The Four Vehicles of Internal Alchemy

A very heterodox idea

The Four Vehicles of Internal Alchemy:

Daoism is an eclectic school of thought (aren't they all?) and often borrows useful concepts from other philosophies, practices and religions in order to better explain its own ideas.

Today I want to talk briefly about the Four Vehicles of Internal Alchemy, a concept borrowed from Buddhism but with a totally different interpretation.

Before we jump in feet first, let's review the concept of a vehicle in Buddhism.

So I'm not a Buddhist but I do study a little bit in Tibetan Vajrayana under a couple of teachers so I know enough to probably get me in trouble, but let me try to summarize a little anyway.

My understanding is that the term “Sheng” in Chinese which I have translated as Vehicle is commonly referred to in Sanksrit, Tibetan and the Pali language as “Yana” which in turn means something like a vehicle in the sense that we use it to drive our consciousness toward realizaton.

The Three Yanas are:

• Hinayana: the path of personal salvation whereby a meditation student aims to obtain realization through personal practice.

• Mahayana: the path of universal salvation by which a person seeking to become a Buddha seeks to assist in the liberation of all sentient beings.

• Vajrayana: the vehicle of Tantra in which different elements of body and mind are used \to assist in realization.

Hopefully I didn't get that too badly wrong.

The story goes that Buddha taught students each Yana according to their aptitude, but that may be apocryphal.

In any event, Daoism uses the concept of Yana frequently in both meditation and religious practice, but our friends at Parting Clouds have the religious part covered so I think I'll talk about the specific meaning of Yana in Neidan in order to hopefully reveal a bit about how Internal Alchemy masters of the past have used Buddhist concepts without really adhering to their absolute meaning (in other words creating something new).

According to Li Daochun there are Three Vehicles and one Secret Highest Vehicle.

They are:

1: Lower Vehicle:

the Lower Vehicle of Neidan works mainly with the Body, the Five Organs, and the Mind in order to generate Qi.

This practice is considered to be mainly for the cultivation of Innate Life Energy (Ming) and is considered somewhat crude by Li's Middle School.

2: The Middle Vehicle:

This method is based on the subtle exchange of Kan and Li to generate Qian and Kun, it focuses on the use of Jing, Shen, Hun, Po and Yi and pairing the Body and Heart to generate Qi which is viewed as the True Seed.

It also follows the time of year to transform the energy according to the body's resonance with the environment.

Li Daochun holds that it is also meant for nurturing Innate Life Energy and is only a little different from the Lower Vehicle.

The easiest way to understand this is that it is a more sophisticated version of the Lower Vehicle since it observes the transformation of Qi relative to time, space and awareness as its major objective rather than trying to use the organs of the body to draw out the Qi.

3: the Higher Vehicle:

The Higher Vehicle values making the mind still by using the Innate Mind (Xing) and Feeling (Qing) to control one another at the right time. It uses mental focus as the True Seed and refines the mind with the heart in order to practice fire timing as well as stopping the mind to nurture the fire (I hope my students in the Neidan Toolbox and Wu Liu School classes are paying attention to this because we covered it in class last week).

The result of this practice is it can reveal the Heavenly Heart and open the Mystery Gate allowing practitioners to cultivate the Yuan Shen and later achieve Immortality.

It has elements which are similar to the Middle Vehicle but its use is said to be different.

This way of practice can be viewed as emphasizing the transition between action and non-action as the means of cultivating the Elixir.

Then finally there is a Most High Vehicle (originally alluded to by Wang Chongyang in his Fifteen Discussions).

The Most High Vehicle emphasizes the use of Clarity and Stillness, Non-action, Stability, Sincerity and Realization of Innate Nature and Innate Life Energy.

This method could be considered as a more advanced way of practice in which the real principles of the Dao De Jing are deeply understood and followed. It is not reliant on moving energy and yet the energy frequently moves by itself, it does not require mental focus and yet the mind spontaneously focuses.

Li Daochun said that only this practice can cause a person's body and spirit to be entirely held together in the miracle and merge with the Dao.

Now let's reflect a little on why Neidan practitioners sometimes choose to use this language of Buddhism in a heterodox way:

Daoism and Buddhism are two totally different schools of thought and although Daoists greatly respect Buddhists the basic paradigm of the two schools has important doctrinal differences, especially in regard to the Daoist focus on Self According Nature and Innate Life Energy as two main pillars of practice.

While many Daoists schools view liberation from suffering as the main purpose of study and even sometimes take on a universalist worldview similar to Mahayana, the way they go about doing it is not similar to Buddhism.

This could be because of the influence of the Chinese Time Space concept on the Daoist view of inner energy, or it could be because Daoism is derived from observation of the natural world and the wish to live longer and be more healthy.

My suspicion is that Daoism and Buddhism are different because they were born in different civilizations with different histories, values and backgrounds.

It is quite common in China that Buddhists especially despise Daoists and view their practices as unable to achieve transcendence from suffering as a result of the Daoist obsession with Qi, but anyone who really understands Neidan practice knows that this is a wrong understanding of what we do since those of us who practice for real mostly eventually choose not to emphasize the Qi part as much as the realization of emptiness (in that case Qi is along for the ride).

So we know that Daoism and Buddhism are pretty different and Internal Alchemy really is a school unto itself with its own unique features that can't be judged according to other parts of Daoism, although of course it can be practiced by anyone and some schools of Internal Alchemy transition into religious practices like Talisman writing very effectively (just covering my bases so I don't accidentally step on any toes by not giving sufficient information).

Internal Alchemy has its own theory and its own values and exists beyond the scope of the Daoist clergy since so many of the greatest Neidan masters were people in the laity rather than priests, thus they use the language of their time to communicate essential ideas rather than a more scriptural approach as is seen in religious documents.

Thus this idea of the Vehicles in Neidan should first be looked at from the perspective of practice and only then considered from a religious perspective if this is done at all.

Looking at them in terms of practice the basic idea is that as your practice becomes more aligned with the core principles of Daoism such as Clarity and Stillness, Profound Silence, Adjusting without Adjusting, Non-Action, no use of force, and so on, then you are more likely to realize the Dao and not get stuck at a lower level of practice.

You can look at these vehicles in a similar way to Hinayana, Mahayana, and Varjyana but you need to understand that the reason why Li and other Neidan masters discussed them was not to built up a worldview about the relative value of personal and universal salvation, but rather to encourage people to practice the Higher Vehicle and the Most High Vehicle rather than the more crude physical methods.

Hopefully I don't make a mistake here, but my understanding is that this view from a Buddhist perspective would entirely be considered Hinayana, that is to say the Three Vehicles of Neidan are about personal salvation and have little to do with universal salvation.

Of course a practitioner can also work toward helping other sentient life to realize salvation, but the point here is that the Vehicles in Neidan are about one's own meditation practice.

So then why is it that Neidan holds such as heterodox view?

Well, uh... because it is its own system of practice with its own trajectory, levels of practice, ideas about what is good, and entirely coherent theory, that's why.

This is the cool thing about Neidan, it is eclectic, it can borrow from many places and still keep its essential character. It isn't for everyone, but those who practice seriously for a long time and have an inquiring nature can usually make something wonderful out of it.

I hope this article was useful to you,

I stayed up a little past bedtime to write it for you.

Now I need to get a beauty sleep before my midnight diaper changing shift begins for my own little Shen Xian.