If Heaven knows them, then the powerful spirits will protect and assist them and they will no longer be in danger of perishing.
216 Interestingly, the Daodezhenjing jizhu (DZ 706) has a different comment that has nothing to do with spirits. This may reflect an editorial choice designed to remove mention of this type of cultivation. See Zheng, Laozi Heshanggong zhu jiaoli, 229.
217 Laozi zhongjing DZ 1168 1.19a.
218 Whether this means longevity or immortality will be discussed below.
Even though this seems to be a case of external spirits, the general idea of protection by spirits must include the spirits that live in the body.
The above discussion does not indisputably confirm that Heshanggong is concerned with deities within and without. The work can still function with the more abstract readings of shen and shenming , though I tend toward the sense of spirits as beings and individuals because of the five spirits and chapter 35. That said, even with this reading I also preserve the sense of shen as an abstract substance.
Consider how this is possible. When looking at the structure of the body as a model for the state, the division of shen provides insight into the relationship of individual and group. Here there are five shen that comprise different aspects of the refined self or mind. They are all individualized shen , but they are also lower than the shen of the heart (mind) identified just as shen. This indicates a particular idea of part and whole, and the function of divisions of roles and power. Shen , as in shen of the heart and mind, directs and unifies these other aspects into the central “mind” located in the heart. The way the Heshanggong (like many early Chinese texts) uses language allows for this dual status.
As to the debate over shen , Heshanggong leans toward Kohn’s idea of submitting the self, Roth’s sense of mental spiritlike power, and Porkert’s sense of abstract “configurative force,” but also has a place for Unschuld’s gods and demons, and for Puett’s self-divinization. Heshanggong is a syncretist, a Daoist in the mold of Sima
Tan’s Daojia. Thus, he uses shen similarly to Hall and Ames’ interpretation—yet his treatment does not define an essentialist “Chinese” employment of language, but rather a particular mid-Han Daoist usage. He provides space for these different senses of shen because both particularization and unity coexist, even at the rarefied level of spirit/spirits
6. Jing, Qi, Shen
Equally nuanced, though not as contentious, are the distinctions between shen and the two terms jing and qi .219 Regardless of whether shen exists in a more individualized sense or as simply substance, the three are all key components of the body which Heshanggong prioritizes as “yang substances.” Because of this status, prior to discussing the cultivation methods that enhance and protect these valuable yang aspects, their specific definitions needs elucidation. The present discussion also seeks to confirm Heshanggong’s enthusiasm for all yang substances, not just shen .
If one recalls the yin-yang divisions of the human self mentioned above, these three substances come from the qi of Heaven and thus are the yang components of the body. They are simultaneous bodily constituents and cosmic substances. The universality
219 In later inner alchemy texts one finds these terms representing a progressive set of yang substances: the refinement process that aims for pure yang moves from jing to qi and then to shen. In this case, one finds a different relationship of the three. Yet, the importance of yang substance for Heshanggong and related cultivation traditions in the Han helps establish continuity with inner alchemy. Douglas Wile asserts that “philosophical” Daoism’s emphasis on yin (wuwei, softness, weakness, the feminine) flips to the alchemical obsession with pure yang and “religious”
Daoism’s emphasis on spirit (yang) over denser substance (yin). Instead, it seems that yang substance is always valued along with yin mode though, the exact emphasis of this shifts in different traditions. Douglas Wile, Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), 28.
of these three explains their superiority to the particular components of the self: yin components like bones, flesh, and emotion. The tension between cultivating the universal to overcome the weakness of the individualized unveils how Heshanggong both values the coexistence of yin and yang, and retains a great preference for yang substances.
Following from this preference is the ideal of pure yang substance. Because of this, at the highest level these three substances become equivalent, indicated by terms like jingshen (essential spirit), jingqi (essential qi), heqi/yuan qi /
(harmonious/original qi). Such terms refer to the primordial substance, the most refined type of substance, which is the yang that first emerged from the yin mode of the Dao. It is commonly referred to as virtue (de ).
Heqi, “harmonious qi,” provides an intriguing insight into the tensions between that extreme preference for yang and the ideal of balance in Heshanggong. Heqi is cosmically identified with humanity as the unity, and thus the harmony, of Heaven and Earth (chap. 42). Yet, humanity is not universally filled with “harmonious qi,” as seen in chapter 1:
Those who gain the centered, harmonious, and clear become worthies and Sages;
those who gain the blundering, confused, and sullied become greedy and licentious.
Here the superior types of humanity have qi that are more harmonious, and
simultaneously clear rather than, sullied. Clarity is a quality of yang substance contrasted with the sullied nature of yin. How can harmonious qi, normally read as an admixture of yang and yin, be equated with yang? This is the crux of the matter.
Returning to chapter 42 is clarifying: