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The Tao Te Ching states: “Speak too much and you’ll be exhausted. It is better to hold on to the center.” To know the meaning of “the center” is to possess the seed of immortality and enlightenment. Otherwise, you won’t know how to begin to cultivate the Tao. Worse, you’ll fall into the pit of monsters with your first step and never get out.
What is the center? The center is the Mysterious Gate. The Triplex Unity states: “When moving and circulating, do not lose the center. Floating and swirling, always hold on to the center.” Immortal Tao said, “The center is not the center of the four directions.” For the Confucians, the center is the state where all things emerge. For the Taoists, it is the Mysterious Female where thoughts and desires do not exist. For the Buddhists, it is the state where there is no duality, no perspective of good and bad, and no judgment of correctness or incorrectness. In other words, the center is original nature.
To attain the wondrous subtleties of the center, we must nourish the body and refine the mind. The spirit must be focused, directed into the chamber, and returned to the dantien. Once the process of the return is completed, the sacred fetus will be transformed into spirit and eventually be liberated. It is important for beginning practitioners to understand the meaning of the center. When Immortal Wenshi asked Laozi, “What is the most important key to cultivating the Tao?” Laozi replied, “It is in planting deep roots, securing strong foundations, and focusing and holding on to oneness.” I will now explain the meaning of these words.
When you first start your cultivation, you must endure tiredness in the muscles and tendons, fight the monsters of sleepiness and lethargy and distant stray thoughts, and direct the internal light into the three cavities. The three cavities are the Yellow Pavilion, the Sea of Qi (qihai), and the lower dantien. Although you are directing the light of the internal gaze into these three cavities, you should not think about the act. Let the spirit rest peacefully within, let the breath be natural, forget about everything, and dwell in nothingness. This is what the Tao Te Ching means by “free of desire, you can see the subtleties.” When you are in a perfect state of emptiness and absolute stillness, the spirit will be focused and united with vapor. In the absence of thought and intention, a unique feeling will emerge from the center. You will experience something large materializing, but at the same time, you will know intuitively that this “something” does not exist externally. You will also feel something small emerging but know intuitively that this entity does not exist internally. This is a sign that the cavity of the Mysterious Gate has opened. When the Tao Te Ching says: “In thought, you can see the cavity,” it is referring to what the Triplex Unity describes as “When the upper is closed, we call it existence; when the lower is closed, we call it nothingness.” The meaning of “upper” and “lower” is encompassed in the meaning of “center.” The center is where yin and yang come and go, where kan and li ascend and descend, and where upper and lower join. This is what is meant by when the upper half is empty, the lower half is closed. In the great void of the center, the only thing that circulates is the primordial vapor. This is why we say that emptiness and nothingness are the guiding principles of the subtleties. Where the lower is the master, the upper is closed. This is the state of nondifferentiation and chaos, where female generative energy is intertwined with male generative energy. In this state, existence, not nothingness, is the guiding principle of the cavity’s function. When both upper and lower are closed, the two will return inside the Mysterious Female. The difference between action and nonaction lies in the subtleties of the cavity of the Mysterious Gate. By action, we refer to the subtle cavity of action and initiation. Action is the guiding principle of everything occurring in the upper and lower anvils, the yin and yang cauldrons, and the cavity of the spirit and vapor.
One of the teachers said, “Those who cultivate the Tao must first attain the subtle mystery. If you don’t attain the subtle function, you won’t be able to open the One cavity. If you want to open this cavity, you must ask that the Tao be shown to you.” At this point, the teacher exchanged a smile with Duanyangzi.