Daoist sexual practices for health and immortality for women

30 DAOIST SEXUAL PRACTICES FOR HEALTH AND IMMORTALITY FOR WOMEN Elena Valussi This chapter will discuss Daoist views on sexuality, health and immortality in relation to gender. The sources will be Daoist practice manuals, which in large part are non-gender specifc, and in small part directed specifcally at women. While I will give an overview of early practices, this chapter will mainly cover the Late Imperial period, since the early period is covered in Pfster Chapter 22 in this volume. In Daoism, references to the female principle (yin 陰) abound. Scholars have interpreted these references as indication that women had a larger and more positive role in the Daoist tradition than in other religious traditions like Buddhism, which criticises female bodies and sexuality for being a distraction from detachment from worldly afairs (Ames 1981). However, while this may be true in theory, it is not always the case in practice; looking at a variety of texts describing physical practices for health and immortality will help us to understand the multiplicity of views, positive and negative, on the female body. There is indeed evidence that in the early Daoist communities, women had high ritual and teaching roles; however, their presence and engagement decreased with the shift towards a more segregated society, where women’s area of activity was increasingly defned as inside the home.1 In the Late Imperial period, women who made space for their religious practice were described as unusual and out of the norm, mainly because this would detract from fulflling their roles as wives and mothers. Often, though, women of Daoist and Buddhist religious persuasion did take up religious practices once their reproductive duties were completed. As in most religious and non-religious literature, Daoist practice manuals were almost always written by males. Furthermore, though these texts do not often distinguish by gender, it is clear that they are generally directed at men, since women had little opportunity to follow the suggestions provided in them. These included wandering far and wide in search of the teachings of diferent masters, recruiting wealthy sponsors to fund the building of a secluded refuge where the practice could take place, fnding attendants to support during the more intense parts of the practice, and often fnding female sexual companions. Thus, while it is true that references to feminine elements are quite common in Daoist scriptures, the role of women in the Daoist religious and intellectual community was not as central as those references might lead us to believe; the roles of women in practices of health and immortality, sexual and non-sexual, were also quite complex and varied. 444 DOI: 10.4324/9780203740262-35 Daoist sexual practices While in the early period there is evidence that women did participate in sexual practices that beneftted both partners, in the Late Imperial period some sexual practices became exploitative of and harmful to the female body. Non-sexual techniques, on the other hand, historically did not distinguish by gender, and were generally directed at males; by the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) when a tradition of solo practices specifcally for women developed, the female body became the central vehicle of the practice. Sexual practices in the early period Sexual practices have a long history in Chinese healing, as detailed by Donald Harper in his work on the Mawangdui sexual arts manuscripts (Harper 1987), which describe in detail sexual techniques for the improvement of health and for longevity, and the health benefts of correct sexual intercourse. While early sexual techniques were aimed towards spiritual cultivation and immortality, they did not indicate a specifc religious afliation. There are examples of Daoist sexual techniques from the second to third century CE and, by the Song dynasty, sexual techniques have a subsection under the category of ‘Section on Gods and Immortals 神仙類’, in the History of the Song (Songshi 宋史) (Songshi, 205.4). The Huangting jing 黃庭經 (Scripture of the Yellow Court), dated probably to the second or third century CE, is the oldest Daoist text to discuss sexual cultivation (Robinet 2006). Sexual techniques were also used in the earliest Celestial Masters Daoist movement (Tianshi dao 天師道), active during the late Han dynasty, as a means to bring about great peace (taiping 太平) through the uniting of qi (heqi 合氣). We know of these practices by the Celestial Masters mainly through their detractors: in the Annals of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo zhi 三國志) they are described as ‘demonic’; in