Neidan Study Group Netherlands

31/12/2025

One of my early encounters with Neidan literature.

31/12/2025

Happy New Year, may 2026 bring you luck, peace, happiness and good health 。⛩🌈🎈

30/12/2025

One term can be interpreted in many ways. Take for example 虚其心，实其腹 void the heart and fill the belly from the Dao De Jing.
In the early days it seems like a government doctrine where the state makes sure people are well taken care of and have no need to think too much. It was also likely meant to have a spiritual implication since the sage is meant to embody the Dao, but the text never tells us about specific practices.
Later it was interpreted by early breath work masters to refer to filling the abdomen with breath and making the mind still in the Dantian. It seems that the method often led to tension and in Yun Ji Qi Qian there is even a saying that if you practice these breath holding exercises it can cause the urine to be slightly pink, so that is concerning since that probably infers the bladder was damaged.
Neidan people usually take this admonition to be related to how we establish the basis for Kan and Li to mix and generate the medicinal product. To simplify, quieting the mind and calmly adjusting the breath in the lower Dantian will result in the gradual transformation of the body and spirit (and so on).
Martial artists may have a totally different interpretation which could be different style to style and lineage to lineage depending on the experiences of masters over the years. Who says that it automatically always refers to breath and mind in the first place, since abdomen and heart are also physical locations and fill and empty could have multiple meanings.
This is why when we use the term "Daoist martial arts" we don't mean the martial arts of a specific sect of Daoism, we typically mean martial arts which take Daoist ideas as their basis. Considering there is cause to believe some styles like Baguazhang were created by Daoists, this could also imply they are literally martial arts of Daoist origin, but the implementation of a robust theory of Dao in the Martial arts is a cultural matter, not a religious one.
These interpretations are only sacrosanct insofar as people make them so. Ultimately they are interpretations and as in the case of strong breathing which causes bloody urination, they often change into something more manageable over time. At the same time, the ideas are always competing and people tend to select what they feel works for them. It is a very human phenomenon.

About the image: ai makes cuter Buddhists than it does Daoists. Also, since my basic argument is that we should pay attention to Dao studies as a cultural phenomenon, it would seem silly to use Daoist priest. Also, it is just a cute picture with no intentional meaning.

21/12/2025

Mid winter, but the first blossoms. Happy Winter Solstice. ⛩🙏🌸

Winter Solstice is a very important time in Internal Alchemy, it’s the moment the Yin dominates, but the Yang is starting to sprout again. This is a great time for meditation. Wish all of you great meditational experience and hope the New Year will bring you all the good things.

19/12/2025

11/12/2025

Very very sad news, Richard was a very nice person and a great student of the Dao, he did the first translation of the Can Tong Qi and translated many Daoist works especially those related to Inner Alchemy. Have nice memories to my chats with him during the Rothenburg congress, where we used to meet.

09/12/2025

We have a small, but growing working group who research and think about Neidan and medieval Yang Sheng documents and over time one of the major observations has been that there are many health and even medical applications of these practices which can really help people.
Although this area may have overlap with Chinese Medicine, its utility seems to be not exactly identical as a result of the difference in energetic anatomy between Daoism and CM. Anecdotal early testing (keeping in mind that many of us use these practices in clinic) we have found positive effects on:
- chronic shoulder, neck, upper back pain and headache,
- spasm from herniated disc,
- insomnia,
- heart rate and blood pressure regulation (using measurement especially showed reduced heart rate after meditation in various contexts),
- insomnia,
- anxiety etc...
These are experiential and anecdotal since we have only prescribed these to our patients and used them on ourselves, nevertheless in a tentative and subjective sense we have had good luck testing a number of practices in treatment and hitherto have not encountered negative outcomes, although this is certainly a subject which we are concerned with and are taking care to avoid.
Our little group is still nascent and growing in membership along with being relatively loose, but the observation of what appear to be concrete medical benefits to specific conditions found in CM clinic holds promise that these techniques could be organized and used as adjunct treatments either under a CM Qigong or Yang Sheng framework in the future.

07/12/2025

“In heaven, it is the celestial center; in man, it is the true intent. The great elixir ascends and descends through the rotation of true intent, just as the celestial wheel circulates through the celestial center; both follow the same principle.”

在天為天心，在 人為真意.大藥憑真意之轉旋而升降，猶天輪藉天心之斡運而循環，皆一理也

- Da Yi Tong Jie 大易通解 (Comprehensive Explanation of the Great Changes)

30/11/2025

The Yang Spirit Manifests- Xing Ming Gui Zhi - 性命圭旨

The unconditioned golden body springs out of the end of a shining white hair
Scorching in the light of the śarīra, universally manifest a great chiliocosm
Vairocana circumambulates on the crest of your head
Play in the Sea [of Suffering] is extinguished in quietude
Strange, this wonderous gate
The Buddha patriarch once bestowed [upon you] a prophecy of future enlightenment
The yang spirit manifests, shining golden bright
Board that white cloud; roam free and easy in the Emperor’s country
The Buddha heard half a gātha and abandoned his entire body.
Loftily evincing his position as a person revered for 10,000 virtues Completely attain nirvana, the eyes of the true dharma
The diamond indestructible body long-endures
See that your body has no reality; it is the Buddha body Understand that your mind is like an illusion: this is the Buddha’s illusion
Completely realize that the foundational nature of the body and mind is void This person and the Buddha, how can they be different?
The mind is the same as the Void Realm
It shows you that it is equivalent to the Void’s dharma
Attain the Void body
The dharma of non-affirming and non-denying
The Void has no inner and outer.
The mind dharma is also like this.
If you understand that things are empty,
Then you’ve understood the principle of true thusness.

Xing Ming Gui Zhi - 性命圭旨 - translation Burton Rose

(there might be more accurate translation, we read this document couple of years ago and my friend Robert translated some terms differently, but this poem gives you a taste. The use of Buddhist terms in Neidan literature is definitely used sometimes for other purposes, they get a Daoist twist for sure. Neidan is extremely eclectic and the Xing Ming Gui Zhi, an outstanding and very influential Neidan work from the Ming Period shows very interesting ingredients, next to the obvious Daoist and Neo Confucian elements, clear influence from Chan and also Tiantai, and even Vajrayana Buddhism. The fact that Vairocana is at the top of the head when the Yang Sheng emerges out of the Sky Gate has clear resemblances to some Ta***ic Buddhist practices, also the whole language is heavenly influenced by Buddhist parlour. Rereading this text from time to time makes me aware how the three teachings are sublimely merged in the Neidan literature. Xing Ming Gui Zhi remains own of the most fascinating texts of the Neidan tradition.

29/11/2025

Aniconic representation of the Dharmakaya "Sarvavid Vairocana" as a moon disc atop an enthroned blue lotus, Qing Dynasty (18th century) - China

Interesting is that Vairocana, figuring prominently in esoteric Buddhism (Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese alike) is also mentioned is some Neidan literature, like the Xing Ming Gui Zhi, although the meaning might change in these Internal Alchemy texts, it proves its highly eclectic nature.