4 Symbolic Pregnancy and The Sexual Iden PDF

iii
Transforming the Void

Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery
in East Asian Religions
Edited by
Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu
LEIDEN | BOSTON
For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

Contents
Contents v
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Figures and Tables xi
Conventions and Abbreviations xiv
List of Contributors xviii
Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and

Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 1
Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu
Part 1
China
1 Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on

Procreation and Life Cycles 53
Grégoire Espesset
2 Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual

Rites in Early Taoism 87
Christine Mollier
3 Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111

Dominic Steavu
4 Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147

Catherine Despeux
5 Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the
Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 186
Fabrizio Pregadio
6 On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212

Brigitte Baptandier

vi Contents
Part 2
Japan
7 The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology

from Japanese Tantric Sources 253
Lucia Dolce
8 Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval

Japanese Buddhism 311
Bernard Faure
9 “Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism

and Culture 344
Nobumi Iyanaga
10 “Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender

in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men 420
Anna Andreeva
11 Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479

Kigensan Licha
12 Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological

Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo 522
Gaynor Sekimori
Index 559
578
Contents
Contents v
Contents v
Acknowledgements ix
Acknowledgements ix
Figures xi
Tables xiii
List of Contributors xvi
List of Contributors xvi
Introduction 1
Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and Reproductive Imagery in East Asian Religions 1
Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu Andreeva and Steavu 1
1 Early Chinese Embryologies 4
2 Embryologies in Early Indian and Buddhist Materials 9
3 Buddhist Embryologies in China 19
4 Embryologies in Early and Medieval Japan 27
5 Overview of Chapters 30
Concluding Remarks: On Embryologies and Gender 40
Primary Sources 43
Secondary Sources 44
part 1 51
China 51
∵ 51
Chapter 1 53
Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on Procreation and Life Cycles 53
Grégoire Espesset 53
1 Impregnation 55
2 The Symbolism of Gestation 57
3 Prenatal Infancy 60
4 Birth and Beyond 63
5 Cyclical Logic and Time Cycles 67
6 Prenatal Infancy Regained 75
Concluding Remarks 81
Primary Sources 83
Chapter 2 87
Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism 87
Christine Mollier 87
Introduction 87
1 The Sexual Rites Described in the Huangshu 89
2 Sex and Procreation in Early Celestial Masters Literature 93
3 The Shenzhou jing and the Ritual of the Huangshu 96
4 The Eschatological Background of the Notion of “Seed-People” 99
5 La Dolce Vita in the Messianic Kingdom 105
Concluding Remarks: Counting the Elect 107
Primary Sources 108
Chapter 3 111
Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111
Dominic Steavu 111
Introducing the Problem: Literal and Symbolic Embryology 111
1 The Gods Within: Anthropomorphising the Cosmos 114
2 Correlating Models, Imbricating Discourses 118
3 Taiyi and Cosmogonic Reversion 123
4 Sanhuang, Embryology, and the Birth of Neidan 128
Conclusion 138
Primary Sources 141
Chapter 4 147
Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147
Catherine Despeux 147
Introduction 147
1 Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory 148
2 The Formation of the Sagely Embryo 153
3 Symbolic Pregnancy in Men 159
4 Symbolic Pregnancy in Women 169
5 Sacred (Re)birth in Women and Men 177
Conclusion 180
Primary Sources 182
Chapter 5 186
Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being, and Elixir in the Cantong Qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three) 186
Fabrizio Pregadio 186
1 General Principles 188
2 Creating the World 190
3 Generation and Periodic Regeneration: The Function of Kun 193
4 Conception and Birth of the Human Being 197
5 Compounding the Elixir 203
Conclusion: “Inverting the Course” and “Following the Course” 208
Primary Sources 210
Chapter 6 212
On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212
Brigitte Baptandier 212
1 The Myth of the Lady of Linshui and Its Discourse on Maternity 212
2 The Nainiang zhuan, Biography of the Mother 218
3 The Context of the Nainiang zhuan 219
4 The Ritual Performance 221
5 The Secret Revealed 222
6 Ritual Sequences from Nainiang zhuan 229
7 Furen Guoguan, The Lady Crosses the Passes: A Ritual Painting 230
8 The Thirty-Six Consorts, Acolytes of Chen Jinggu 234
9 The Talisman of the Eight Trigrams for Pacifying the Womb and the Dipper Ritual for the Correction of Fortune 237
10 Conclusion: On Symbolic Efficacy 239
11 Conclusion: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic 243
Primary Sources 246
part 2 251
Japan 251
∵ 251
Chapter 7 253
The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology from Japanese Tantric Sources 253
Lucia Dolce 253
Introduction 253
1 The Embryological Charts 257
2 Indian Medicine and Abhidharma Interpretations 262
3 The Chinese Body: The Five Agents and Five Viscera System 270
4 The Tantric Body: Fluids, Visualisation Practices, and Initiatory Rituals 277
5 Before Gestation: Sexual Practices in Tantric Buddhism 280
6 The Performance of Gestation I: The Yoga Sutra Commentaries 293
7 The Performance of Gestation II: Kami Initiations 297
Concluding Remarks 299
Primary Sources 302
Chapter 8 311
Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval Japanese Buddhism 311
Bernard Faure 311
1 Embryological Symbolism 311
1.1 From Two to Five 312
1.2 Aizen, Fudō, and Foetal Gestation 313
1.3 The Five Stages in Medieval Shintō Rituals 317
1.4 The Five Stages in Shugendō 318
2 The Deification of the Placenta 319
2.1 The Placenta Deity 322
2.2 Aizen and Fudō as Placenta Deities 328
2.3 Ugajin 329
2.4 Shōten (Vināyaka) 331
2.5 Myōken, the Pole Star inside the Womb 334
Epilogue 335
Primary Sources 338
Chapter 9 344
“Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism and Culture 344
Nobumi Iyanaga 彌永信美 344
1 The Origin of “Human Yellow”: Commentary on the Mahāvairocana Sūtra 344
2 What Was “Human Yellow”? 347
3 Dakini-ten and “Human Yellow” in Japan, before the End of the Heian Period 349
4 “Human Yellow” in the Third Left Hand of Aizen Myōō 358
5 The “Abominable Skull Cult” for the Production of a Magical Life 362
6 Skull Ritual and “Human Yellow” 375
Conclusion 385
Appendices 388
Appendix 1 388
Appendix 2 390
Appendix 3 403
Appendix 4 404
Primary Sources 412
Chapter 10 420
“Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender in the Writings and Rituals of Japan’s Medieval Holy Men 420
Anna Andreeva 420
Introduction 420
1 Medieval Scholars and Holy Men on Enlightenment and Conception 422
2 Esoteric Theories on the Move 434
3 Ritualising Fathers and Mothers 444
4 Mandalising Women’s Bodies? 455
Conclusion 469
Abbreviations 470
Primary Sources 470
Chapter 11 479
Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479
Kigensan Licha 479
Introduction 479
1 Discourses on the Human Body in Early Modern Sōtō Zen 483
1.1 The Universal Principles of the Body 486
1.2 The Instantiation of Universal Principles in the Body 489
1.3 The Roots of the Body 494
2 Embryology in the Womb and the Grave: The Pagoda and the Thirteen Buddhas 495
2.1 The “Five Stages in the Womb” (tainai goi 胎内五位) and the
Aun jigi 阿吽字義 497
2.2 Gestation and the Thirteen Buddhas 503
3 Practice in the Womb and Propagating the Buddha Seed 506
3.1 Meditation as Residing in the Womb 506
3.2 Embryological Metaphysics 507
3.3 Variant Embryologies 510
3.4 Propagating the Buddha Seed 512
Conclusion 514
Primary Sources 517
Chapter 12 522
Foetal Buddahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological Symbolism in the Autumn Peak Ritual of Haguro Shugendo 522
Gaynor Sekimori 522
Introduction 522
1 Embryological Symbolism Associated with Attire and Accoutrements 526
2 Conception and Gestation in the Akinomine 534

2.1 The Womb 534
2.2 Intercourse and Conception 535
2.3 Stages of Gestation 537
2.4 Birth 540
3 Sexual Symbolism Associated with Places 542
Conclusion 543
Primary Sources 555
Index 559
Index 559
Chapter 4
Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of

Taoist Adepts
Catherine Despeux
Introduction
The majority of texts associated with Internal Alchemy (Neidan 內丹) describe
the practitioner’s psycho-physiological experiences and transformations by
means of metaphoric registers that derive their symbolism from three princi-
pal fields: cosmos, nature, and the human being. The language of Internal
Alchemy speaks of cosmological changes and rhythms, mineral transmuta-
tions and the sprouting of the plant of immortality, or the human experiences
of procreation and gestation. The adept’s figurative pregnancy is thus one
among multiple discourses on the meditative experience of Internal Alchemy.
Since the metaphor of Taoist pregnancy was constructed by men on the
basis of men’s experiences, one naturally wonders about a few points: how did
they come to formulate this metaphor, and on the basis of which gender con-
structs? How did they transcribe women’s experiences into this symbolic
parturiency? In addressing these broad concerns, we will attempt to provide
more specific answers to the following questions: 1) is Internal Alchemy’s sym-
bolic “male pregnancy” merely a rhetorical device to speak of the formation of
a spiritual body? 2) For practitioners, did this process effectively correspond to
a feminisation; 3) or did it rather consist of acquiring the female power of ges-
tation while preserving a male identity? 4) To which degree was the comparison
to literal pregnancies sustained? 5) How are men and women understood to be
different, physiologically and morphologically speaking, with respect to
Internal Alchemy, and how are these differences expressed in terms of prac-
tice? The following study will attempt to provide some preliminary answers to
these questions.
* Translated from French by Dominic Steavu (University of California, Santa Barbara).
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_006

148 Despeux
1 Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory
The image of an embryo forming and growing within one’s body as a metaphor
for the generation and transmutation of the internal Elixir first appears in the
middle of the Tang (618–907 CE). One of the earliest occurrences is attribut-
able to a fundamental text in Internal Alchemy, the Zhouyi cantong qi 周易參
同契 (Seal of the Unity of the Three in Accordance with the Book of Changes),
in which we read:
Similar in kind to a hen’s egg,

the white [Yang] and the black [Yin] tally with one another.
It is only one inch in size,
but it is the beginning [of the sagely embryo].
Then, the four limbs, the five viscera,
the sinews and bones join it.
When the ten months have elapsed,
it leaves its womb.
Its bones are weak and pliant
its flesh is smooth like lead.1
類如雞子，白黑相扶。
縱橫一寸，形為始初。
四肢五臟，筋骨乃俱。
彌歷十月，脫出其胞。
骨弱可捲，肉滑若鉛。
The symbolic discourse on procreation developed out of what were originally

literal descriptions of physiological processes. The stages in the allegorical
development of the embryo closely follow actual gestation. They are listed as
follows: formation of the embryo (jie tai 結胎); nourishing the embryo (yang
shengtai 養聖胎) for a duration of ten lunar months, corresponding to the 280
days of gestation as outlined in medical texts; delivery (tuotai 脫胎, lit. “libera-
tion from the womb”); and, finally breastfeeding (rufu 乳哹) for three years. In
theory, generating the “sagely embryo” (shengtai 聖胎) comprises the same
1 Zhouyi cantong qi DZ 999, 2.18b–19b; slightly modified from Fabrizio Pregadio, The Seal of the
Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi (Mountain View: Golden Elixir
Press, 2011), 101–102. The line on weak bones is a partial quotation of section 55 from the Daode
jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue); see Pregadio, ibid., 195–196 for notes on the Cantong
qi passage.

