Cantong Qi - Taoism

Taoism

"Superior Virtue", "Inferior Virtue". A passage of the Cantong qi states:

上德無為、不以察求、下德為之、其用不休。 Superior virtue has no doing:
it does not use examining and seeking.
Inferior virtue does:
its operation does not rest.

These verses are directly based on a passage of the Daode jing (sec. 38):

Superior virtue has no doing:
there is nothing whereby it does.
Inferior virtue does:
there is something whereby it does.

In both the Daode jing and the Cantong qi, the subject of these verses is the distinction between non-doing (wuwei) and doing (youwei), referred to as the ways of "superior virtue" (shangde 上德) and "inferior virtue" (xiade 下德), respectively.

In the way of "superior virtue", the state prior to the separation of the One into the two is spontaneously attained. The distinction between "one" and "two" does not even arise, and the unity of the precelestial and the postcelestial domains is immediately realized. There is no need to seek the One Breath, and therefore no support is necessary to find it. This is the way of the True Man (zhenren).

"Inferior virtue", instead, focuses on seeking; its unceasing search of the One Breath needs supports, and the postcelestial domain is "used" to find the precelestial state hidden within it. This is the way of alchemy. Performing a practice—either "internal" or "external"—is a form of "doing": the alchemical process is conducted in order to attain the realized state. Its purpose is to prepare one to enter the state of "non doing," and is fulfilled only when this happens. This process—which is gradual, and differs in this respect from immediate realization, the prerogative of "superior virtue"—is at the core of alchemy, in all of its forms.

Criticism of Other Practices. The Cantong qi devotes much attention to practices deemed to be inadequate for true realization. These practices are of two kinds. The first consists of non-alchemical practices, including breathing, meditation on the inner gods, sexual practices, and worship of spirits and minor deities:

是非歷臟法、內觀有所思、履行步斗宿、六甲以日辰、陰道厭九一、濁亂弄元胞、食氣鳴腸胃、吐正吸外邪。 This is not the method of passing through the viscera,
of inner contemplation and having a point of concentration;
of treading the Dipper and pacing the asterisms,
using the six jia as markers of time;
of sating yourself with the nine-and-one in the Way of Yin,
meddling and tampering with the original womb;
of ingesting breath till it chirps in your stomach,
exhaling the pure and inhaling the evil without.

All these practices and methods were current during the Later Han period and the Six Dynasties (1st-6th centuries CE). The second kind of criticism is addressed to alchemical practices that are not based on the principle of "being of the same kind" (or "category," tonglei 同類). Only Lead and Mercury, according to the Cantong qi, are of the "same kind" as Qian and Kun, and can represent and enable their conjunction.