THE TAOIST ALCHEMICAL BALANCING OF YIN AND YANG

Chang Po-tuan, Understanding Reality: A Taoist Alchemical Classic: With a Concise Commentary by Liu I-Ming, translated from the Chinese By Thomas Cleary (Honolulu: U. of Hawaii Press, 1997) (From the "Foreword": "Complete Reality Taoism, which arose as a distinct movement between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, was concerned with the totality of experience and with furthering human progress in the realms of both conventional and ultimate truth. This concern manifested itself accordingly in both social and mystical practices, as the followers of Complete reality strove to encompass what they considered to be the essences of Buddhism and Confucianism as well as Taoism." Id. at xiii-xiv. From the "Introduction": ""The concept of yin and yang form one of the basic and pervasive themes of Taoist thought, used to describe all manner of oppositions and complementarities in the physical and metaphysical worlds...." "Generally speaking, three aspects or phases of Taoist practice are expressed in terms of yin and yang. These are referred to as fostering yang while repelling yin, blending yin and yang, and transcending yin and yang. In interpreting these phrases, the associations of yin and yang differ according to the specific process being described." "In Taoism one of the basic equivalents of yin and yang is the pair of terms 'heaven and earth.' At one level of interpretation, heaven refers to a world-transcending higher consciousness, beyond the bounds of ordinary thought and emotion; earth refers to the experience of the everyday world. The complete or 'real' human being is considered a balanced combination of these two levels of experience; this is expressed in the Taoist slogan 'Being beyond the world while living in the world.' Thus to maintain contact with the higher, vaster dimension of 'celestial' consciousness while at the same time living effectively in the 'earthly' domain is one meaning of blending or uniting yin and Yang." Id. at 3. From the text and commentary: "The conscious knowledge of the human mind is yang outside, yin inside; it is like sunlight,which radiates outward. The real knowledge of the mind Tao is like moonlight, stored within. The external yang of conscious knowledge belongs to the yang soul; the external yin of real knowledge belongs to the yin soul. The sunlight yang soul of conscious knowledge is what is called the spirit which is spirit; the moonlight yin soul of real knowledge is called the spirit which is not spirit." "'Spirit which is spirit' means there is artificiality within the real; 'spirit which is not spirit' refers to containing reality within the artificial. 'Refining sunlight and moonlight' means melting away the artificiality within reality of the conscious knowledge of the human mind, and refining out the reality within artificiality of the mind of Tao. When false consciousness is removed, real consciousness is steady; then the yang soul doesn't fly off, but is stabilized. When real knowledge is revealed, false knowledge vanishes; then the yin soul doesn't dissolve, but is stabilized." "Once the yang soul and yin soul are stabilized, then real knowledge and conscious knowledge, sense and essence, merge into each other and solidify into one energy, warm and gentle, transmuting by collecting and dispersing, tranquil and unstirring yet sensitive and effective. Every step is the celestial mechanism, the spiritual subtlety herein cannot be described in words." Id. at 61. "Equalizing beings: I am not different from other people; people's minds are themselves different. For people there are friends and strangers; for me, no 'that' or 'this.' Creatures of water, land, and air, I view equally as one body. Whether people are high or low in rank, their hands and feet are the same as mine. I am not even me; how could there even be you? 'That' and 'this' both nonexistent, myriad bubbles return to water." "The title of this verse is 'Equalizing beings,' which means equally seeing others and self, friends and strangers, fish, animals, and birds, people in high and low ranks, as one body alone. The important point of this verse is in the line 'I am not even me.' The reason people of the world cannot see beings as equal is because they are egotistic. If one can be selfless, how can one know there is a second person? With 'you' and 'me' both forgotten, myriad beings all empty, they are equal of themselves without being equalized." Id. at 164-165.).