phases for men and women; however, in female alchemy texts, the embryo’s
formation and pregnancy are barely outlined.2
Under the Song (960–1271), the Taoists of the Southern School (Nanzong
南宗) of alchemy were most fond of embryological imagery in describing
self-cultivation processes, although their Northern School (Beizong 北宗)
counterparts also relied on the same symbolism, albeit more sparingly. Zhang
Boduan 張伯端 (984?–1082), the foremost representative of the Southern
School, was a scholar from the Celestial Terrace Mountains (Tiantai shan 天台
山) of Zhejiang Province. He was also probably a Buddhist monk; in Chan 禪
literature, a number of poems are notably attributed to him. Two generations
after his death, he was recognised as the first patriarch of the Southern School
of Taoist alchemy. To our knowledge, he is the first to have employed the
expression “sagely embryo” or “embryo of sainthood” (shengtai) in the context
of Internal Alchemy, and the first to have explicitly referred to a process of
symbolic pregnancy.3
The notion of a sagely embryo became influential under the Ming (1368–
1644) and the Qing (1644–1912), as witnessed for instance in the Xingming
guizhi 性命圭旨 (Principles of Joint Cultivation of Nature and Life; ca. 1600),
or the Wu Liu xianzong quanji 伍柳仙宗全集 (Complete Summa of the
Immortality School’s Writings by Wu [Chongxu] and Liu [Huayang]) attrib-
uted to Wu Chongxu 伍冲虛 (1552–1640) and Liu Huayang 柳華陽 (1735–1799).4
In the twentieth century too, the imagery of symbolic gestation persists in
sources including the Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated
Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and Life) and the
Weisheng shenglixue mingzhi 衛生生理學明指 (Illuminated Instructions on
Hygiene and Physiology) by Zhao Bichen 趙避塵 (1860–1936). It is also para-
mount in texts on female alchemy such as the Nüdan hebian 女丹合編
(Compilation of Texts on Female Alchemy).5
2 Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn, Women in Daoism (Cambridge: Three Pines Press, 2003),
232–236.
3 See the Ziyang zhenren wuzhen pian sanzhu 紫陽真人悟真篇三註 (Three Commentaries to
the Stanzas on the Awakening to Perfection by the Perfected of Purple Solarity; DZ 142), here-
after Wuzhen pian 1.15b ; 2.16a; and 4.12a.
4 For the former, see the German translation by Martina Darga, Das alchemistische Buch von
innerem Wesen und Lebensenergie (München: Diederichs Gelbe Reihe, 1999).
5 The Xingming fajue mingzhi has been translated into English by Charles Luk (Lü Kuan-yu),
Taoist Yoga, Alchemy and Immortality (London: Rider Company, 1970); there is a French trans-
lation of the Weisheng shenglixue mingzhi by Catherine Despeux, under the title Traité
d’alchimie et de physiologie taoïste, de Zhao Bichen (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1979). Finally, one
may find a partial translation of the Nüdan hebian in Catherine Despeux, Immortelles de la
Chine ancienne (Puiseaux: Pardès, 1990); and Thomas F. Cleary, Immortal Sisters: Secret
Teachings of Taoist Women (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 1996).

150 Despeux
Although the gestational motif appears in Internal Alchemy texts around

the middle of the Tang, it derives from earlier Taoist and Buddhist contexts.6
The image of the Infant (Chizi 赤子; Ying’er 嬰兒), which sometimes replaces
that of the embryo in Internal Alchemy, refers to well-known passages from
the Daode jing 道德經 (Book of the Way and Virtue) that are often cited to
explain the processes and methods that practitioners undertake.7 The image of
the embryo already appears in the Taiping jing 太平經 (Great Peace Scripture),
whose earliest strata date back to the Eastern Han (25–220 CE). Unfortunately,
it is difficult to determine if the fragments mentioning the embryo are among
the earlier layers or the later ones, some of which date to the Tang.8 Conversely,
the Huangting neijing yujing zhu 黃庭內景經註 (Commentary to the Scripture
on the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court; DZ 402) is more easily datable,
having been composed around the fourth or fifth century. It contains one of
the earliest mentions of an allegorical embryo. The passage in question
explains that “the embryo-immortal dances to the three couplets of the
heart-lute.”9
During the Six Dynasties (220–589), in the meditation methods of the
Zhengyi 正一 (Orthodox Unity, or Way of the Celestial Masters; Tianshi dao 天
師道), Lingbao 靈寶 (Numinous Treasure) and Shangqing 上清 (Highest
Clarity) traditions, adepts were enjoined to reproduce gestational processes
and generate divine bodies in ways that were highly similar to those of Internal
Alchemy. These practices typically involved specific deities, such as Taiyi 太一
the Great One, as well as themes of regeneration or fusion.10
Thus, the practice of generating an embryo and experiencing anew the vari-
ous phases of its development was not unknown to Taoism prior to the advent
6 For a Taoist example, see, for instance, Dominic Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in
Taoist Meditation” in the present volume.
7 Chapters 10 and 55.
8 See, in this volume, Grégoire Espesset’s “Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping)
Views on Procreation and Lifecycles.”
9 琴心三疊舞胎仙; Huangting neijing yujing zhu DZ 402, 1b.
10 See Dominic Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation,” and Christine
Mollier’s “Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: ‘Seed-People’ and Sexual Rites in Early
Taoism,” in this volume. For a sample of methods from the Shangqing tradition, see
Shangqing jiudan shang hua taijing zhong ji jing 上清九丹上化胎精中記經 (Scripture
of the Central Record of Ninefold Elixir Transmuting into Embryonic Essence; DZ 1382);
and Shangqing taiyi dijun taidan yinshu jie bao shier jiejie tu jue 上清太一帝君太丹隱書
解胞十二結節圖訣 (Illustrated Instructions for Untying the Twelve Embryonic Knots
according to the Secret Writing of the Lord Emperor Taiyi on the Supreme Elixir; DZ 1384).

of Internal Alchemy.11 Moreover, although Zhang Boduan was the first to use
the expression “sagely embryo” (shengtai) in alchemical and Taoist contexts,
the term occurs earlier in Buddhist sources. The oldest such source is an apoc-
ryphal text from around fifth century, the Renwang bore boluomi jing 仁王般若
波羅蜜經 (Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings; T. 245; here-
after, Scripture for Humane Kings). The term “sagely embryo” is used in relation
to the first of the ten virtues of wisdom (shi boluomi 十波羅蜜), that is, the gift
(bushi 布施). In order to achieve this virtue, one must cultivate the ten types of
consciousness (shixin 十心) for converting other beings. “Buddhas and bodhi-
sattvas,” readers are told, “cultivate and nourish the ten types of consciousness
into a sagely embryo.”12 A Sui-dynasty (589–618 CE) commentary to the
Scripture for Humane Kings adds: “The ten types of consciousness are the pri-
mary conditions. Buddhas and bodhisattvas are the secondary ones. When
primary and secondary conditions are conjoined, the sagely embryo is accom-
plished. […] [Simply by] eliminating the first degree of ignorance, one can see
the Buddha nature. Thus, the sagely embryo is achieved.”13
In the Buddhist context, the term shengtai, or “sagely embryo,” traditionally
indicates the latent Buddha nature that lies dormant in all sentient beings; it
refers to the notion of tathāgatagarbha (rulai zang 如來臧), “embryo/matrix of
the thus-come one,” in other words, the potential to bring Buddhahood to frui-
tion, to make manifest the Buddha nature that is latent within oneself. A
commentary to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra lists nine rhetorical allegories
around this notion, one of them being that of a destitute young girl pregnant
with a sagely embryo.14
Yet, in Buddhist sources, there is some ambiguity around whether the
embryo is innate and requires only realisation to be activated, or whether it is
something to be pursued, refined, worked upon and cultivated – an under-
standing that is closer to that of Taoist traditions and Internal Alchemy. This
latter approach is emphasised in Buddhist sources that speak of “accomplish-
ing” or “completing” the sagely embryo. In its discussion of the “ten trusts” (shi
xin 十信), the Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing 仁王護國般若波羅蜜多經
11 See in this volume Fabrizio Pregadio’s “Creation and Its Inversion: Cosmos, Human Being,
and Elixir in the Cantong qi (The Seal of the Unity of the Three)”.
12 一切諸菩薩長養十心為聖胎也; Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing T. 245, 826b.
Unless otherwise stated, all translations from Chinese are my own.
13 十心是因諸佛菩薩是緣因緣和合故成聖胎也[…]斷一品無明即能見佛性故成聖
胎也; Renwang huguo bore jing shu 仁王護國般若經疏 (Commentary to the Scripture
on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings; T. 1705) 3.269c.
14 Yanshou’s 延壽 Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Mirror Records of Our School; T. 2016), 14.489a, quot-
ing the Rulaizang jing 如來藏經 (Scripture on the Tathāgatagarbha).

152 Despeux
(Extended Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings to Protect

their Kingdom; T. 246; hereafter Scripture for Humane Kings to Protect their
Kingdom) explains: “If one sees these ten types of consciousness, it signals that
one is able to convert crowds and transcend the Two Vehicles and all the excel-
lent lands. [This is the mark] of a the bodhisattva who has begun to develop
and nurture his mind into a sagely embryo.”15
Well into the Tang, the term continues to be prized in Chinese Buddhist
discourse, especially within Tiantai 天台 and, more markedly, within the Chan
school. The eighth-century Chan master Mazu 馬祖 (709–788), for instance, is
recorded to have uttered the following words: “What the heart/mind produces
is called form. When one realizes that form is empty, production becomes non-
production. Having understood this, one can act according to circumstances,
dressing, eating, developing and maintaining the sagely embryo (shengtai),
and living in harmony with spontaneity.”16 Zongmi 宗密 (780–841), in his text
on the origins of Chan, mentions “feeding the soul and making the sagely
embryo grow.”17 This imagery of fostering an inner embryo becomes even more
common in Song-dynasty Buddhist writings. It also surfaces in Japanese Zen:
after formal kōan training, monks embark on the second stage of training to
“make the sagely embryo grow for a long time” (Jap. shōtai chōyō; Ch. shengtai
changyang 聖胎長養).18
There is no doubt that there is Buddhist imprint on Internal Alchemy with
respect to embryological imagery. Ming and Qing Taoist texts notably draw a
correspondence between the “sagely embryo” and the Buddhist notions of
tathāgatagarbha, gotra (kingdom/clan) and dharmakāya (“body of the
Law”).19 Thus, in Internal Alchemy, the “sagely embryo” appears as an amalgam
15 具此十心而能少分化諸眾生超過二乘一切善地是為菩薩初長養心為聖胎故;
Renwang huguo bore boluomi duo jing T. 246, 1.836b.
16 心所生即名為色, 知色空故生即不生, 若了此意, 乃可隨時著衣喫飯, 長養聖胎;
Jiangxi Mazu Daoyi chanshi yulu 江西馬祖道一禪師語錄 (Master Ma’s Recorded Say-
ings), 2; see the French translation by Catherine Despeux, Les entretiens de Mazu, maître
Chan du viiie siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1980), 42.
17 養神聖胎增長; Chanyuan zhu quan ji duxu 禪源諸全集都序 (Preface to a Collection of
Texts on the Origins of Chan; T. 2015), 402c.
18 This stage, also known as the post-awakening (wuhou 悟後) stage, mandates a period of
seclusion, which can last for years. It is tied not only to the sagely embryo in Internal
Alchemy but also to the Confucian ideal of the recluse (who must eventually emerge from
isolation to assume public office); see Victor Sōgen Hori, Zen Sand : The Book of Capping
Phrases for Kōan Practices (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 27–29.
19 For instance, we find the following lines in Xingming guizhi 7.4: “When the fire regulation
is sufficient, the embryo is completely achieved, the child is born. Buddhists call it the

of early Taoist notions of access to immortality through reversion (fan 反; 返)

to the cosmic matrix, in combination with Buddhist notions concerning the
latent presence of spiritual qualities that are to be developed through a sym-
bolic birth leading to awakening. Yet the writings of Internal Alchemy are
distinct in the increasing corporeality that they attribute to the sagely embryo.
While Song texts are allusive, those of the Ming, Qing, and Republican periods
display progressively accurate physiological analogies. This follows a general
principle in Internal Alchemy by which Buddhist concepts are reinterpreted
by translating them into psychophysiological phenomena and assigning spe-
cific loci within the bodies of adepts. In this respect, we may cite the allegory
of the three chariots from the Lotus Sutra, which, in Taoism, become the three
stages of the rise of qi 氣 and light along the spine from the bottom of the body
to the top.20 In other words, whereas Buddhism has put more emphasis on the
expressly psychological and spiritual dimensions of the adept’s experience,
Taoism, conversely, relies on a wealth of metaphors to relate the sensations
that practitioners perceive as physical or psychophysiological: inner breathing,
inner flows, inner heat, and so on. What is further particular to Taoism is that
the bulk of the translation of the adept’s experiences relies on a grammar of
sexual differentiation.
Nonetheless, this corporeality is also dependent on the way that Taoists in
general, and the individual practitioner in particular, invest their interior.
Different sources describe the somatic landscape in different ways with respect
to physiology, bodily reference points, or perception. However, judging from
the early twentieth-century corpus of materials pertaining to female alchemy,
it appears that this system of translating meditative experiences into the lan-
guage of procreation and gestation is less elaborate when it comes to women
practitioners.
2 The Formation of the Sagely Embryo
The experiential path that Taoist adepts take leads them alternately through
phases of bodily oblivion and heightened corporeal perception, both inside
and outside the body. Each recurrence of the phase in which the boundaries of
‘body of the Law’ [dharmakāya 法身].” Similar analogies are found in Zhao Bichen’s
writings.
20 See Catherine Despeux, “Métaphores et processus d’intégration : la symbolique du corps
dans l’alchimie interne de la Chine des Song (Xe-XIIe siècles),” in Alchimies. Occident-
Orient, Kappler Claire and Suzanne Thiolier-Méjean, eds. (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2006).

154 Despeux
the body are dissolved and spatio-temporal referents suspended is intended to

generate modifications in sensory experiences, physiological mechanisms,
and perceptions of self. In this way, the Taoist practitioner’s pregnancy may
manifest in men as it does in women. The formation of the embryo and its
development are associated at times with an effacement of bodily barriers and
the distinction between internal and external; at others, these are anchored in
specific sensations that are a product of the adept’s gendered body. Yet, even if
the imagery of pregnancy is used for men as well as women, its expressions
remain somewhat different, as explained below.
Although Taoist texts dealing with meditations on the body often recall the
various stages of the embryo’s literal development, they are nonetheless
describing psychic or spiritual processes. In contrast to medical sources, which
also insist on the formation of physiological features or elements, Taoist mate-
rials, generally speaking, stress the formation of the various souls that take
shape within the body and the qualities of qi that they receive. For instance,
the tenth-century “Yanluozi neiguan jing 煙蘿子內觀經” (“Master of the
Smoke Curtain’s Scripture on Inner Contemplation”) describes the process as
follows:
In the first month, the placenta appears; in the second, the embryo; in the
third, the visionary hun souls are complete; in the fourth, the vegetative
po souls are achieved; in the fifth, the five viscera are formed; in the sixth,
the six receptacles are formed; in the seventh, the seven orifices are open;
in the eight, all souls are present; in the ninth, all essences are fixed; and
in the tenth month, the qi is full.21
一月為胞，二月為胎，三月成魂，四月成魄，五月分臟，六月分腑，
七月開竅，八月神具，九月定精，十月氣足。
Other Taoist writings have similar descriptions.22 Thus, a number of texts seek
to establish a precise correspondence between literal gestation and the devel-
opment of the sagely embryo.
21 “Yanluozi neiguan jing in Xiuzhen shishu 修真十書” (Ten Books on the Cultivation of the
Perfection; DZ 263), 18.5b-6a.
22 See the study by Katō Chie 加藤千惠, “Tai no shisō 胎の思想” in Dōkyō no seimeikan to
shintairon 道教の生命観と身体論, Miura Kunio 三浦國雄, et al. eds. (Tokyo:
Yūzankaku shuppansha, 2000), 100–119, where the author chiefly relies on the Yunji qiqian
雲笈七籤 (Seven Lots from the Bookcase of the Clouds; DZ 1032), 29, the “Neiguan jing 內
觀經” (“Scripture on the Inner Contemplation”), the “Xiyue Dou xiansheng xiuzhen zhi-
nan 西嶽竇先生修真指南” (“Indications on the Cultivation of the Perfection by Master

That men could be pregnant, even if only symbolically, was surely not an
obvious notion. Bai Yuchan 白玉蟾 (1194–?), the renowned Taoist master of the
Southern School of alchemy writes: “It is a strange fact, often ridiculed, that a
man can now, inside himself, shelter an embryo.”23 Outside of self-cultivation,
in myths, fiction, or any other form of writing in China, a male pregnancy is
seldom mentioned. However, we may note one anecdote from Journey to the
West (Xiyou ji 西遊記) in which the monk Xuanzang 玄奘 and his companion,
Zhu Bajie 豬八戒 become pregnant after drinking water from the Childbirth
River (Zimu he 子母河) in the Country of Women. They subsequently termi-
nate their pregnancies by drinking water from the Abortive Spring (Luotai
quan 落胎泉).24 But this initiatory novel has been demonstrated to make lib-
eral use of Taoist allegories including some tied to Internal Alchemy, and so it
is very probable that the male pregnancy episode stems from that particular
stratum of sources.25 Surprisingly, accounts of actual male pregnancies are
not entirely absent from Chinese medical materials; Charlotte Furth has nota-
bly found three instances in late Ming texts. Depicted as aberrations, these
cases are perceived as arising as a consequence of sodomy and must be consid-
ered, she explains, as “an enlargement, however risky, of male powers.”26
Yet, despite its exoticism, the notion of male pregnancy is not completely
unthinkable in the sense that, even in the viewpoint of Chinese medicine, gen-
der boundaries are never absolute. Men are never Pure Yang (chunyang 純陽),
nor are women Pure Yin (chunyin 純陰). Just as Yin and Yang fluctuate, so too
gender differentiation depends on the given balance of fluids relative to each
gender at any moment in a dynamic relation.27 This is the reason why some
medicinal recipes would have been efficient in changing the sex of the embryo
during the first months of life in utero.28 The male Taoist who practises embry-
Dou of the Southern Peak”) from Xiuzhen shishu, 21. 3b, and the Taishang dongxuan ling-
bao wuliang duren shangpin miaojing zhu 太上洞玄靈寶無量度人上品妙經註 (Com-
mentary on the Book of Salvation; DZ 91).
23 白玉蟾云怪事教人笑幾回男兒今也會懷胎; from Xingming guizhi 3.37a.
24 Xiyouji 43.472.
25 See Catherine Despeux, “Les lectures alchimiques du Hsi-yu-chi,” in Religion und Philoso-
phie in Ostasien. Festschrift für Hans Steininger zum 65 Geburtstag, Gert Naundorf, Karl-
Heinz Pohl, and Hans-Hermann Schmidt, eds. (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann,
1985), 61–72.
26 Charlotte Furth, “Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Bound-
aries in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China,” Late Imperial China 9.2 (1988): 13.
27 Ibid., 4.
28 See Chen Ming, “Zhuan nü wei nan, ‘Turning Female to Male’: an Indian Influence on
Chinese Gynaecology?”. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity 2 (2005).

156 Despeux
ological methods and experiences a figurative yet perceived pregnancy does

not aim to become feminine. Quite to the contrary, he aims to transcend femi-
ninity in pursuit of his final goal, to generate in situ a Pure Yang body. However,
to succeed, he must go through a symbolic maternity that will draw on the
intrinsic female components of the male gender.
According to sources, the mechanisms of inner procreation are imagined
differently. There is no implied consistency in the complex of sensations and
perceptions associated with it, or in the bodily transformations, internal or
external, that the adept undergoes. Each tradition and each master of Internal
Alchemy used embryological imagery differently in translating and transmit-
ting the process of their own spiritual progress; some referred to biological
characteristics or reproductive functions more than others. In general, procre-
ation is explained as the union or copulation of two “physiological” or psychic
elements: the Yin and the Yang contained within the body, the heart’s Fire and
the kidneys’ Water, the liver’s Wood and lungs’ Metal, the visionary hun soul
and the vegetative po soul, or shen 神 (spirit) and qi (breath). In more alchemi-
cally inclined sources, Qian 乾 (the trigram of the Pure Yang) and Kun 坤
(trigram of the Pure Yin), or even the dragon and the tiger, are the binary pairs
of choice. The meaning of a same word or concept will vary in accordance with
the tradition or even the particular phases in which alchemical elements unite
and invert.
For Zhang Boduan, a representative of the Southern School of alchemy,
symbolic procreation occurs at the cosmological level on the basis of correla-
tive correspondence between the universe and the human body:
The nature of Wood is to be attracted by Metal and to be compliant and

righteous.
The feelings of Metal are inclined to love Wood and to be gentle and
humane.
They chew and they swallow each other, and yet they love each other.29
It is the beginning of the realisation that men are pregnant.30
木性愛金順義，金情戀木慈仁。
相吞相啖卻相親，始覺男兒有孕。
The line “men are pregnant” (nan’er you yun 男兒有孕) is alluded to in a poem
by Ma Yu 馬鈺 (1123–1184; also known as Ma Danyang 馬丹陽), one the Seven
29 Compare to Cantong qi 64, l. 5–10 ; see Pregadio 2001, 106.

