Abstract

Part One of the present article, published in JDS 1 (2008), presented the historical and terminological contours of the Neijing tu 內經圖 (Diagram of Internal Pathways). As a late nineteenth-century stele commissioned by the Longmen monk and court eunuch Liu Chengyin 劉誠印 (Suyun 素雲, Pure Cloud; d. 1894), it is currently housed in the Baiyun guan 白雲觀 (White Cloud Monastery; Beijing). This installment focuses on the content of the diagram as well as the Daoist cultivation methods embedded in its contours.

I first provide a thorough analysis of the textual and visual dimensions of the Neijing tu, including a complete translation with the diagram divided into three sections. The article also clarifies some influences on this Daoist body map and its corresponding internal alchemy system, specifically indicating a possible connection with the emerging Wu-Liu 伍柳 sub-lineage of Longmen.

This analysis is followed by a reconstruction of Daoist alchemical practice as expressed in the Neijing tu. I emphasize three methods: praxis-oriented applications of classical Chinese medical views of the body; visualizations which draw their inspiration from the Huangting jing and find clear historical precedents in Shangqing Daoism; and the alchemical technique known as the Waterwheel or Microcosmic Orbit. The three techniques form an interconnected system, wherein the adept’s overall psychosomatic health is maintained and strengthened, his body is osmicized, and he awakens the mystical body, the body-beyond-the-body or yang-spirit, i.e., the culmination of alchemical transformation and the precondition for post-mortem transcendence.

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