Buddhist treatises they are also criticised as demonic and false. Here is a well-known passage by Zhen Luan 甄鸞 from the treatise Laughing at the Dao (Xioadao lun 笑道論): When I was twenty years old I was fond of Daoist methods, so I enrolled in a Daoist monastery to study. First, I was taught the practice of merging pneumas2 (heqi 合氣) according to the Huangshu 黃書 (Yellow Writ) and the three, fve, seven, nine method of sexual intercourse. In pairs of ‘four eyes and two tongues’ we practiced the Dao in the Cinnabar Field. Those who practice this thereby overcome obstacles and prolong their lives. Husbands were instructed to exchange wives merely for carnal pleasure. Practitioners had no shame, even before the eyes of their fathers and elder brothers. This they called the ‘perfect method of concentrating pneuma ( jingqi 精氣)’. At present, Daoists regularly engage in these practices, in order thereby to attain the Way. The basis for this is unclear.3 The Huangshu mentioned above might be related to a text found in the Daozang 道藏, the Shangqing Huangshu guodu yi 上清黃書過度儀 (Initiation Rite of the Yellow Writ of Highest Clarity, DZ 1294), dated by Gil Raz to the late fourth century CE. According to Raz, this text does describe a ritual including sexual union, but this is not the main aim of the ritual: I argue that the focus on the ritualised intercourse in the initiation rite of the Huangshu guodu yi has blinded us to its real signifcance, which is, in fact, to transcend the mundane realm, symbolised by the sexual act, and to attain the primordial undiferentiated oneness, beyond sexual division. (Raz 2008: 90) 445 Elena Valussi A careful reading of the ritual instructions reveals that the ritualised intercourse is not in fact the climax of the ritual procedure. Rather, the climax is the production of a perfected being within the body of the initiate through the visualisation, realisation, and coagulation of the three primordial pneumas (yuanqi 元氣). The ritualised intercourse that follows the production of this homunculus is the frst stage in the ritual reconstruction of the cosmos. (Raz 2008: 91) 4 The description of the ritual reveals that the sexual union was highly codifed, involved meditation and visualisations, followed rules set by the contemporary understanding of cosmology, and resulted in the production of an immortal embryo. Even though the text does not specify the outcome by gender, we can surmise that both men and women beneftted from it. The later Shangqing 上清 tradition criticised the use of sexual intercourse in Daoist ritual on the basis that it was dangerous, and recast the sexual union into individual practices in which the adept would work within his/her own body to produce the ‘immortal embryo’.5 Also, as Raz explains, ‘the practice of Merging Pneumas was remade into a “pure” marriage rite, called Pairing Radiances (oujing 偶景) between male adepts and female deities’ (Raz 2008: 94). Here we see a shift from an actual pairing between a man and a woman in the tradition of the Celestial Masters, to the pairing between the male adept and a female deity. In this case, it is the male adept who benefts from the union with the female Perfected; no mention is made of female adepts uniting with male deities. Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–363 CE), in his Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 (Book of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity), mentions the existence of sexual practices for the achievement of immortality, and even though he does not dismiss them altogether, he categorises them among other yangsheng exercises (Chapter 6 in this volume), and forcefully asserts that it is folly to think of them as the only path to immortality (Chapter 8, section 2; trans. Wile 1992: 24). His criticism reveals to us their presence within the panorama of Daoist practices. A much later criticism towards using sexual techniques to achieve immortality is that of Zeng Zao 曾慥 (?–1155), who included the Rongcheng pian 容成篇 (Chapter on Rongcheng) in his collection of Daoist works, the Daoshu 道樞 (Pivot of the Dao, DZ 1017). In this chapter, written by Zeng Zao himself, he criticises the Ruyao jing 入藥鏡 (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine), for its supposed descriptions of sexual techniques for immortality. Zeng Zao rejects the notion that sexual intercourse is needed for the achievement of immortality and that in fact it may even be a hindrance on that path, and harmful to the health of the practitioners, who would lose their jing.6 Even though there is scant evidence, from the few examples above we can see that sexual techniques for health and immortality were indeed present from