30 Wuzhen pian DZ 142, 5. 9b.

Perfected (qizhen 七真), founder the Quanzhen 全真 (Complete Perfection)

School, and patriarch of the Northern School of alchemy. He writes in his
Danyang shenguang can 丹陽神光燦 (Radiating Brilliance of the Spirit; DZ
1150):
Who can believe in a man’s pregnancy? It is inconceivable!

However the qi becomes knotted, the spirit concentrates, and the new
destiny settles.
Through production of the embryo-immortal, one transcends the Jiuyi
Mountains.31
誰信男兒有孕，不可思議。
氣結神凝，命住。
產胎仙，超越九嶷。
Chen Pu 陳朴 (late eleventh century), another master of the Southern School,

explicitly compares this symbolic procreation to a literal procreation that
occurs through the merging of the father’s semen and the mother’s blood. Here
too, the figurative process is expressed in biological terms, relying, like in
Zhang Boduan’s discourse, on the notion of the body as a cosmos. Through
contemplative exercises, adepts are enjoined to generate a pearl of dew or a
small orb of light – an image that evokes the embryo as it is described in clas-
sical Chinese medicine, namely, as a little pellet of fat:32
With the first revolution, one obtains a precious pearl. The Perfected
Water of the Heavenly One is stored in the gallbladder. Yin and Yang
unite, descend, and form the Elixir. It appears like a pearl of dew.
Mountains, rivers and the entire universe pierce the magical body. For
the ordinary man, the father’s semen and the mother’s blood are
exchanged, and through their union, a new life is formed; for the alche-
mist, thanks to the exchange of the heart’s Fire and the Water from the
kidneys, the cinnabar descends and the qi [breaths] are united. When the
cinnabar descends, the spirit treads beyond the cosmos, Yin and Yang are
in Great Harmony to the extent that one forgets the body. Heaven, Earth,
mountains, rivers, the ten thousand things of the six poles are inside my
31 Danyang shenguang can 丹陽神光燦 (Radiant Brilliance of the Spirit; DZ 1150), 10b.
32 See Huainanzi 淮南子 7.99; “Jinshen xun 精神訓” (“Instructions on Essence and Spirit”):
一月而膏，二月而胅，三月而胎.”

158 Despeux
body; my body is beyond Heaven and Earth. Only a spot of light is per-
ceivable, like the sun – descending cinnabar.33
一轉之功似寶珠。天一真水藏之於膽，陰陽和合降而為丹，狀如露珠
一顆。山河宇宙透靈軀。人因父精母血交媾而生身形交也。丹因心火
腎水交媾而丹降氣交也。丹降之時神遊方外，陰陽太和至忘其形，天
地山河六合萬物在我身之內，我身在天地之外。只覺此中一點光明如
日乃丹降也。
Bai Yuchan of the Southern School of alchemy remains the only master to
explicitly draw the equivalence between the generation of an embryo from the
union of the father’s essence (or “semen”; jing 精) and the mother’s blood dur-
ing intercourse and the allegorical procreation of the sagely embryo. He writes:
“[The sagely embryo is formed] by the union, in one’s body, of the marvellous
spouses that are one’s own semen and one’s blood.”34 Effectively, practitioners
join the male and female components of their own beings, components that
are here identified with physiological substances representative of each sex.
Zhang Boduan also expresses this same idea: “In black there is white; it is the
mother of cinnabar. Inside the masculine, the feminine is concealed; it is the
sagely embryo.”35
For Bai Yuchan, semen and blood are particularly prized for their symbolic
potential. Yet, in Internal Alchemy, these substances are involved in a very real
form of asceticism. In aspiring to “Taoist pregnancy,” women must retain their
menstrual blood just as men have to refrain from ejaculating. In the latter case,
it is the “return” of the semen inside the body that permits symbolic pregnancy.
Real, actual semen that is able to produce “external” life carries with it an
inceptive power that may also operate on the “inside.” Through embryological
practices, the male adept renounces “external” procreation, which, in the case
that it would yield a son, would guarantee continuity through integration into
the ancestral lineage. He forfeits the possibility of becoming a real father to
become a symbolic father and a symbolic mother, as well. It should be noted,
however, that the prolonged and wilful retention of seminal fluids results in a
state that is different from pre-pubescence in men (which can be defined as a
complete absence of the production of semen). Semen is effectively produced,
33 Chen xiansheng neidan jue 陳先生內丹訣 (Master Chen’s Instructions on the Internal
Elixir: DZ 1096), 1a.
34 自家精血自交媾，身裡夫妻是妙哉; Xingming guizhi, 3.37a.
35 黑中有白為丹母，雄裡藏雌是聖胎; Wuzhen pian DZ 1042, 4.12a.

but it is used inwardly. Medical literature stipulates that the qi potential of an

individual does not reach plenitude before the time of puberty, from the age of
sixteen for boys and fourteen for girls.36 It is only after this moment then that
the interiorisation can occur: once their qi potential is full, practitioners must
preserve it inside themselves without letting even an iota flow out. Each author
writing on the subject explains in his own way the generation of an embryo, a
spiritually perfected duplicate of oneself within oneself, pushing the literal-
ness of the physiological analogy more or less forcefully.
3 Symbolic Pregnancy in Men
In men, the signs of symbolic pregnancy are essentially manifested on the

inside and are not visible, with the one exception – the retraction of genitals.
The internal signs of this type of pregnancy are symbolically expressed, or
course, but they also belong to the realm of changes that are actually perceived.
If the allegory of pregnancy is efficient, it is because the male adept feels a mass
developing in his abdomen, moving and growing, thus rendering his experi-
ence similar to, he imagines, that of a woman nurturing an embryo in her
uterus. This mass that he carries and senses has several names depending on
its function and on the source: “cinnabar” (dan 丹), “great medicine” (dayao 大
藥), or “mysterious pearl” (xuanzhu玄珠). According to a Zhang Boduan poem:
At the centre, in its correct place,

the mysterious pearl is produced.
Fruits are born on branches,
and ripen at the end of the season.
This is like the embryo,
growing in the matrix.37
中央正位產玄珠。
果生枝上終期熟。
子在胞中豈有殊。
36 See, for instance, Huangdi neijing Suwen 黃帝內經素問 (Inner Classic of the Yellow
Emperor: Basic Questions), 1.4b.
37 Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian sanzhu DZ 1042, 1.15b.

160 Despeux
For Longmei Zi 龍眉子 (fl. early thirteenth century), the Dragon Eyebrow
Master, “this ‘thing’ has the shape of a sparrow’s egg; it is round and luminous
like a pearl.”38
For men, the sensation of carrying something inside can be localised in or
associated with different parts of the body or none at all, precisely because the
body and its boundaries have dissolved in the matrix of the Dao. When somati-
cally situated, it is mainly perceived in the Cinnabar Field of the lower
abdomen, in an area that corresponds to the uterus in women. The Taixi jing
zhu 胎息經注 (Commentary to the Scripture on Embryonic Breathing; DZ 130)
asserts that the embryo is formed three inches below the navel, where “soul”
(or “spirit”; shen) and qi unite.39
Other sources situate the embryo less precisely, placing it vaguely in the
“mysterious orifice” (xuanqiao 玄竅) or, according to the Xingming guizhi 性命
圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature), in the
“ancestral orifice” (zuqiao 祖竅), or even in the “mysterious female” (xuanpin
玄牝). It is defined as the place where one is no longer prisoner of the four
constitutive elements of the body (sida 四大; Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind).40
This orifice cannot be perceived; it is neither material nor immaterial, neither
outside nor inside – it cannot be said if it even exists (see Fig. 4.1).41 Zhang
Boduan notes that the cultivation of the Golden Elixir (or “gold cinnabar”;
jindan 金丹) resides in the mysterious female. In his preface to the “Jindan
sibai zi 金丹四百字” (“Four Hundred Characters on the Gold Cinnabar”), he
writes:
The orifice of the mysterious female is where one picks and obtains [the
Golden Elixir], where unity and exchange take place, where one cooks
and refines, where one washes, where one heats and nourishes. It is
where the embryo is formed, where the release of the embryo and the
divine transformations occur; everything is taking place there. Any prac-
38 猶如雀卵團團大間似隋珠顆顆圓; Jinye huandan yinzheng tu 金液還丹印證圖

(Illustrations Attesting to the Return of Liquified Gold to the Cinnabar Field; DZ 151), 13b.
39 Taixi jing zhu DZ 130, 1a; or Yunji qiqian, 60.27a.
40 Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind are the four elements forming body and matter in general,
according to Buddhism.
41 Xiuzhen biannan 修真辯難 (Debates on the Difficulties of the Cultivation of Perfection),
in Daoshu shier zhong 道書十二種 (Twelve Kinds of Books on the Way), by Liu Yinming
劉一明 (1734–1821), 330.

Figure 4.1 The “Anshen zuqiao tu 安神祖竅圖” (“Illustration of the Pacification

of the Spirit at the Ancestral Orifice”) from the Xingming guizhi 性命
圭旨 (Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).
titioner of alchemy that recognises this orifice will achieve the Way of the
Golden Elixir.42
玄牝一竅而採取在此，交媾在此，烹煉在此，沐浴在此，溫養在此，
結胎在此。至於脫胎神化，無不在此。修煉之士誠能知此一竅則金丹
之道盡矣。
42 Xingming guizhi, 2.22a.

162 Despeux
It is readily apparent that for Zhang Boduan the site of the described transmu-
tations has nothing to do with the ordinary body; his interpretation is closer to
the Buddhist notion of the tathāgatagarbha. Indeed, he emphasises the loss of
sensation of one’s body in the attainment of unity, the divine cosmic matrix.
The body becomes an infinite, all-encompassing space of constant equanim-
ity. It is no longer the confined site of symbolic pregnancy.
The few examples above reveal the heterogeneity of imageries and contex-
tualisations surrounding embryological practices that evoke the body and its
functions to varying degrees. As Francesca Bray reminds us, “the phenomeno-
logical body is differently constituted and organized in different societies, and
even within the same society, it will be understood and experienced differently
by different people.”43
Taoist practitioners who generate an embryo are double, becoming both
womb and embryo at the same time. The graph tai 胎 reflects this ambiguity
– or it is more likely the source of it – since it is used to denote both the embryo
or the womb. The following passage from a Song text elaborates:
‘Tai’ is the palace where one receives life. The anterior qi of respiration is
contained in the primordial ocean, 1 cun and 3 fen [1.3 inches] below the
mother’s navel, in a place that is called the Cinnabar Field. She receives
the Perfected Semen, which produces a form that contains the qi of
Heaven and Earth. In the first month, the embryo is like a pearl; in the
second, like a drop of dew; in the third, like the pip of a prune or peach.
At this point, one may speak of the simplicity of pure and harmonious qi.
The child is in its mother’s womb; when the mother breathes out, it
breathes out. When she breathes in, it breathes in. After ten months, the
anterior qi of [the embryo] is complete; the six types of emotions mani-
fest and provoke birth in the external [world]. How can one preserve
inner respiration without turning one’s gaze to the primordial beginning?
Thus, after birth follows death. The sage says: “I do not follow the Three
Worms and the Six Emotions. I breathe constantly in the Cinnabar Field
and safeguard it without regressing.”44
43 See Francesca Bray, Technology and Gender. Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1997), 297.
44 “Yuyun Zhang Guolao taixi jue 玉雲張果老胎息訣” (“Formulas on Embryonic Breath-
ing by Zhang Guolao”) in Zhuzhen shengtai shenyong jue 諸真聖胎神用訣 (Instructions
of the Perfected on the Divinely Efficacious Sagely Embryo; DZ 826), 8b.

