Purification of the Vessel · 煉形 · lian xing

Level 30: Foetal Breathing

Tai xi — breathing that no longer requires the lungs.

reconstructed Status Drawn from classical neidan by this archive, to show the shape of the band. Time in grade Unfixed. This is the passage the classical sources describe as long, undramatic and impossible to hurry, and the one Mo Pai's own accounts also treat as the longest. Body map The dan tien and the gates

Description

Tai xi — breathing that no longer requires the lungs. One of the oldest claims in Chinese religion and among the least verified.

This entry is a reconstruction. Mo Pai publishes no curriculum for level 30, so what appears above is drawn from the classical stage this band corresponds to — the body-refining register of lian qi hua shen — the "washing" and "changing" literature — and from the shape the Mo Pai literature implies for the "Purification of the Vessel" band. It is a map of the territory that tradition describes, written by this archive and not taken from the lineage.

Practice

Reconstructed. Tai xi, foetal breathing, is described from the Han onward as respiration so slight it no longer functions as breathing — the practitioner said to draw on the breath of the womb rather than the air. Ge Hong gives instructions for it in the Baopuzi, including the counting drill by which a practitioner is supposed to extend the interval.

Signs and effects

One of the oldest claims in Chinese religion and among the least verified.

How it is tested

Not published. Teacher-verified, as at every level below — and unverifiable here in a second sense, since the classical account below is not Mo Pai's.

Obstacles

Breath retention, which is what an impatient practitioner substitutes for it. The classical texts describe the slowing as something that arrives; a held breath is a Valsalva manoeuvre, and Safety covers what that does.

Sources for this entry

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.
The Zhong-Lü corpus — The Tang–Song material attributed to Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin: the first systematic step-by-step internal method, and the source of the ten months, the three years and the nine years.
The Baopuzi and the early alchemical record — Ge Hong, c. 320 CE, and the Great Clarity scriptures after him: the fullest early accounts of what Chinese alchemists actually did, before the work turned inward.
Editorial reconstruction — Written by this archive from the classical material, where the lineage sources do not publish a curriculum.