a very early time in China, that they developed within the Daoist ritual and alchemical tradition, and that they also had detractors from within and without Daoism. The tension between sexual and non-sexual Daoist practices highlighted above is a constant theme within Daoism; with the emergence of an alchemical tradition of immortality, we see the clear development of both dual and solo alchemical practices. Sexual alchemy in the Ming (1368–1644) period By the time of the Ming dynasty, there was a fourishing Daoist literature openly advocating the use of sexual techniques for the achievement of health and immortality within the 446 Daoist sexual practices already well-developed neidan 內丹 (inner alchemy) school; many of these texts are related to the cult of the Daoist Immortal Zhang Sanfeng 張三丰. The most representative of these texts are the Jindan zhenchuan 金丹真傳 (True Transmission of the Golden Elixir) by Sun Ruzhong 孫汝忠 (f. 1615) and the Jindan jiuzheng pian 金丹就正篇 (Folios on Seeking the Proper Understanding of the Golden Elixir)7, preface dated 1564, by Lu Xixing 陸西星 (1520–1601?). Other well-known works on sexual alchemy are attributed to the Immortal Zhang Sanfeng and found in the Sanfeng danjue 三丰丹訣 (Zhang Sanfeng’s Alchemical Instructions), published as part of the Qing dynasty compilation Daoshu Shiqizhong 道書十七種 (Seventeen Books on the Dao), edited by Fu Jinquan 傅金銓: they are the Jindan jieyao 金丹節要 (Synopsis of the Golden Elixir; trans. Wile 1992, 169–78), the Caizhen jiyao 採真機要 (Essentials of the Process for Gathering the True; trans. Wile 1992, 178–88), and the Wugen shu 無根樹 (The Rootless Tree; trans. Wile 1992, 188–92), a text allegedly transmitted by Zhang Sanfeng to Lu Xixing, accompanied by an extensive commentary by Li Xiyue 李西月 (1806–1856) and Liu Wuyuan 劉 悟元 (1734–1821). 8 The sexual practices described in these texts, in a very similar way to all other alchemical texts, are all directed at restoring the prenatal level of energies that every human is endowed with at birth, but that is squandered throughout life, through excessive sexual intercourse, excessive mental and physical exertion, and, specifcally to women, the menstrual period. However, it is clear that, while both men and women are mentioned in these texts, the techniques only beneft men. The alchemical texts, some more explicitly than others, describe the use of women as tools for the restoring of health and seeking of immortality for men. In them, women are often referred to as ‘cauldrons’ (ding 鼎), and described as tools for men to deposit their jing and to refne it, before extracting it and using it to replenish their own vital energies. The term ‘internal alchemy’ was developed from external (operational) alchemy to indicate the transformation of substances akin to the smelting of ore in a receptacle, but this time inside the body of the adept, resulting in the production of the Golden Elixir ( jindan 金丹) of immortality. In Daoist sexual practices, it is the female body that is used as the cauldron for the transformation of substances and the production of pure Yang, which the male can then pluck and utilise for his own realisation. Below are excerpts from the Jindan zhenchuan by Sun Ruzhong; this section describes the original well-being of the just born baby, full of energies that are then squandered through life; in order to restore these vitalities, it is necessary to utilise the body of another human being: A human being is endowed with the father’s jing [精 essence] and the mother’s blood, and from this the body is formed. After a process of combination and gestation, it gradually reaches the stage of manifesting as physical form. The father’s jing is stored in the kidneys, the mother’s blood is stored in the heart. The heart and kidneys are connected by a channel, and following the mother’s breathing, the jing and blood are produced together. (…) When accumulation proceeds for one year, it reaches two liang 兩 (1/16th of a jin 斤) of jing, three liang at two years, and one jin 斤 (600 grams)9 at ffteen. Now the Tao of the male is complete. At this moment, the jingqi is complete and the state of pure Qian is realised. This is called ‘the highest power’. If he receives enlightening instructions from an adept, then his foundation may be secured by itself, and there will be no need to engage in exercises as ‘strengthening the qi’, ‘strengthening the blood’, ‘obtaining the medicine’, or ‘returning the elixir’. (…) However, at this stage in his life, a man’s life knowledge arises and emotions are born. When the jing is full, one is unable to control oneself: when the spirit is 447 Elena Valussi complete one cannot remain stable. (…) They are busy by day and active