夫胎者，受生之宮也。息炁納於元海，在母臍下一寸三分名曰丹田。
受真精成形納天地之炁。一月如珠，二月如露，三月如桃李。此名淳
和之炁朴也。子在母胞胎之中，母呼則呼，母吸則吸，至於十月炁足
而生六情轉於外，豈於返視元初不守內息故有生死。故聖人云我不縱
三尸六情常息於丹田守而無退。
The double meaning of tai also extends to the term taixi 胎息, generally trans-
lated as “embryonic breathing” or “embryonic respiration.” This notion refers
to a manner of respiration that does not involve the nose or the mouth but
rather the pores of the skin. The adept is therefore said to “breathe like an
embryo.” At the same time, this expression may also denote the sensation
experienced by adepts of something expanding and contracting, or “breath-
ing” somewhere inside their bodies. However, if the term tai is read as “womb”
or “matrix,” then the expression taixi takes on the sense of “womb respiration.”
In this case, the sensation of expansion and contraction attributed to the
breathing embryo is firmly situated in the lower abdomen, where the womb is
located. The ambiguity between different readings of the character tai surfaces
in texts like the Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing 高上玉皇胎息經 (Scripture on
Embryonic Breathing of the Jade Emperor On High; DZ 14). The title is typically
translated as Scripture on Embryonic Breathing, but it can also be rendered
Scripture on the Breathing of the Embryo or Scripture on the Respiration of the
Womb, depending on how the expression taixi is understood:
The Venerable Heavenly Jade Emperor said: “The embryo is produced

from stored qi and the qi breathes inside the existing embryo. When the
qi enters the body, it is called birth. When spirit leaves the body, it is called
death. It is therefore spirit and qi that can bestow longevity. For this rea-
son one should preserve emptiness in order to nourish the spirit and qi.
When the spirit circulates, qi circulates; when the spirit is fixed, breath is
fixed. If one wishes to live long, spirit and qi should retain one another;
then, all mental activity stops, and they [spirit and breath] neither come
nor go, neither enter nor depart. They are constantly just there of them-
selves. To diligently put this into practice is the true path.”45
玉皇天尊日：胎從伏氣中結，氣從有胎中息。氣入身來謂之生，神去
離形謂之死。知神氣可以長生，故守虛無以養神氣。神行即氣行，神
住即氣住。若欲長生，神氣相注。心不動念，無來無去，不出不入，
自然常在。勤而行之，是真道路。
45 Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing, 1a.

164 Despeux
In his commentary to the Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing, the Elder of Illusory
Perfection, Huanzhen xiansheng 幻真先生 (fl. eighth or ninth century), clari-
fies the meaning of the opening lines from the previous passage:
Three inches below the navel is the ocean of qi. It is also called the lower
Cinnabar Field or the mysterious female […]. In fact, the “mysterious” is
water and the “female” is the mother. People of this world mutually stim-
ulate themselves by means of their Yin qi and Yang qi, which are knotted
in the water and in the mother. After three months, the embryo is [fully]
“knotted.” After ten months, its bodily form is complete and it can be
born. Those who cultivate the Way should constantly store their qi below
their navel and guard their spirit inside their body. In this way, spirit and
qi join one another and generate the mysterious embryo. When it is com-
pletely “knotted,” then one has [effectively] generated a body. This is the
inner cinnabar, the Way of immortality. […] Spirit is the child of qi, and qi
is the mother of spirit. Spirit and qi are inseparable; they follow each
other like form and shadow. When the mother, [meaning] the matrix, is
formed, then the spirit, [which is] the child, will breathe on its own, and
the primordial qi will not disperse.46
臍下三寸為氣海，亦為下丹田，亦為玄牝。[…] 蓋玄者水也，牝者母
也。世人以陰陽炁相感，結於水母，三月胎結，十月形體具而能生
人。修道者，常伏其炁於臍下，守其神於身內，神炁相合而生玄胎，
玄胎既結，乃自生身，即為內丹，不死之道也。[…] 神為炁子，炁為
神母，神炁相逐，如形與影。胎母既結，即神子自息，即元炁不散。
By the Song dynasty, the ambiguity between different understandings of

embryonic breathing begins to subside as distinct readings emerge in Taoist
literature:
The qi of the One is embryonic breathing. The womb is the palace that
contains the soul. Breathing is the departure point of the embryo’s trans-
formation. Breathing produces breathing, and the spirit is the embryo;
without breathing, the embryo cannot be accomplished; without spirit,
46 Taixi jing zhu 胎息經註 (Commentary to the Scripture on Embryonic Breathing), in Yunji
qiqian DZ 1032, 60.1a.

breathing has no ruler. Thus, spirit is the ruler of breath. Breath is the root
of the embryo. The womb is where it resides.47
一氣者胎息也。胎乃藏神之府，息乃胎化元。因息生息，因神為胎。
胎不得息則不成，息不得神則無主。神乃息之主，息乃胎之根，胎乃
息之宅。
The distinction between embryonic breathing as something experienced by

adepts in the entirety of their body, or, alternatively, as a sensation that is felt
in the lower abdomen alone, becomes even more pronounced in later texts
such as those of the Wu Liu 伍柳 School.48 Wu Chongxu’s 伍冲虛 (1574–1644)
Treatise of Direct Indications (Zhilun 直論) devotes an entire section to the
topic of taixi, in which the concept is unequivocally taken to mean the breath-
ing of the embryo inside its mother’s womb alone.49 In all of these meditation
exercises, the spirit (shen) constitutes the adept’s male component, that which
becomes the Yang Spirit (yangshen 陽神). Qi is the feminine component, relat-
ing to spirit not as a wife to a husband but rather as mother to a son. During the
meditative process, the adept transforms simultaneously into an embryo
inside its mother’s body and a mother carrying a child (see Fig. 4.2).
Via embryonic breathing in the great womb of the Dao, the male adept is
re-acquainted with his feminine qualities – especially maternal femininity.
Experiencing a fusion of self into emptiness, he no longer identifies with his
carnal body, which dissolves into the great matrix. It is precisely this access to
emptiness that allows the formation of the embryo in his male body. In medi-
tation, he finds the possibility of becoming a matrix, conceiving the sagely
embryo and immediately identifying with it when he himself breathes like a
embryo. The male adept perceives himself as his actual self and as an embryo.
This process of becoming an embryo is not understood as a regression
in Internal Alchemy but rather as a creation. This important distinction is
47 Taishang jiuyao xinyin miaojing 太上九要心印妙經 (Marvellous Scripture of the Nine

Essentials Heart Seal of the Most High; DZ 225), 7a–b. This text is attributed to Zhang Guo
張果 of the eighth century, but it is certainly a later apocryphal text.
48 The Wu Liu School is tradionally associated with the Longmen 龍門 lineage of Taoist
alchemy founded by Qiu Chuji 丘處機 (1148–1227), an offshoot of the Complete Perfec-
tion (Quanzhen 全真) School. Its teachings propound the Joint Cultivation of Nature and
Life (xingming shuangxiu 性命雙修). The Wu Liu School incorporated numerous notions
from Chan Buddhism, insisting on seated meditation and stillness of thought as crucial
self-purification processes in the practice of Internal Alchemy.
49 Zhilun in Wu Liu xianzong quanji 伍柳仙宗全集 (Complete Summa of the Immortality
School’s Writings by Wu [Chongxu] and Liu [Huayang]), 9.213.

166 Despeux
Figure 4.2 “Ying’er xianxing tu 嬰兒現形圖” (“Illustration of the

Formation of the Infant”) from the Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨
(Principles of the Jade Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).
highlighted in the following passage from the Principles of Joint Cultivation of

Nature and Life:
In the double cultivation of innate nature (xing) and life force (ming),
one must open the chaos anew, form a matrix once more in order to
transform one’s nature and life and create them again. As innate nature
and life force are created again, they are maintained in the nature and life
of the father and the mother; this way, a small part of the nature and life
is generated in the mother’s womb. They are my own innate nature and
my own life force. Being my own innate nature and life force, these natu-
rally make my self return to nothingness, and this self, then, becomes

great emptiness. As the self becomes great emptiness, Qian and Kun
spontaneously appear within it; these are my true nature and life force.50
若雙修性命者，必須重開混沌，再立胞胎而自造化此性命也。夫性命
既造化矣則於父母性命中而自然養出一點性命，如在母腹中而為我之
性命也。夫既為我之性命矣則又自然於我之性命中而還我於無而為我
之太虛也。夫既為我之太虛矣則又自然於我之虛空在造化乾坤而為我
之真性命也。
Through symbolic pregnancy, the male practitioner appropriates his own des-
tiny, distancing himself from what he has inherited from his father and mother
to recover his “true nature,” the zhen 真, the authentic, the perfect.
In most of sources, the overlap of the symbolic embryo’s development with
that of the real embryo remains unaddressed beyond what we have considered
in the sources above. However, Stephen Eskildsen has identified a Song-period
text, Chen xiansheng neidan jue 陳先生內丹訣 (Master Chen’s Formulas on the
Internal Elixir ; DZ 1096) that chronicles how the sagely embryo progressively
becomes the adept’s doppelganger, matching him or her in external appear-
ance, but also internally, as an anatomically and psychically exact replica.51
Master Chen writes:
When the numinous rotation occurs in the sagely embryo, the face of the
immortal is produced. The commentary says: “At the third revolution [of
the Elixir], Yang is nourished and the visionary hun soul arises in the
sagely embryo. At the fourth revolution, Yin is nourished and the po soul
arises. When the Elixir reaches this point, the hun and the po are com-
plete; the embryo’s essence and spirit of the Five Peaks [its inner
landscape] match with the appearance of one’s inner body. The egress of
the spirit is [the emergence of] one’s true self.”52
聖胎靈運產仙顏，三轉養陽，聖胎生魂，四轉養陰，聖胎生魄。丹至
四轉之內，聖胎魂魄皆成就，其五嶽精神，與我內形貌一同，乃出神
真身。
50 Xingming guizhi, 3.41b.

51 Chen xiansheng neidan jue DZ 1096, 14–15; cited in Stephen Eskildsen, “Neidan Methods
for Opening the Gate of Heaven,” in Internal Alchemy, Livia Kohn and Robin Wang, eds.
(Magdalena: Three Pines press, 2009), 92.
52 Chen xiansheng neidan jue DZ 1096, 11a.

