"If You Call It, It Responds"

 

Practice this word by word,
and it will respond sentence by sentence.

 

These two verses summarize the previous eighty verses. They mean that in the Great Way of the Golden Elixir, "advancing the Fire and withdrawing in response" are the wondrous instructions on seizing creation and transformation. When they are practiced, the whole person becomes like an empty valley that responds to a sound, or like the yangsui mirror that collects Water and the fangzhu mirror that collects Fire. Spirit pervades and Breath responds: could anything happen faster than this? Therefore it says, "practice this word by word, it will respond sentence by sentence." A scripture on the Elixir says:

     Watching, you do not see it, listening, you do not hear it —
     but if you call it, it responds.

Source: Verses quoted from the Ruyao jing (Mirror for Compounding the Medicine) — Commentary by Wang Jie (14th century)

 

Chrome bullet   This page is part of a series on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine and its commentary. See the complete index.