at night, all of which harms the jing and damages the blood. As a result our pure bodies become corrupt. (…) Therefore, one must employ methods for repairing and returning. (…) If bamboo breaks, bamboo is used to mend it; if a human being sufers injury, another human being may be used to repair the damage. (Wile 1992: 157) In the following section, even though the language is cryptic, it seems clear that the body of a woman is used to restore the vitalities of the male practitioner: The medicine is the external medicine produced in the postnatal crucible. ‘Obtaining the medicine’ refers to gathering the postnatal crucible’s external medicine, taking it into my body and combining it with the qi and blood that I have fnished refning… After this, the body and spirit are both whole. (Wile 1992: 158) The postnatal (houtian 後天) crucible is the female body.10 The Jindan Jieyao is much more specifc about what is a crucible and how to select it: Chapter 8 – choosing the crucible The crucibles are the ‘True Dragon’ and the ‘True Tiger’. First choose a beautiful tiger with clear eyebrows and lovely eyes. You must fnd one with red lips and white teeth. There are three grades of crucibles. The lowest are twenty-fve, twenty-four or twenty-one. Although they belong to the ‘postnatal’, they may be employed in ‘practicing fre work’, ‘nourishing the weak dragon’, ‘adding oil to supplement the lamp’, and ‘enriching the nation and ordering the people’. Those of middle grade are twenty, eighteen or sixteen, who have never engaged in intercourse, but already have had their frst menses. Because they have never given birth, their placenta has never been broken; and they may be used to extend life and achieve ‘human immortality’. The highest grade are ‘medicine material’ of fourteen. Their condition precedes the division of ‘primal unity’(…). These are called the ‘true white tigers’. A Qian dragon of sixteen who has never lost his ‘true ching’ is a ‘true Green Dragon’ (Wile 1992: 174).11 The text describes not only the sexual act itself, but also the most auspicious circumstances that are needed to bring it to successful completion, which include a secluded chamber, several ‘crucibles’, attendants and, most importantly a ‘Yellow Dame’, an older woman who will attend to and direct the young women participating in the practice. From the above passages, and from analysing other sexual alchemy treatises, it is clear that women are utilised as ‘crucibles’ for the smelting of energies that are then plucked by male practitioners and united in their bodies with their own energies, in order to repair health and possibly achieve immortality. Xun Liu has proven that these texts did advocate for the well-being of the young women involved: ‘the emotional harmony and reciprocity were clearly defned as the precondition for engendering rising of the vital and generative fuids within the female body and for ensuring the successful give-and-take during the practice’ (Liu 2009: 139); nonetheless, their well-being was understood as the best possible setting for male plucking of female vitalities. 448 Daoist sexual practices Te Qing dynasty: non-sexual practices and nüdan The more reactionary climate of the Qing, together with the widening of the audience for inner alchemy, and the development of a state-mandated chastity cult, made the abovedescribed sexual practices much less acceptable. This changing social climate resulted in two developments: 1. the reinterpretation of sexual alchemy in non-sexual terms, and 2. the solidifying of specifc solo techniques for women that did not involve men, called nüdan 女丹, or female alchemy. Non-sexual alchemy Clarke Hudson discusses the non-sexual reinterpretation of Ming sexual techniques by Qing Daoist masters (Hudson 2010). He mentions two examples in particular. The frst is a text by the Chan monk and Daoist master Liu Huayang 柳華陽 (1735–99). In the Huiming jing 慧命經 (Scripture of Wisdom and Life) Liu claims that, while humans unite sexually to conceive children, and thereby lose part of their life energy, ‘transcendents or buddhas intermingle or copulate using their spirits or qi’ (Hudson 2010:6). In this way, he asserts that sexual union only results in the loss of vital energies, and that immortality is only achieved by uniting spiritually. The second example is Quanzhen Daoist master Min Yide 閔一得 (1758–1836), who, referring to the above mentioned Jindan zhenchuan, recasts corporeal sexual alchemy into spiritual sexual alchemy, where a man and a woman meditate together, joining their qi but not their bodies: The inner partners who copulate as dragon and tiger are people united in mind and intention. This is not muck [alchemy], but is in