168 Despeux
As should be clear by now, the embryological imagery that flourished around

symbolic reproduction and gestation vastly differs from text to text. Some
authors insist on registers linked to motherhood, or on identifying with the
sagely embryo, while others emphasise the similarity with the biological pro-
cess of gestation, and still others point to generation of a replica of oneself.
Zhao Bichen, a late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Taoist, advocates
a strong identity between the embryo and the self. He accomplishes this by
drawing an elaborate parallel between a six-stage development of the sperma-
tozoon and that of the symbolic embryo (see Fig. 4.3). First, a “bubble of qi”
(qipao 炁泡) arises amidst bodily secretions (jinye 津液); then, the red blood
cells and white blood cells appear in the qi bubble. A blood relic (xue shelizi 血
舍利子) is formed in the “true cavity of qi” (zhen qixue 真炁穴). The Yin essence
appears therein, and the Yang essence appears in the testes (gaowan gong 睾丸
宮). Finally, the spermatozoon (jingnang 精囊) is formed. As for the embryo, its
constituent true qi is generated in the spine. After the subsequent generation
of the qi of Anterior Heaven occurs, it coalesces into the śarira relic, the pearl
of Śākyamuni, also referred to as an external golden light; when the pearl is
fully formed, an inner golden light manifests within the adept. Both lights
unite and generate “the embryo of the Way” (daotai 道胎).53 In a final step, the
embryo of the Way becomes one’s own body.54 Decidedly, the maternal theme
is completely absent from this description of the formation of the sagely
embryo. Yet Zhao Bichen’s text is notable in that it attempts to integrate what
at the time were the newest biological notions, while also accentuating the
“spiritual” dimension of the meditation (the union of two lights) instead of its
physiological dimension.
The spiritualisation of reproductive processes is even more pronounced in
Wu Chongxu’s Treatise of Direct Indications, where the embryo’s development
is synchronised with the successive attainment of the four dhyāna or “concen-
trations” (chan 禪) that the Buddha experienced before his awakening. During
the first stage, consciousness becomes fixed; in the second, breath becomes
fixed; in the third, the pulse becomes fixed; and in the fourth, the adept enters
great spiritual absorption. In its explanation of the process, the text adds that,
during the fourth and fifth months of gestation, appetite diminishes. Between
the sixth and seventh months, the need to sleep diminishes. In the ninth
month, external breathing ceases, as does the circulation of inner breath
53 The expression “embryo of the Way” is a Taoist transposition of the notion of tathāga
tagarbha, literally the “embryo of Tathāgata,” that is, the embryo of the Buddha.
54 Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated Instructions on the Formulas and
Methods of Nature and Life), 6.15a.

through the meridians.55 As a result, the adept is endowed with the six super-
natural powers (shentong 神通) of Buddhism.56
Figure 4.3
Zhao Bichen’s 趙避塵 (1860-1936) “embryology” from his
Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明指 (Illuminated
Instructions on the Formulas and Methods of Nature and
Life).
4 Symbolic Pregnancy in Women
What about women? How does the Taoist understanding of symbolic preg-
nancy translate for practitioners that have an anatomic capacity for actual
55 Wu Liu xianzong quanji, 293.

56 These are: 1) supernatural conscience (loujin tong 漏盡通; āsravakṣayajñāna); 2) divine
vision (tianyan tong 天眼通; divyacakṣus); 3) divine ear (tian’ertong 天耳通; divyārotra);
4) knowledge of the thoughts of others (taxin tong 他心通; paracittajñāna); 5) knowl-
edge of one’s previous existences (sumingtong 宿命通; pūrvanivāsānusmṛtijñāna);
6) ubiquity (shentong 神通; ṛddhisākṣātkrîyā).

170 Despeux
gestation? In female alchemy, physiological functions that are particular to the

female body are suspended, most notably menses. The first stage of practice is
known as “beheading the red dragon” (zhan chilong 斬赤龍), an expression
that refers to the cessation of the menstrual cycle. This corresponds to semen
retention in methods designed for men.57 Other traditions, in India for
instance, also insist on the importance of halting menses in women: the power
of a yogi’s tantric partner increases as she retains her monthly discharge.58
Such prescriptions are most likely a consequence of the menstrual cycle
being considered a defining feature of femininity. In classical Chinese medi-
cine, as early as the Han dynasty, the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內徑 (Inner Classic
of the Yellow Emperor) underlines how menstrual blood is an essential iden-
tity marker for women.59 This also applies to Taoism, as exemplified by Laozi
zhongjing 老子中經 (Laozi’s Central Scripture; DZ 1168). The third- or fourth-
century meditation treatise equates the menses with semen: “In the lower
Cinnabar Field […] men store their seminal essence and women their monthly
water. [The Cinnabar Field] regulates the begetting of newborn children, it is
the door of harmonising Yin and Yang.”60 Under the Song, menses became
increasingly synonymous with femininity.61 In other cultural and historical
contexts, however, menses have not always been closely identified with wom-
anhood: as late as the eighteenth century, Western medical sources compared
the blood flow from haemorrhoids in men to women’s menses.62
Although the image of “forming an embryo” (jie tai) is still used women’s
practices, the analogy with biological reproductive processes is rarely evoked,
as is the commingling of Yin and Yang energies inside their bodies. On occa-
sion, it is asserted that men must create the “pearl” within themselves while it
is already present in women – who must only transform and develop it – but
57 On this subject, see Despeux 1990, 243–268; Despeux and Kohn, 2003, 223 sq.; and Elena
Valussi, “Blood, Tigers, Dragons : The Physiology of Transcendence for Women,” 2009,
46–85.
58 Richard Darmon, “Vajrolî mudrâ. La rétention séminale chez les yogis vâmâcâri,” in Véro-
nique Bouillier et Gilles Tarabout, eds., Images du corps dans le monde hindou (Paris: édi-
tions CNRS, 2002), 218.
59 Huangdi neijing Suwen, 1.4–5.
60 丹田者，人之根也，精神之所藏也，五黑之元也，赤子之府，男子以藏精，
女子以藏月水。主生子，合和陰陽之門戶也; Laozi zhongjing DZ 1168, 1.13a.
61 Furth, A Flourishing Yin. Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1999), 58.
62 Barbara Duden, The Woman beneath the Skin. A Doctor’s Patients in Eighteenth-Century
Germany (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 116–117.

there is little more to suggest procreation.63 Furthermore, texts on female

alchemy generally do not refer to the perception of a hard mass in the lower
abdomen. Instead, the womb, navel, and breasts are the focal points in the
practice. According to Nügong zhengfa 女功正法 (The Correct Processes of the
Skill [of Alchemy] in Women):
Men rely on the lower, middle, and upper Cinnabar Fields as [alchemi-
cal] cauldrons, yet women take their uterus, the inside of the navel, and
their milk rivulets as cauldrons. The uterus is 1.3 inches below the lower
Cinnabar Field and 2.8 inches below the navel. It is above the pass and
below the breasts.64
男以下田，中田，上田為鼎，女以子宮，臍內，乳溪為鼎。子宮離下
丹田一寸三分，離臍二寸八分。又在上關乳下。
There are a number of surviving testimonies from women who have succeeded
in “beheading the red dragon.”65 Similar accounts exist from Christian nuns
whose menses have stopped as a result of their ascetic lifestyle.66
In medical treatises, the absence of menstrual flow is considered normal
during pregnancy and nursing, but also before the age of fourteen and after
forty-nine, the putative age for the onset of menopause. Although considered
pathological in women of childbearing age from a medical standpoint, in
female alchemy, the cessation of the menses is desired, constituting tangible
evidence of progress on the path towards immortality. Highlighting its positive
character, sources define this “absence” in contradistinction to menopause:
while the latter consists of an exhaustion or drying up of “bloody secretions”
(xueye 血液), “beheading the red dragon” is a return to a subtler form of ener-
gy.67 Just as men practising seminal retention remain fecund, women that have
stopped their cycle are still fertile. Both have merely given up the external signs
of fecundity for the benefit of inner realisation.
In Chinese medical literature, menstrual blood derives from the same con-
stituent source as maternal milk: “Blood is the vital qi produced by the digestive
63 Despeux 1990, 251; Despeux and Kohn 2003, 227.

64 Nügong zhengfa 女功正法, 5.93.
65 Ho Wan-li, “Daoist Nuns in Taiwan. A Case Study of the Daode yuan,” Journal of Daoist
Studies 2 (2009).
66 Duden 1991; early modern European medical sources relate cases in which otherwise
healthy women would not exhibit monthly discharge, sometimes for years.
67 Despeux 1990, 243–259.

172 Despeux
process that harmonises the system of the five viscera (wuzang 五臟) and
infuses the system of the six receptacles (liufu 六腑). In males, it makes [semi-
nal] essence and in females, it makes breast milk and descends to create the
Blood Sea.”68 However, by successfully “beheading the red dragon,” the reverse
phenomenon takes effect: the menstrual blood retained within the body trans-
forms into milk to enrich it. As the monthly discharge diminishes in quantity,
it turns paler in colour. Once interrupted, it transforms into a white substance,
“the milk of jade” (yuru 玉乳), which nourishes the body from the inside.
Consequently, women’s breasts are also of primordial importance in the prac-
tice of Internal Alchemy. As storehouses of energy, they correspond to the
lower abdomen in men:
The “cave of qi” is in the centre [of the chest], 1.3 inches from [each] nip-
ple. It is not the two breasts. In men, vital strength is found in the lower
Cinnabar Field. This is why the lower Cinnabar Field is their cave of qi. In
women, the vital strength is in the breasts, which is why breasts are con-
sidered their cave of qi. Having reached its peak, Yang transforms to Yin.
In the cave of qi, it transforms into Yin blood, which then flows out [once
a month]. This is why, in order to behead the red dragon, one must start
from the point where Yin is born and practise with assiduity.69
炁穴即血元也，即乳房也.在中一寸三分非兩乳也。男命在丹田故以下
田為炁血，女命在乳房故以乳房為炁血。陽極變陰，從炁血化陰血而
流形於外。故斬赤龍須從陰生之處用功久久行持形自隱矣。
How is one to frame Taoist amenorrhea, the premature cessation of the men-
strual cycle? One way of looking at it would be as a rejuvenation of sorts, a
return to pre-pubescence. Several hagiographies stress how immortals, male or
female, have the appearance of youths. Some alchemical texts even state that
the sublimated bodies of adepts are those of lads or maidens.70 But despite this
68 血者水穀之精氣也。和調五臟，洒陳六腑。在男子，則化為精，在婦人，上
為乳汁，下為血海; Jiaozhu furen liangfang 校註婦人良方 (Annotated Excellent Pre-
scriptions for Women); cited in Furth 199, 144.
69 Nü jindan 女金丹 (The Golden Elixir for Women), 2. 21a.
70 See Chongyang zhenren jinguan yusuo jue 重陽真人金關玉鎖訣 (The Perfected Chong-
yang’s Instructions on the Jade Lock and the Golden Gate; DZ 1156), 20a : “ […] during the
realisation and the achievement of the fruit, men subliminate their bodies into that of
young boy, and women into that of a young girl” 功成果滿，男子鍊形如童男，女子
鍊形如童女; and also Nüdan hebian, 21: “Once the red dragon is decapitated, her body
becomes the body of a youth” 女子赤龍斬則變為童體; see Despeux 1990, 287.

