#internal alchemy

This is my new article analyzing a poem that reveals details about Zhu Bajie's past life as a human and rise to godhood via internal alchemy. It also discusses details about his current life prior to the quest to India.

(2 weeks after the mercury poisoning incident)

Konata (walking into the classroom with a shit-eating grin): “What’s up, nerds? Bet you thought I was dead.”

Kagami (arms crossed): “I hoped you had learned a lesson. But considering that smug look, I see I was wrong.”

Miyuki (concerned): “Konata, are you truly feeling better? You were in critical condition…”

Konata (shrugging): “Better than ever! My body has adapted to the philosophik mercury. I think I’m ascending to the next stage of alchemic evolution.”

Kagami: “You poisoned yourself.”

Konata: “Purified myself.”

Kagami: “The doctors literally said you were ‘the most foolish patient they’ve ever treated.’”

Tsukasa (tilting her head): “But it’s so cool that you’re alive, Kona-chan!”

Konata (nodding sagely): “Right? That means the experiment was a success. My humors have realigned.”

Kagami: “STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR HUMORS.”

Konata: “I bet my blood is so full of secret wisdom right now. I just need to unlock it.”

Miyuki (alarmed): “Please do not attempt to unlock anything in your bloodstream.”

The alchemical body emerges not as a mystical curiosity nor as an esoteric ornament appended to an otherwise secular understanding of embodiment but as the primary site in which desire, praxis, and spiritual power are woven into a single fabric of liberation that refuses the disciplinary regimes of capitalist biopolitics and their insistence that the body is merely a productive instrument, a…

The Book of Master Celestial Seclusion (天隱子) is one of the influential manuals of the Shangqing school, included in the Tang Golden Age corpus. The source is attributed to Sima Chengzhen (at least the preface). Even if this attribution is not perfectly accurate, it is evident that the treatise comes from the same Taoist circle and develops his emblematic method of “Sitting in Oblivion.” Continue…

Civility and martiality from the Taoist point of view are only in an imaginary confrontation. Taoism denies both, since both represent a deviation from primordial naturalness. However, a close examination of scholar sources shows that despite the condemnation of war in the writings of Laozi, classical philosophy considers it justified to resort to weapons if one is guided by…

Star Child - Internal Alchemy (Sonic Meditations)