fact a method whereby qi and spirit virtuously unite. What you gain from it is grain after grain of celestial treasure. … If your partner is the type of partner who can set down a seed, then there [need be] no parting of clothing, nor untying of belts. There are just one dragon and one tiger, who join their pure qi and spirit together to penetrate void emptiness.12 In both cases, physical sexual union is recast into the union of qi and spirits. In this way, the female body is no longer used as a tool for the realisation of male immortality, but as a locus of immortality itself. Wayward women Despite the more reactionary attitude during the Qing dynasty and the recasting of sexual into non-sexual alchemy discussed above, we fnd that men and women were sometimes still engaged in sexual alchemy. This is confrmed by negative reactions to these practices throughout the Qing, especially as it pertains to women. A compelling example of the ‘wrong’ behaviours which women were engaging in appears in a list written by He Longxiang 賀龍驤 in Chengdu in 1906; this list is included in the preface to a large collection of female solo alchemy, or nüdan, the Nüdan hebian 女丹合編 (Collection of Female Alchemy); this preface lists the behaviours which women were said to be prone unless they engaged in female alchemy. These include everything from a faulty mastery of the Daoist scriptures to a mistaken reliance on Buddhist practices. In addition, … there are those who do not discriminate between Qian and Kun and do not know that there are diferences [between female alchemy] and male alchemy (nandan 男丹); 449 Elena Valussi there are those who know alchemical books for men but do not know that there are books for women … (Nüdan hebian, Preface: 1b–2a) These misguided beliefs and practices can, according to He, have dire results not only for individual women, but for society as a whole: There are those [women] who mistakenly become involved in heterodox sects and do not know the correct way. (…) Others are lured into chambers where lewd [activities take place]. There are [those] who secretly seduce good girls into serving as human cauldrons (rending 人鼎), and [some] themselves serve as Yellow Dames (huangpo 黃婆), 13 as a result of which [the girls] lose their reputations and integrity. [Then] there are those good women who do what palace ladies like to do; they are fond of serving as cauldrons in their search for immortality, [but in the end] do nothing but lose their reputations and integrity. There are those [women] who go on pilgrimage, enter the temple and throw themselves in a disorderly manner at Buddhist and Daoist monks; others plant the seed of passion in male teachers of good schools. (Nüdan hebian, Preface: 3a) It is clear that the target of the above invective is the sexual alchemy advocated by the late Ming texts described above. The preface continues by suggesting that women do not practise in the correct way because they do not know that there is a correct way designed just for them. This assertion is important because it gives a solid basis to the claim that women do indeed require a separate practice from men, and that inner alchemy, historically nongendered, is in fact (and always was) directed to males. In this way, the writers make space for nüdan. The issue of misunderstanding the diference between male and female practices is also connected to that of morally wrong and physically dangerous practices. Among women who do not know of nüdan, it is said, some simply never progress in their path, because they are following practices that are not specifc to the female body. Others, however, incur greater dangers because they follow heterodox practices such as becoming a human cauldron. In order to better understand the trend that was directly attacked by He Longxiang in his preface, we will turn to the Pangmenlu 旁門錄 (Record of the Heterodox Schools), a text He Longxiang includes in his collection. This scripture includes poems attributed to Buddhas and heavenly worthies, annotated by various gods and immortals. These poems were regarded as a guide for correct practice, and they refer to such things as the difculty in distinguishing between proper and improper instructions and the difusion of heterodox practices. In his post-face to the Nüdan hebian, He Longxiang states that he includes the Pangmenlu in his collection as a warning to women practitioners. An excerpt from the text exemplifes the kinds of problems He was afraid women would encounter: It is wrong to think that ‘you and I’14 can make you realised. Don’t you know that yin and yang reside in your own body? Buy concubines, sleep with prostitutes, practise the ‘plucking battle’,15 in this way you steal the original qi and supplement your spirit. How is it then that there are immortal guests on Penglai Isle that decry debauched practitioners who cherish lewd practices? 