WVMark wrote:Anyone have a good explanation of the waidan and neidan? Or know of sources that explain them? I've been reading through a couple of books by Dr. Yang and it seems like (my personal take on things) waidan isn't really "external" at all but more internal type of training to change the physical body. So, external in that it works with one's physical body changes and not "external" as many argue about when they discuss "internal vs external" martial arts. Anyway, it's just a pervading thought I had when reading through and thought I'd post it here to see what other resources/opinions/discussions would come out.
Mark
Wai: external
Nei: internal
Dan: pill, elixir
From observing nature, ancient people can see materials can transform (ex. oxidation causing metal to rust). So people, east or west, since the earliest days of civilization, pursued alchemy with 2 major goals in mind: 1. turning non-precious metal into gold, 2. immortality. The pursuit of former lead to modern chemistry in the west, the pursuit of later led to invention of dao gong practices in China.
In China, the pursuit of immortality started as an external practice. People followed the "you are what you eat" logic. If your goal is permanence, immutability, then ingest something in nature that is already like that. This meant jade, marble, heavy metal (especially mercury). This practice went on for a really long time, all the way into Tang Dynasty, where many of the greatest poets engaged in the practice. Needless to say, this was a dead end.
At some point people finally realized this, and concluded the answer is not "out there", but inside. That the magical Dan is not something physical, but something intangible, the life essence itself. Traditionally people believe the body possess three treasures, jing, qi, and shen. Over the next three dynasties, this practice developed into full maturity (sometimes around early Ming Dynasty). This practice is called Dao Gong. What we today call qi gong is but a foundation skill (how to circulate and manipulate qi) within that overall practice. The basic idea is to cultivate jing into qi, and then transform qi into shen (the ultimate animating force of life).
Since we're talking about immortality here, all of this are highly guarded secrets. So much so that in many lineages, in each generation the secret is passed from teacher to one disciple only. For the longest time little was written down. And to further guard the secret, all the terminologies used in Dao Gong practice are borrowed directly from traditional alchemy. Hence names like Dan, Dan Tian (field where dan is cultivated), cauldron, high heat, gentle heat, mercury, etc. Only people in the know would have any idea where those correspond to inside the body. For these reasons, the practice of traditional alchemy is call Wai Dan Gong (external dan practice), the new Dao Gong practice is called Nei Dan Gong (internal dan practice).
Daoists are probably unique amongst all religions in that they regard mind and body equally important. In most religions internal (mind, spirit) is high level, and external/physical is low level. Neverless, for the big martial art groups, no one wants to admit they are external only, lacking internal practices.
A good example of this mindset is how people look at American Football - yes, for a short time you look like you're super human, but very soon that's over and your life expectancy is like half of average people. Chinese people would therefore consider such life-shortening practice to be low level. This is why you see groups with great fighting reputations like Tongbei incorporating large sets of qigong practices as part of their formal curriculum. Those practices have little or no connection with the distinctive fighting skills of those groups.
For internal martial art however, the interesting thing is that there is a fundamental compatibility and integration between dao gong practices and the martial art skills. That is, just by practicing the skills, you get many of the benefits of dao gong practices at the same time.
However that is not to say internal martial art = nei dan. It's more like this: if you practice tennis at a competitive level, you will get high level cardiovascular benefits. But ultimately tennis is not just about that, it has all these other things that is ultimately just about winning the point. If you just want cardiovascular benefits, a more focused, pure practice like running or swimming will get you the results you're looking for much quicker.