youthful appearance, women who “retain” their menses are still fertile, just as
men who retain their semen. Female practitioners indeed insist on distin-
guishing between the stoppage of menses during pregnancy and the liberating
physiological effects of “beheading the red dragon.” For them, the latter is tan-
tamount to a somatic-spiritual purification that brings them on a plane
comparable to that of men.
In fact, rather than evoking the model of a prepubescent girl, most sources
of female alchemy underscore the masculinisation of women. In the first step
of the alchemical process, men look for femininity through a symbolic preg-
nancy. Conversely, women look for masculinity by stopping their menstrual
cycle and reducing the size of their breasts until their chest is like that of a
man: “When the red dragon is decapitated, breasts retract like a man’s and the
True Yin breath has been transformed into True Yang.”71 In this way, the
alchemical metamorphosis of women’s bodies not only occasions a return to a
prepubescent purity but it also engenders morphological transformations that
result in a masculinised body. It is through these transfigurations that women’s
bodies, essentially Yin, can become Yang. As Liu Yiming 劉一明 (1734–1821)
elaborates, in the first stage of practice, men must refine their qi (Yang), while
women are enjoined to refine their bodies (Yin):
Question: “What is the difference between a man and a woman at the

beginning of the [alchemical] work?” Answer: “At the beginning, for men,
practising the way consists of sublimating the qi. For women, it consists
of sublimating the form [the body]. Sublimating the qi is to deeply con-
ceal it in oneself; when the practice is complete, the breath returns [to its
root]; when the qi returns [to its root], emptiness is at its pinnacle and
quietude is at its zenith. The return to the root restores life. The white
tiger [seminal emission] is tamed. Sublimating the form refers to con-
cealing this form; when the practice is complete, the form disappears.
When the form disappears, the four constitutive elements of matter
according to Buddhism [Water, Earth, Fire, Wind] enter emptiness,
reducing the body and limbs to shreds. The red vessel [of menses] is thus
severed. When the white tiger is tamed in men, they regain the appear-
ance of a young man. The seminal essence of the Posterior Heaven flows
no longer. Thereafter, generating the Elixir and extending life become
71 Nannü yitong bian 男女功異同辯 (Discussions on Similarities and Differences in the

Practice [of Alchemy] for Men and Women), in Nüdan hebian, 21a; cf. Qiaoyang jing
nügong xiulian 樵陽經女工修煉, 6b, preserved in Nüdan hebian 2: “When the red
dragon is beheaded, her body is like that of a man” 赤龍斬變成男體.

174 Despeux
possible. In women, when the red vessel is severed, they become like
men, and the impure Yin blood no longer flows. Transcending death and
entering the realm of the [long] living are possible. This is why, in men,
self-cultivation is called ‘refining the qi of Great Yang.’ In women, it is
called ‘refining the form of Great Yin.’”72
男女下手處分別如何？答曰男子下手之着以煉氣為要，女子下手之着
以煉形為要。煉氣者，伏其氣也，伏氣務期其氣回，氣回則虛極靜
篤，歸根復命而白虎降。煉形者，隱其形也，隱形務期，其滅形。形
滅則四大入空，剝爛肢體而赤脈斬。男子白虎降，則變為童體，而後
天之精自不泄漏，可以結丹，可以延年。女子赤脈斬，則變為男體，
而陰濁之血自不行，可以出死，可以入生。故男子修煉曰太陽煉氣，
女子修煉曰太陰煉形。
For Liu Yiming, like for most male adepts, the frame of reference remains reso-
lutely masculine. Yet, in the majority of female alchemy texts as well, women’s
bodies are to be “refined,” “purified,” and mutated into that of a man.73 It is not
inconceivable that the Buddhist discourse on self-cultivation, which stipulates
that women who have achieved realisation transform into men, might have
inspired the Taoist understanding of how alchemical processes affect
women.74
In a dialogue between Liu Yiming and his disciple, the latter further presses
the issue of how a woman can become a man. The answer definitively refutes
the possibility of an anatomical sex change, formulating the transition in terms
of a spiritual and social advancement:
Question: “Is it true that, once the Golden Elixir is swallowed and
absorbed, a woman becomes a man and an old man becomes an adoles-
cent again?” Answer: “These words concern principle and do not concern
the body. When a woman has accomplished the Way, she has totally
72 Xiuzhen biannan, 347.

73 Xiwangmu nüxiu zhengtu shize 西王母女修正途十則 (Ten Rules on the Correct Path for
the Pratice of Women by the Queen Mother of the West) 4a; see Despeux 1990, 287.
74 See Zhuan nüshen jing 轉女身經 (Sūtra on the Transformation of Female Bodies [into
Male Bodies]; T. 564), 918c: “When a woman has successfully accomplished the four pro-
cesses, she abandons her woman’s body and quickly becomes a man” 復次女人成就四
法，得離女人速成南子. The four processes are listed as: “not being harmed [by one’s
hatred of others]” (bu chi hai 不害); “not harboring grudges and resentment” (bu chen hen
不瞋恨); “not following one’s desires” (bu sui fannao 不隨煩惱); “the strength of persist-
ing in forbearance when facing disgrace” (zhu renru li 住忍辱力).

eliminated all Yin. She has transformed her body into Pure Yang. Her
accomplishment is identical to a man’s. That is why it is said that she
transforms herself into a man. When an old man has accomplished the
Way, he returns to the Anterior Heaven and achieves a body of Pure Yang
as full as that of an adolescent. This is why it is said that from his old age
he returns to the state of adolescence. It is not that he [merely] trans-
forms his image through artifice.”75
問曰 : 金丹成就，吞而服之，女轉成男，老變為童，此事有否？答曰 :
此言其理，非言其形。女子成道以後，剝盡群陰，變為純陽之體，與
男子成道相同，故曰女轉成男。老者成道以後，復還先天，成其純陽
之體，與童子圓滿相同，古曰 :老變為童，非言其變幻象也。
This dialogue highlights the fact that, for Liu Yiming, the visible physiological
changes that women undergo when practising alchemy are secondary in com-
parison to their accession to a higher “social” status. Freed from the burden of
pregnancy, purified from all Yin, women attain the same level of spiritual
accomplishment as a man’s.
After this initial stage of alchemical practice, if women already begin to
shed the physiological and social markers of femininity, how do embryological
imagery and symbolic pregnancy figure in their soteriological path? In actual-
ity, pregnancy and gestation are hardly mentioned, except in reference to the
length of practice – typically ten months. Some go as far as to state that “if for
men the term embryo (tai) is used, it is not used for women; for them one
speaks simply of breathing (xi 息), for fear that people could misunderstand
what is meant by ‘embryo.’”76 This indicates that, concerning women, the
ambiguity is such that some could have misconstrued alchemical practice as
resulting in actual pregnancies. Visualising themselves as generating a sagely
embryo would be of little interest for women, who could very well become
pregnant through more conventional means. Instead, it was more interesting
for them to “refine their form” and wholly transform themselves into Yang. In
order to do so, female practitioners, who, by virtue of their Yin nature, are pre-
dominantly static, must awaken an inner dynamism. They must develop
embryonic breathing – inner currents that facilitate the circulation of nourish-
ing qi as expressed in the following lines:

76 男子則以胎名，女子則不言胎而單以息名者，恐後世之人錯認胎字卒受誣名;
Nannü yitong bian, 24a.

176 Despeux
[Women] invariably derive nourishment from the jade milk in their bod-
ies [that circulates throughout their vessels]. […] Jade milk is the qi of the
respiration from within the body. Inner breathing is born in the centre
and is fixed in the centre. When the jade secretions return to the root, one
uses this qi for coagulating it. Generally, in one month of practice, embry-
onic breathing is achieved. If embryonic breathing is achieved, women
will have no difficulty attaining immortality.77
常用身中玉乳以養之[…]玉乳者是身中呼吸之氣也。呼吸由中而生亦
由中而定。倘得玉液歸根故用此氣以凝之 […]一般行持一月胎息已
成，胎息若成，女仙不難造就。
Women, like the earth, provide nourishment. They sustain themselves with
jade milk in order to nourish themselves internally. However, what they are
nourishing is their masculinity, with the ultimate goal of realising a Pure Yang
body.
Liu Yiming’s disciple persists in his inquiry of women’s practices, asking why
it is that women need to store (fu 伏) their qi. The master’s answer is edifying:
“As a woman’s nature is Yin, her qi is easy to store, but the red vessel is
very harmful for the Way. This is the crux of the matter. When she prac-
tices [Internal Alchemy], a woman must concentrate all her strength in
what is most important. As soon as the red vessel is stopped, the breath
follows by itself and is tamed. It is not the same for men, whose nature is
Yang and whose breath is difficult to store. Whereas a man must store his
qi for three years, a woman need only do so for a year.”78
女子性陰其氣易伏而赤脈最能害道。其所重者在此。故下手，則在
著重處用力赤脈一斬氣自訓順非若男子性陽其氣難伏。如男子伏氣三
年女子一年可伏。
Texts sometimes mention the “sagely embryo” (shengtai) or the “infant”

(ying’er), but they always do so with a certain ambiguity. For example, one
reads in the Wuzhen pian zhushi 悟真篇註釋 (Annotated Commentary on the
Stanzas on the Awakening to Perfection; DZ 145): “When the three families
[essence (jing), qi, and soul (shen)] meet, the infant coalesces; the Infant is the
77 See rule 4 in “Hutian xingguo nüdan shize 壺天性果女丹十則” (“Hutian Xingguo’s Ten
Rules of Female Alchemy”), from Nüdan hebian, 3.7b.

One, holding true qi.” The passage continues: “After ten months, the embryo is
complete; this is the foundation for entering sagehood.”79 Although the infant
is mentioned here, the majority of alchemical sources refer to the embryo
instead.
5 Sacred (Re)birth in Women and Men
After various transformations, practitioners of Internal Alchemy are reborn as

perfected, luminous replicas of themselves. Men and women both refine their
bodies into Pure Yang, eliminating all Yin to the extent that they no longer
project even the slightest shadow. That which they generate within themselves
is not strictly the ethereal body of an immortal – it is also visible to others. This
point is established, for example, in the legend of Zhang Boduan’s contest with
a rival Buddhist master. The latter’s Yin Spirit would leave his body during
meditative trances, journeying to faraway lands and describing them upon
return. Not to be outdone, Zhang’s Yang Spirit travels to the place the Buddhist
has just been describing, plucking from it and bringing back an actual flower.
The text explains: “In the great way of the Golden Elixir, life and nature are
jointly cultivated. Thus, by accumulation, the body is accomplished, and by
dispersion, qi is accomplished. In the place to which he travelled, Zhang’s per-
fected soul was manifested in a body. This is what is called the ‘Yang Spirit.’”80
This complete double of the self is the same even down to its sexual identity.
Thus, in its germ, the replica has a hermaphroditic potential, expressing itself
as male or female depending on the practitioner who generates it.81 Once
adepts have mastered this type of metamorphosis, they may generate multiple
duplicates of themselves. Some sources refer to as many as twenty or twenty-
five doppelgangers.82
The birth of the completed embryo, the perfect double, occurs from the sin-
ciput in a process called the “egress of the spirit” (chushen 出神) (see Fig. 4.4).
79 三家相見結嬰兒/嬰兒是一含真氣/十月胎圓入聖基” Wuzhen pian zhushi DZ 145,

24b–25a (verse 14); translation modified from Fabrizio Pregadio, Awakening to Reality: The
“Regulated Verses” of the Wuzhen pian, a Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy (Mountain
View, CA: Golden Elixir Press, 2009), 63.
80 我金丹大道性命兼修。是故聚則成形，散則成氣。所至之地真神見形謂之陽
神; Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian 歷世真仙體道通鑑 (Comprehensive Mirror of Immor-
tals Who Embodied the Dao through the Ages; DZ 296), 49.8a.
81 Furth 1999, 217 writes: “The sage’s cosmogonic body has the protean powers of the her-
maphrodite – combining male and female to give birth to a being identical to itself.”
82 See Xingming guizhi, 4.21b.

