10
Consolidation and Sealing · 固本 · gu ben
Level 10: The Threshold of the Spirit
Work turns from the energetic body to the spirit.
Description
The literature repeatedly signals a change of category somewhere around here: up to this point the practitioner has been working with qi, and from this point onward with shen. In classical neidan terms this is the transition from the second stage of the work to the third — refining qi into spirit.
Practice
- No method published.
Signs and effects
- Attested as a change of category rather than a new ability.
How it is tested
Unknown.
Obstacles
- The classical warning: the practitioner who reaches here with an unresolved character brings that character with them, magnified.
Sources for this entry
- The Magus of Java — Kosta Danaos, Inner Traditions, 2000. The founding Western text.
- The classical neidan corpus — Zhong-Lü texts, Wuzhen pian, Longmen commentaries, and the wider internal alchemy literature — the actual technical parent of Mo Pai's methods.