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Many think that the true breath is fire. It is true that we need to attend to the medicinal furnace and watch the fire patiently. However, we also need to still the spirit and let it follow the breath naturally. If you attend the stove vigilantly, the waterwheel, the crane’s womb, and the tortoise’s breath will swirl constantly. The ancient sages have described this process in different ways, but they all agreed that the breath is not identical to the true fire. The true fire is the sacred fire; the true breath is but the bellows that stoke the fire. When spirit and vapor are held together, the spirit will abide in nonaction, and the mechanism that drives the vapor will have no alternative but to move. Each opening and closing is synchronous with the upward and downward movement in the ren and du meridians. What is felt as moving is none other than the spirit. When the undifferentiated primal vapor flows without hindrance, the primordial spirit will feel it. If the correct amount of fire is applied, spirit and vapor will copulate and embrace each other. If the fire is stoked properly, the pill will materialize and the medicine will be complete.
The reason for equating the bellows with the true breath is obvious. Blacksmiths who temper and refine steel know that they must pump the bellows to stoke the fire. When the fire is ready, it can be used to heat and temper the steel. If you fan the fire by blowing with the mouth, the fire will be weak and erratic. Consequently, the metal cannot be tempered. Wind generated by blowing with the mouth is unreliable; it is like the shallow breath of the ordinary person. Wind fanned by the bellows is continuous; it is like the heavy sinking breath of the realized being. When spirit follows the breath and is merged with it, the bellows will be engaged and the fire will be fanned properly. When vapor is introduced to the spirit, it will be transformed naturally. I hope this analogy will help you understand the teachings.
When I asked my teacher about the principles of flow and ebb and what it means to collect in the morning and secure in the evening, he told me that it was only after he had received instructions from his teacher that he fully understood the meaning of the Celestial Circuit and the cyclical properties of the trigrams. Before he met his teacher, he had only partial information and understanding. As a result, he wasted much time in his early life trying to figure out what was going on. After he understood the teachings, he realized that there is no need to read the numerous texts that describe the six hundred or more meanings of applying fire.
The true fire has no schedule of application, and the great medicine has no weight or measure. This is the absolute truth. There is an outer and an inner process of refining the medicine, and there are simple and complex schedules of firing. Internal refining is continuous and elusive: It is there and yet not there. External refining, however, is more structured and is synchronized with the celestial and terrestrial cycles. In external refining, the firing schedule is mapped to the cycle of celestial movement. In the production of the elixir, the days gen and jia of the lunar month mark the time when the medicinal ingredients are mature, and the hours zi (11 P.M.–1 A.M.) and wu (11 A.M.–1 P.M.) refer to the daily cycle of the breath rising and falling respectively. As for the meaning of “collecting in the morning and securing in the evening,” this refers to none other than the discipline of entering and exiting. Once you have understood these things, you will no longer need to refer back to the texts and their images.
Understanding Reality states: “The internal medicine must be circulated like the external medicine. Both the internal and external universes must be open.” This means that the head of the pill must be harmonious with its partner, and both must be bathed and steamed together. Internally, the natural true fire must burn inside a furnace that is always red-hot. Externally, the ingredients must be added and subtracted carefully before the fire in the furnace is stoked. Work hard on acquiring the true seed, and know that the key to attaining the true seed lies in the correct application of fire in the human domain.