Qi is refined in the lower Dantian and circulated in the body. It describes the energetic process of Neidan.

These two documents are essential for all Neidan students to know and are often combined in order to teach students how to understand their innate nature and innate life energy, thus beginning the practice of nature and life dual cultivation (incidentally the approach we practice).

Key points:

When: the course recordings and pdfs will be delivered on the last two Sundays in February,

Where: all content will be uploaded to gumroad,

How much: $50

If you have already studied embryonic breathing, this is a great next step and it can also be studied by people who are totally new to Neidan since each text will be explained from the perspective of seated meditation very clearly.