178 Despeux
Figure 4.4 The “Yangshen chuxian tu 陽神出現圖” (“Illustra-

tion of the Appearance of the Yang Spirit”) from
Xingming guizhi 性命圭旨 (Principles of the Jade
Tablet on Vital Force and Innate Nature).
It contrasts with conventional delivery, that is, through the vagina, which
alchemical texts term the “orifice of life and death” (shengsi qiao 生死竅). Chen
Niwan 陳泥丸 (fl. twelfth century) describes the process leading up to the cul-
mination of alchemical practice: “I have put into practice the work of old for a
full year, and the six vessels have already stopped, the breath has returned to its
root, and in the [lower] Cinnabar Field there is an infant (ying’er). Its body and
appearance are similar to mine.” Then comes the climax of the entire process:
“As this infant grows, [there comes a point when it] cannot reside in this cavity
[of the lower Cinnabar Field] any longer; so a fissure and then an orifice natu-
rally appear, and it emerges through the top of the head. This is known as

‘exiting and leaving the sea of sufferings.’”83 Stephen Eskildsen has examined
the various methods of this “liberation from the womb” (tuotai). In his study,
he quotes several works that underscore the appearance of an actual hole at
the crown of the head, big enough, according to one of these, to fully insert an
arm.84 Some sources, although they refer to it, do not insist much on the aper-
ture, while others merely mention the softening of the fontanel under the
scalp, opening once more as in early childhood.
This way of framing sacred birth is reminiscent of certain elements of
ancient Greek mythology, most notably Zeus’s pregnancy. While his first
spouse, Metis, is close to giving birth, it is prophesised that the soon-to-arrive
child could become so powerful as to rival Zeus. The supreme god then swal-
lows Metis, who continues her pregnancy in her husband’s abdomen. Toward
the end of the gestation, while strolling along Lake Triton, Zeus suddenly suf-
fers an unspeakable pain in his head and screams out so loudly that he is heard
across the universe. He relieves his headache by splitting open his cranium,
from which Athena emerges in full armour. As in Internal Alchemy, a male
pregnancy comes to term with a cranial delivery. Georges Devereux has noted
that masculine gravidity, with respect to Zeus and Kronos, constitutes the ulti-
mate evidence of an omnipotence that overflows their own boundaries of sex
and gender to contend with women for what constitutes a pillar of their
gender identity: “ […] Hera perceives Zeus’ cranial pregnancy a challenge,
as an attempt to render women superfluous and obsolete in the arena of
procreation.”85
In the purported physical transformational processes occasioned by the
practice of Internal Alchemy, men experience a retraction of their reproduc-
tive apparatus in similar fashion to a prepubescent boy’s, while women see
their breasts shrink until their chests are like those of man’s. Two concurrent
discourses inform these changes: the first pertains to reversion and rejuvena-
tion, the second, to the absence of sexual differentiation. Men and women still
retain their gender identity after attaining realisation, but nonetheless, the
sexual characteristics tied to fertility especially – sperm and menstrual blood
– are completely internalised and effectively invisible.
83 Xingming guizhi, 4.10a.

84 See Eskildsen 2009, 87–103.
85 “Héra elle-même envisage la grossesse crânienne de Zeus comme une concurrence qu’il
lui fait, comme une tentative de rendre la femme superflue et désuète dans le domaine de
la procréation”; Georges Devereux, Femme et mythe (Paris: Flammarion, 1982), 273.

180 Despeux
Conclusion
In examining the notion of “sagely embryo” (shengtai) in Chinese sources, it

seems to be the case that Buddhist materials generally insist on the spiritual
experience associated with its development, whereas Taoist texts equate its
generation with the appropriation of the mechanisms of life that govern both
the human body and the universe. In their practices, Taoists refer to essentially
cosmogonic models and the related notion of an original undifferentiated and
sexless chaos – one that nevertheless contains both the seeds that are identi-
fied as male and female principles in later stages. Allusions to the body and to
the physiological specificities of both sexes remain important, but they are
stressed to varying degrees by different textual sources.
Identifying with the primordial chaos, Taoist adepts temporarily become
androgynous beings capable of duplicating themselves. They are the matrix of
the Dao, the Mother of the ten thousand things. It is this very passage through
original emptiness of self and being that allows adepts to espouse the roles of
mother and embryo at once. Men, in particular, gain the capacity for gestation,
an ability that women enjoy by default. As for women, they attain masculinity
through an erasure of the external signs of femininity. The body is thus a mal-
leable space; only by suspending its boundaries and their identity with it can
adepts begin to generate the sagely embryo.
Experiencing this emptiness leads male practitioners to regain femininity
through the addition of a womb and an embryo. The egress of the spirit
(chushen) is an “opening up” of the self to cosmic infinity.86 Likening it to an
incredibly painful fracture of the head was perhaps the only way for men to
imagine the experience of labour; relating to parturition in that manner also
afforded a way of appropriating its symbolic power. Female practitioners, on
the other hand, become reacquainted with their masculinity through the sub-
traction of the physical marks of femininity, namely breasts and menses. Yet
adepts remain unambiguously male or female, with no possibility of a debate
as we have, for example, concerning the sex of angels in Christianity. Taoist
paradises are positively inhabited by male and female immortals.
Still, despite seemingly egalitarian or androgynous models of symbolic
pregnancy, in the end, the discourse remains preferentially patriarchal since
both men and women practitioners aim to produce an essentially “male” dupli-
cate body of Pure Yang. This is no surprise given that in alchemical practice it
was men that interpreted the gestational experiences of women. This distor-
tive lens ensured that the normative model favoured male perspectives, even
86 Eskildsen 2009, 93.

when applied to women. The few surviving testimonials from female medita-
tors confirm that the male ideal was upheld. Yet, if male writings insist primarily
on the corporeal dimensions of women’s transformations, women tend to
emphasise their social aspect: their emancipation from the “pollution” of men-
ses, pregnancies, and feminine pathologies would theoretically permit them to
attain a higher station in Chinese society, one comparable to that of men. A
high-ranking nun from a Taoist community in Gaoxiong 高雄 Taiwan explained
that after “beheading the red dragon” she was allowed to perform rituals hon-
ouring the gods at any time she pleased, just like her male counterparts. She
had been previously barred from performing them during her period.
Additionally, since her transformation, she claimed to have more potency,
being capable of more powerful rituals and benefitting from a more efficient
communication with the gods.87
Behind the numerous uses of gestational imagery and symbolic pregnancy
lie very different experiences and subjective interpretations. Internal Alchemy,
far from advocating a fixed process, employs a coded language to transcribe,
and at the same time reveal and hide, the subjectivity of each experience. As
time progresses, one may notice a tendency towards an increasingly literal use
of gestational imagery coinciding with a more corporeal conscience of the
human body that developed out of improved anatomical knowledge; but, once
more, this access to new knowledge reinforced the valorisation of male bodies
over women’s.
Extant sources are unfortunately insufficient to deduce a norm or compre-
hensive digest of common conceptions surrounding gestational imagery and
embryological discourse in Internal Alchemy at a given period. Yet, in each and
every document, maternal femininity and the nourishing capacity of women
are core notions under negotiation. The chiefly, if not exclusively, male-
authored writings of Internal Alchemy, including female alchemy, do not in
any way advance a positive image of women – but they present a very positive
image of the capacity to give birth, and more pointedly, motherhood.
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﻿ iii

Transforming the Void

Anna Andreeva and Dominic Steavu

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

Introduction: Backdrops and Parallels to Embryological Discourse and

1 Prenatal Infancy Regained: Great Peace (Taiping) Views on

2 Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual

3 Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation 111

4 Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of Taoist Adepts 147

6 On the Effectiveness of Symbols: Women’s Bodies as Mandalas 212

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

7 The Embryonic Generation of the Perfect Body: Ritual Embryology

8 Buddhism Ab Ovo: Aspects of Embryological Discourse in Medieval

9 “Human Yellow” and Magical Power in Japanese Medieval Tantrism

10 “Lost in the Womb”: Conception, Reproductive Imagery, and Gender

11 Embryology in Early Modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism 479

12 Foetal Buddhahood: From Theory to Practice – Embryological

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

Symbolic Pregnancy and the Sexual Identity of

* Translated from French by Dominic Steavu (University of California, Santa Barbara).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004306523_006

1 Appearance and Development of the “Sagely Embryo” Allegory

Similar in kind to a hen’s egg,

The symbolic discourse on procreation developed out of what were originally

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

Although the gestational motif appears in Internal Alchemy texts around

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

(Extended Scripture on the Virtues of Wisdom for Humane Kings to Protect

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

of early Taoist notions of access to immortality through reversion (fan 反; 返)

2 The Formation of the Sagely Embryo

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

the body are dissolved and spatio-temporal referents suspended is intended to

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

For use by the Author only | © 2016 Koninklijke Brill NV

ological methods and experiences a figurative yet perceived pregnancy does

The nature of Wood is to be attracted by Metal and to be compliant and

29 Compare to Cantong qi 64, l. 5–10 ; see Pregadio 2001, 106.

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Perfected (qizhen 七真), founder the Quanzhen 全真 (Complete Perfection)

Who can believe in a man’s pregnancy? It is inconceivable!

Chen Pu 陳朴 (late eleventh century), another master of the Southern School,

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but it is used inwardly. Medical literature stipulates that the qi potential of an

3 Symbolic Pregnancy in Men

In men, the signs of symbolic pregnancy are essentially manifested on the

At the centre, in its correct place,

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38 猶如雀卵團團大間似隋珠顆顆圓; Jinye huandan yinzheng tu 金液還丹印證圖

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Figure 4.1 The “Anshen zuqiao tu 安神祖竅圖” (“Illustration of the Pacification

42 Xingming guizhi, 2.22a.

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The Venerable Heavenly Jade Emperor said: “The embryo is produced

45 Gaoshang Yuhuang taixi jing, 1a.

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By the Song dynasty, the ambiguity between different understandings of

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The distinction between embryonic breathing as something experienced by

iii