Robinet, The World Upside Down: Essays on ... - The Golden Elixir

<strong>The</strong> Terms Waidan and Neidan<strong>The</strong> question is not simple, and has been further complicated bysome Taoist scholars. Li Yuanguo, for instance, relates it to the sexualpractices. 7 In his view, the External Medicine (waiyao) would begathered by a man from a woman during sexual intercourse. LiYuanguo bases himself on the commentaries to the Wuzhen pian(Awakening to Reality) by Weng Baoguang and by Chen Zhixu (alsoknown as Shangyang zi), respectively dating from the twelfth and thefourteenth centuries. 8 Li Yuanguo’s interpretation is unwarranted: aswe shall presently see, those authors give quite different explanations.More importantly, the remarks made by those authors against thesexual practices are as much deprecatory as those of other authorswhom Li Yuanguo ranks among the opponents of sexual practices,exactly on the basis of those remarks.In particular, Weng Baoguang clearly explains in his commentaryto the Wuzhen pian that those who, in order to translate the neidan interms of sexual practices, base themselves on the argument of theinfertility of pure Yin and Yang (an argument relied on by Li Yuanguoas well, but which is present everywhere, beginning with the Cantong7See Li Yuanguo, Daojiao qigong yangshengxue. <strong>The</strong> issue of sexualpractices in Neidan is complicated by the fact that while these practicesprobably existed, this does not mean that the masters recommended them.Joseph Needham’s positivist spirit pushes him too often to regrettable misunderstandings,analogous to his claim that a text such as the Huangqi yangjingjing (Scripture of the Yellow Breath and the Yang Essence) teaches the practiceof “heliotherapy,” while it deals with meditations on the Sun and the Moonthat can be performed in the shade of a room. It is a true contradiction when,in his Science and Civilisation in China, vol. V, part 5, p. 212, Needhamtranslates for the purposes of his “sexual” thesis: “As for disclosing [thenature of] the lead in the reaction-vessel, if you wish to judge of it, it isnecessary to fix the Yang fire so that it plays underneath, but it must not beallowed to spread so that it attains the intensity of human passion. This is toshow the practitioner under instruction where he must stop. This decision iscalled the Mysterious Axis.” Having said earlier that the woman’s body is the“reaction-vessel” and the man’s body is the stove, Needham adds that fire is“of course the masculine ardour,” and that the text deals with coitus interruptus.However, the passage simply states: “You must learn the precise rulesgoverning the Tripod and the Lead, so that the Yang fire may descend andspread. If you do not meet a perfect man who gives you teachings, how canyou discover the Mysterious Axis?” See Jinye huandan yinzheng tu, 3b.8Li Yuanguo, Daojiao qigong yangshengxue, p. 412, quoting, withoutreferences, Ziyang zhenren wuzhen pian zhushu, 7.2a-b, and Ziyang zhenrenwuzhen pian sanzhu, 1.10b.77