450 Daoist sexual practices The master says: … Now, the heterodox schools say that ‘I’ (wo 我)’ is the man and ‘you (bi 彼)’ is the woman. Because of this, they buy beautiful women and rear them, they use an ‘external’ Yellow Dame to gather their menstrual fow; then, they engage in ‘the plucking battle’ in order to steal the original qi …. All of these are wrong understandings of the two characters ‘you’ and ‘I’. They violate the principal heavenly rules and the kingly ways; they cannot escape the sternest of punishments. How can they possibly hope to attain immortality? (Pangmenlu: 1a) The two paragraphs translated above refect a diference of opinion as regards the practice of gathering the original qi (yuanqi 元氣) to create the immortal embryo. Those who practise sexual union believe they can gather the original qi from the body of a woman. The authors of the Pangmenlu, and He Longxiang with them, insist that only by gathering one’s own yuanqi can one attain immortality. This is further explained in a later passage in the same text: The yuanqi within the body is the elixir of immortality. Heterodox schools and wayward ways go against reason in seeking for it outside the body; by refning the elixir and ingesting it they hasten their own death (…). Men and women come together and then extract the spoiled jing. How is this diferent from [what is done by] cattle and horses, dogs and pigs? They say that by eating the spoiled jing, one can become immortal; why then, do cattle and horses, dogs and pigs not ascend to the heavenly hall? This is a case of misreading the two words ‘ingest and eat’ ( fushi 服食) found in alchemical books. When studying alchemical books, one must fnd a teacher to explain them so that one clearly understands the principles behind them. (Pangmenlu: 4b) Nüdan and female physiology The new school of nüdan thus focusses on the female body as the sole locus for the immortality of women. The texts associated with it describe in much detail female physiology and the processes for its transformation. References to the specifcity of the female body can be found in inner alchemical texts as early as the Song period, but not until the frst nüdan texts started to appear in the seventeenth century, and especially until the frst collections at the end of the eighteenth century, do we fnd descriptions of the need for a completely separate path for women practitioners. This is therefore a retroftting of the history of inner alchemy, and its new (but purportedly old) category is now called nandan. The physiological language, which points at locations and processes of the female body with great clarity, lent even more weight to this development. As in any practice towards health and immortality, the goal of female practice is to refne one’s constitution, reclaiming the energies one received at birth and slowing their loss, thus delaying or eliminating death. But while the standard course of refnement in alchemy proceeds from jing 精 (essence) to qi, from qi to shen 神, and from shen to emptiness, women need to refne their blood (xue血), not their essence, into qi. The physical starting point for female practice is the qi cavity, a point between the breasts. Through breast massage and visualisations, the blood that has previously descended from the qi cavity to the infant’s palace (uterus) 451 Elena Valussi is sent upward in a backwards motion. The infant’s palace, also called the sea of blood (xuehai 血海), is located three and a half inches below the navel. It is not to be confused with the lower elixir feld, where male practice begins. Unlike a man, a woman needs frst and foremost to refne her exterior form, her bloody and impure constitution and her sexual characteristics (i.e. breasts). This attention to her exterior form directly relates to the structure of the female cosmological and physiological body that is yin and impure in nature. Through breast massages the blood that would fow down from the heart to the womb, and outside the body as menstruation, is prevented from doing so and accumulates in the qi cavity between the breasts. Practitioners repeat this process many times, achieving the thinning and eventual disappearance of the menstrual fow, a process called Beheading the Red Dragon (zhan chilong 斬赤龍). When this happens, other sexual characteristics change: the breasts shrink and the body becomes more androgynous. At this point the woman has completed the frst stage of the practice (Valussi 2008a, 2008b: 155). Within Late Imperial Daoist practices for health and