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The 'Taiyi jinhua zongzhi', known in the West as 'The Secret of the Golden Flower', is a key text of Daoist psychological transformation. Utilizing detailed qualitative techniques, the authors extract its primary elements and present a set of five themes of spiritual cultivation: 1) refining the material soul into the spirit soul and consciousness spirit into primordial spirit; 2) refining the illumination of consciousness into that of inherent nature; 3) harmonising the breath; 4) combining water and fire; and 5) joining Heaven and Earth. The first two describe the process of "turning the light around," a meditation that reverts the outward flow of consciousness to develop the inherent potential that is obscured by ordinary cognitive processes. The other three describe a sequential process that occurs when "turning the light around" is put into practice. |
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