WATER’S DWELLING PLACE: Notes of Taoist Inner Alchemy (Art of Conscious Living Book 1)

104 Pages·2017·2.09 MB·English

by  Paolo Proietti

Paolo Proietti

“WATER'S DWELLING PLACE”
Notes of Taoist Inner Alchemy

Translated from the original Italian by Christine Hogan and Massimo Brillo.
Two loyal Tai Chi students who have achieved a new equilibrium in life, both
physical and philosophical, thanks to their Maestro.
“Under the plum tree, Awaiting, Quan Yin, Mistress of Joy.
Her lips as red as the fruit.
Her skin as white as the flower.
Offer her your hand and she will be yours.
For always.

(Anon. Chinese, XIII century)
Nei Dan, the pathway of the Inner Alchemy
“The Golden
Elixir is a name that portrays one's fundamental nature. The Golden Elixir does
not exist outside its fundamental nature. All human beings possess the Golden
Elixir. The wise man and the ordinary person possess it equally.
It is the seed of the Immortals and the Buddha, the root of the worthwile and the
wise”

(Liu Yiming, 1734-1821)
A few years ago, I think it was 2012, November 2012, Andrea Pagano, my
friend and a student of mine at the time, showed me a Taoist antique from the
XVII century. It had belonged to his grandfather, a consul in China during the
period of Mussolini. Andrea thought that I could help him understand its use and
to interpret the strange symbols that decorated it.

It was a silver mirror, completely smooth on one side and covered by pictures
and ideograms on the other.

For a week, we did nothing else but copy, transcribe and compare notes and in
the end, thanks to Google and to a friend of Andrea who is a sinologist, we
found that the “Mirror” was in fact a sort of account of Inner Alchemy of the
lineage called Daojao, going back to Lao Tzu.

It most certainly was “also” a musical instrument (if we hit it with a small
hammer it rang like a Tibetan bell), but its original use must have been that of a
meditation object and, therefore, a practical handbook.

In the middle of the decorated side (the back of the mirror) there were two
dragons, their heads and tails entwined together, one flew downwards and the
other flew upwards. “The little one creates the mountains” could be read on the
left and on the right “Rujing” which Andrea’s friend translated as “to enter into
a foreign land” or “to travel beyond the mirror”.

At the bottom there was an alchemist's tripod, also called “Xuanpin” or
“Mysterious Female”, to the left of this, amongst other symbols, stood out a
flower with five petals, (which was according to me a plum-tree flower). On the
right there was a plum.

The flower and fruit of the plum-tree are symbols of Lao Tzu.
Lao Tzu was the nickname given to a Taoist teacher of the V century a.C. and it
means “the Old Baby”.
In fact Lao Tzu's real name was Li, which means “plum-tree”.
It is said that he was born under a tree and that, at the moment of his birth, he
had white hair like the flower and red cheeks like the fruit of the plum-tree,
characteristics which he retained all of his life. This is the reason why he
acquired the nick name Lao Tzu, the Old Baby.
On each side above the flower and the fruit, there were two couples of gods or
spirits.
They were probably four of the “Inner Gods”, the fine energies that connect the
human being's organs to the celestial spheres. These fine energies also represent
the four energy centres (we can define them as Cakra), used in meditation during
the practice of Nei Dan, Inner Alchemy.

Above the two couples of the gods, there was the symbol of the sun on the left
and the moon on the right.
Inside these “luminary” symbols, could be seen the outline of a dragon and a
tiger. According to the iconic Taoist tradition these represent “Supreme Yang”
and “Supreme Yin”, pouring their elixir into the tripod (the alchemist's crucible).

At the top, in the middle there was a castle, “the Yellow Castle”. This castle
symbolizes the first revelation of the Being, which in the human body is found in
the centre of the forehead, in a space which is one Kun (one inch) wide,
corresponding to Ajna Cakra in Yoga.

In the ascending and descending dragons, in the centre of the mirror, we found a
written text of Tàijíquán which represents the last phase of Taoist meditation,
called Chongxuan or double mystery.
1 Paolo Proietti – Qi Gong Exercise
Searching for Qi
I was already a yoga teacher when I started to be
interested in Taoist psychophysical techniques in the middle of the 1980's.
In 1990, in both Hong Kong and in the Chinatown of Singapore, I had taken
lessons of Qi Gong and Tàijíquán. These lessons caused me to have doubts and
perplexities on the level of teaching that I had found in the West.
I had the impression that in the form (Tao Lu) and in the techniques that we
study in the West there was something missing.
There was always a lot of talk about Qi, the inner energy and about extra
sensorial perceptions linked to the flow of this Qi, but nobody seemed able to
help you to feel it.

“Ok, so what is this Qi? How can I perceive it?” The majority of Italian
instructors that I have known replied with the seraphic smile of Buddha “You'll
see... You need time... When you're ready you'll feel the power of Qi... And then
you won't need to ask any more questions.”
When I was in Hong Kong I asked an old Chinese man to teach me some Qi
Gong exercises. The first thing he did was to point the index and middle finger
of his right hand at about twenty centimetres from the centre of my forehead.
I felt a light electric current and then a light pressure, pleasant and intermittent.
It seemed that the space between his fingers and my forehead had became dense
and he was managing to command it with his will: it was Qi.

Every morning at 7:15, we met in the Chai Wan gardens. For a good half hour
Mr. Zhong (this was the name he wanted me to use) made me practice hand
sensitivity exercises.
The elusive Qi slowly became a tangible presence.
A kind of fluid, pliable and dense, like the mercury in a thermometer, that I
seemed to be able to model at will.
With this I formed small invisible balls that I moved around my body at will.
Apart from my fingertips and the palms of my hands, the most sensitive points
seemed to be the centre of my forehead, my heart and my navel.
In December 1990 I left Hong Kong, bound for Istanbul. Then after a brief stay
in Greece I returned home to Rome. Each day I practiced a form of Tàijíquán
(the Old Form in the Yang style) a series of eight positions that Mr. Zhong had
taught me. I tried to perceive the Qi in each position and to move it myself in my
legs, in my arms and down my vertebral column.
Without realizing it, I started to modify my postures and my movements and,
after a few months, my body started to change. My hands and feet became wider