immortality that involve women, we therefore observe a shift from sexual, to non-sexual, to solo practices specifcally intended for women. While the shift away from being used as a tool in the quest for health and immortality of males may be perceived as positive for women, in nüdan texts and practice, female physiology and the pre-eminence of blood are clearly described as a hindrance for women’s refnement. Here is an example: It is said that blood is the energetic basis of the woman. Her nature is inclined toward the yin, and the nature of yin is to enjoy freshness. If a woman does not avail herself of massage, by which she can help the qi mechanism to circulate subtly, she will easily sink into pure yin. Yin is cold, and cold is ice-like. The failure to activate it by means of circulating movements, may result in illnesses such as congestion and blood obstruction, which would make the practice [of alchemy] difcult to implement. (Niwan Li Zushi nüzong shuangxiu baofa 泥丸李祖師女宗雙修寶筏) (Precious Raft on Paired Cultivation of Women by Master Li Niwan) Thus blood is central for the health and immortality of women. Dealing with blood and refning it into a more ethereal substance is described in these texts as much more difcult than refning jing is for men. In modern times, both sexual and solo health and immortality techniques have been ‘re-discovered’, in China and in the West. Mantak Chia is the practitioner who frst popularised these practices in the West. In his books on Daoist health and sexuality, Chia reinterpreted sexual alchemy as ofering an equal path to men and women (Chia, 2005 [1986]). Solo women’s techniques have also been reinterpreted by contemporary qigong practitioners, concerned more about health than about immortality, and defning nüzi qigong 女子氣功 (Women’s Qigong) as an eminently healing practice for women (Liu 2015; Valussi 2008a). Interestingly, menstrual regularity and a healthy fow are still central to both of these practices, indicating that blood is still the most concerning and difcult to deal with element of female physiology. Notes 1 For a description of women’s roles in early Daoism, see Despeux and Kohn (2005), especially Part 2. For a description of the shift towards a more segregated society, see Ebrey (1993). 2 Editor: Qi is often rendered in earlier scholarship as the Greek pneuma, and this translation is kept in quoted translations. 452 Daoist sexual practices 3 Zhen Luan, Xiaodaolun (compiled 570 CE) in Guang hongming ji 廣弘明記, T.52.2103.152; translated in Kohn (1995: 147–50). 4 Christine Mollier (2015: 87–110) describes these early sexual rituals in a diferent manner, for procreation of the community, in ‘Conceiving the Embryo of Immortality: “Seed-People” and Sexual Rites in Early Taoism’, in A. Andreeva and D. Steavu (eds) Transforming the void: embryological discourse and reproductive imagery in East Asian Religions, Leiden: Brill. 5 Early traces of this critique date back to the founding of the sect, in j. 6 of the Zhen’gao 真誥 DZ1010 (Stanley-Baker 2013: 101–5, 288 f.; Strickmann 1981: 179–95). 6 See Daoshu 3.4b–7b. A discussion of this is found in Wile (1992: 26–27), and Baldrian-Hussein (2006: 330). 7 In Fanghu waishi 方壺外史 (The Untold History of Master Square Pot), reprinted in Zangwai daoshu 藏外道書 (Daoist Texts Outside the Canon), vol. 5: 208–375. 8 Zangwai daoshu, vol. 5: 578–603. 9 Weight measures changed over time. This conversion refers to Song dynasty measures. Reference in Wilkinson (2013: 556). 10 See Chapter 29 in this volume on houtian. 11 On the Qian hexagram, Ibid. 12 Xiuzheng biannan canzheng 修真辨難參證, juan 1. Translation in Hudson (2010). 13 The term Yellow Dame has multiple meanings. Here it refers to the person who oversees the sexual union, the aim of which is to produce pure yang by transferring the woman’s internal yang to the man. 14 The terms ‘you and I’ (biwo 彼我) are very commonly used in alchemical texts of the Ming Qing era. In texts with a clear sexual overtone, they indicate the male (wo) and the female (bi), and they are used in the context of a transfer of energies from the female to the male by means of a sexual encounter. In texts that are not overtly sexual, they still refer to the male and female principle, but usually as found within the body of an individual practitioner. In the present case, the terms are used as a metaphor for sexual techniques, which, in turn, is criticised for being both misguided and fruitless. 15 Sexual intercourse. Bibliography Pre-modern sources Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 (Book of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity), Ge Hong 葛洪 (283– 343), DZ 1185. 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