We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. Let sorrowful longing dwell in your heart. No one ever succeeds without the help of others. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light. So the quest for immortality would continue, from one life to the next.Be loyal to what you love, be true to the earth, fight your enemies with passion and laughter. Silk-brocaded curtains are wolves and tigers…” The alchemist must find their way through this maze of shacks and palaces to the right vessel for their rebirth. Wool-covered carts are hard- and soft-shelled turtles. A lengthy guide to finding the right womb in the liminal landscape between death and rebirth read: “If you see large houses and high buildings, these are dragons. If they were too weak to fight off death, they could seek to lodge their immortal spirit in a new womb, to be born again. If they felt the end approaching, they might have to fight off the demons of death and decay, calling up the spirits that defend each part of the body-the gods of the gallbladder, liver, spleen, and lungs, the 84,000 gods of the hairs and pores-to beat back the enemy. If an adept started the process late in life, it was likely that they would die before the immortal body was complete. Taoist internal alchemy via Wikimedia Commonsĭeveloping the immortal self was a demanding task. If they responded when these figures called, they would be caught in the demon’s trap, and all their diligent effort wasted. You will compose poetry and will not be able to be restrained.” If the alchemists weren’t careful, demons would latch on to them and lead them astray with wild visions: phoenixes, monsters, jade maidens, pale-faced scholars. You will sing and dance spontaneously, and utter crazy words from your mouth. After days without food or rest, the accounts warn, “your clever spirit will leap and dance. Their bones begin to turn to gold, and finally, the immortal body emerges like a butterfly from a cocoon, leaving behind a corpse as light as an empty husk.īut even without the toxic elixirs, internal alchemy was dangerous. If they succeed, an immortal body begins to gestate inside them like a baby. Teachers instructed practitioners to make their bodies “like a withered tree” and their hearts “like cold ashes.” With diligent practice, they may begin to notice the signs of the internal elixir cooking inside their bodies: their noses fill with a delicious smell and their mouth with a sweet taste red mist swirls over their heads strange lights glow from their eyes. Meditation and breathing exercises replaced the crystals and metals of external alchemy. If the alchemists weren’t careful, demons would latch on to them and lead them astray with wild visions. The practitioner retreats into this landscape to practice their alchemy. Taoism conceives of body as a landscape, an internal world of lakes and mountains, trees and palaces. It was replaced by a new kind of alchemy: a Taoist practice called neidan, or internal alchemy-so named because the alchemist becomes the alchemical furnace, concocting the elixir in the alembic of their own body.

Many of his friends died in the pursuit of eternal life:īy the end of the Tang dynasty, the obsession with the elixir had claimed so many lives that it fell out of favor. Yet Po Chu-i was lucky to be growing gray hairs at all. In the waning years of his life, Po Chu-i mourned his failure: Nonetheless, the poet never succeeded in creating a true elixir. It was the legendary island of the immortals, and they were waiting for the poet to join their ranks. Inside the palace, he found a vast empty hall.

After wandering for some time, he came upon a palace, inscribed with the name Penglai. The story went like this: a seagoing merchant was shipwrecked on a strange island. At the time, there was a rumor going around that he was destined for eternal life. Po Chu-i had reason to believe he might succeed.

Elixir of immortality quote