The Origins of Neidan.
TLDR:
Zhang Boduan is the founder of Neidan,
Lu Dongbin created the forerunner of Neidan called Jin Dan Da Dao,
Zhong Lu Jin Dan Da Dao is a school of thought created by people such as Shi Jianwu, Chen Pu, Cui Xifan, Liu Haichan etc... which had no consistent theory,
Pre Neidan was a combination of Wai Dan and Meditation techniques.
A quick article today about where Neidan came from:
1: Pre Neidan:
before Neidan was a long tradition of Wai Dan/External Alchemy practitioners who often practiced diverse meditation techniques in relation to external alchemy.
They designed a theory of the organs based on Chinese Medicine and early Daoism which is quite diverse and this genre of history has many important texts which require careful attention by Neidan experts to understand without making important historical mistakes.
2: Lu Dongbin:
as far as it is known Lu Dongbin was the first person to separate Neidan from Waidan and completely reject the validity of Waidan in Daoist practice.
Lu left behind a few poems which had an outsized impact on Daoist practice.
It is possible that he also had disciples, but perhaps not those who went on to claim to represent his tradition.
3: the Zhong Lv Jin Dan Tradition:
this represents the period between Lu Dongbin's early transmission and the formation of a consistent Neidan school of thought under Zhang Boduan and Wang Chongyang respectively.
This generation saw masters such as:
Cui Xifan,
Shi Jianwu,
Chen Pu,
Liu Haichan,
each put forth their own respective views of what constituted the teachings of Lu Dongbin and Han Zhongli.
This generation of Daoist Alchemy does not have a consistent theory and each scholar essentially forwarded their own opinions about what constituted Neidan.
From this generation there are four famous documents and many smaller, less famous ones:
1: Shi Jianwu:
Shi Jianwu wrote the Chuan Dao Ji which we are reading on Tuesdays here.
Chuan Dao Ji is an important theoretical text which describes many processes borrowed from Daoist External Alchemy and is broadly based on the Can Tong Qi, using its time space theory to describe the basis of the Internal Alchemy process, but diverting from Lu Dongbin's Pre-Heaven teachings, favoring various Post-Heaven work to achieve the desired goals of practice after making the mind stable.
Shi's basic idea was that visualization should only be practiced after the mind was totally stable in meditation, which while being a great improvement over many previous schools of Daoist Qigong does not equate with internal alchemy.
He also wrote the Ling Bao Bi Fa, a Daoist Qigong text which combines a myriad of ancient methods put in a taxonomic order ascending from basic practices such as breath holding to advanced Dao Yin and visualization methods.
This is one of the most complete early Daoist Qigong methods and is argued by some to be a “Pure” system of Daoist Internal Alchemy. I disagree that this is the case since the later formation of the Neidan school under Zhang Boduan has totally different principles which ultimately colored the rest of the tradition and aside from some twentieth century pretenders to Shi Jianwu's tradition, his line of practice did not survive beyond the late Tang Five Dynasties Period.
2: Chen Pu:
Chen Pu wrote the “Mr.Chen Discusses the Golden Elixir” text which has a very strange theory associated with the Gallbladder in which before circulating Qi around the body one must first direct energy from the teeth to the Bai Hui, then bring it through the central channel to the heart, and finally allow it to rest in the Gallbladder until it spontaneously moves around the body.
This theory of Golden Elixir continued to enjoy low key popularity and I have seen documents in Dao Zang dating to the Ming Dynasty which continue to expound on this idea, but it was never a mainstream area of practice, probably because it is quite weird.
3: Cui Xifan:
In my opinion Cui Xifan's Ru Yao Jing is the best Pre Zhang Boduan Internal Alchemy document since although it is a terse poem is encompasses much of the energetic theory of the Southern School, especially in regard to the relationship between Pre Heaven Alchemical Qi and Post Heaven Breath Qi.
The author of the Dao Shu compilation claimed that Cui Xifan lived before Lu Dongbin and that Lu received Ru Yao Jing, but other scholars believe that it was probably written after Lu transmitted early Internal Alchemy by an adherent of Lu's style.
Liu Haichanalso left behind some documents but they are not so easy to understand and again are quite heterodox in nature.
The traditional story is that Liu Haichan taught Zhang Boduan and Zhang founded the Southern School.
Whether or not this is true, the key point is that Zhang Boduan established the core theory of Neidan as a school of meditation which emphasizes the Pre-Heaven state, spontaneous movement of Qi, the Single Opening of the Mystery Gate, the Eight Extraordinary Meridians as the main energetic pathways, and other important ideas.
In order to understand the development of Neidan after Zhang it is vital to read the works of Wang Chongyang who while some claim was mainly focused on cultivating nature and doing Chan Mediation actually wrote several documents about energetic cultivation, sitting in forgetting, and the mystery gate which are essentially Daoist in nature.
Most western scholars understand well the period of Daoist practice during the Han dynasty in which breath work, Dao Yin, and visualization were popular, but fewer can clearly differentiate the criteria of the Jin Dan Da Dao school which directly followed Lu Dongbin and the Neidan school created by Zhang Boduan.
In the near future I will begin the arduous process of creating a vault of Neidan translations, annotations, and lectures online which will start from Lu Dongbin, work through the Tang including Shi Jianwu, Chen Pu, and Cui Xifan's works, and then on to the seven main Neidan schools.
This is a project which will take many years and require a lot of my effort, but my greatest wish in this work I do is to shine a light on exactly what Internal Alchemy is and provide a clear rationale for study so that more people can enjoy its benefits without falling into the myriad of traps set by incorrect interpretation of documents, history and practices.
I want to thank you for your support in this and say that I look forward to keeping this work going with the many friends I've made along the way.