(, "embryonic breathing" or "embryonic respiration") refers to Daoist meditation and Inner Alchemy methods, the principle of which is to breathe like an embryo or fetus in the womb, without using nose or mouth. Techniques developed for embryonic breathing include , , , and .
In the history of Daoism, Tang dynasty (618-907) Daoist Internal Alchemists fundamentally changed the nature and understanding of embryonic breathing from the ancient theory of to the new theory of . Instead of inhaling and retaining air, adepts would circulate and remold visceral energy, which was believed to recreate the received at birth and gradually depleted during human life. was associated with the , which was originally a Chinese Buddhist concept that Tang Daoists developed into a complex process of symbolic pregnancy giving birth to a spiritually perfected doppelganger of oneself.
() is a linguistic compound of two common Chinese words:
Chinese can ambiguously be translated as English embryo, fetus, or womb. The Chinese lexicon differentiates this gestational semantic field with words such as , , , , and .
Chinese () has various English translations.
Although these translations consistently use embryonic rather than fetal, a newly developing human is typically referred to as an embryo until the ninth week after conception, and subsequently referred to as a fetus.
Catherine Despeux explains how "womb respiration" or "womb breathing" can alternately translate , which refers to "a manner of respiration that does not involve the nose or the mouth but rather the pores of the skin." When adepts are said to "breathe like an embryo", this expression may also denote the sensation of "something expanding and contracting, or 'breathing' somewhere inside their bodies". And if the term is read as "womb" or "matrix," then takes on the sense of "womb respiration." This introspective sensation of expansion and contraction attributed to a breathing embryo is firmly situated in the lower or lower abdomen, where the womb is located.
In Daoist textual terminology, one and one comprise one âÂÂcompare the common word . Generally speaking, the air was to be inhaled through the nose, retained as long as possible with the technique, and then exhaled through the mouth. This presents an "obvious parallel with the conviction that there was vitality in certain secretions of the body so that all losses of them should be avoided."
Kristofer Schipper notes that, "embryonic breathing is not a late development in the breathing exercises, but has always existed under different names". As Daoist adepts began to practice embryonic breathing, "things got to be horribly varied and complicated", they developed myriad, and sometimes contradictory, techniques such as the "holding of breath, slowing of breathing, swallowing of air, swallowing of saliva, mental guiding of , and inner visualization of internal organs, colored or deities."
=== === The origins of the term embryonic breathing go back at least to the early centuries of the Common Era. The Book of the Later Han, which was compiled in the 5th-century from late Han dynasty (202 BCE â 220 CE) sources, may be the earliest extant reference to and the uncommon cognate . This historical text's biography of the ("esoteric master") Wang Zhen (, fl. c. 200) says that he looked under fifty years old when he was over a hundred. It records that Wang and He Mengjie () were both from Shangdang (modern-day south and east Shanxi Province). Wang Zhen practiced "embryonic breathing , 'embryonic eating ,' subsistence on his own saliva , and incessant bedchamber arts"; while He Mengjie had the "capacity to go without eating and shut up his breath ." From this description of Wang Zhen, Eskildsen says, "it would appear as though the embryonic breathing method was perhaps not actually a breathing technique but rather a method of swallowing saliva. However, it could be that the swallowing technique described here constitutes only 'embryonic eating,' and that there was an accompanying breathing technique that constituted embryonic breathing but is not described." Li Xian's c. 675 commentary to the Book of Later Han notes, "To practice breath holding and gulping it down is called , to practice coughing up saliva and swallowing it is called ."
Both "embryonic fluid" () and "pure water of the jade lake" () refer to saliva, which is called the "water of life" and is supposed to prolong life. The Han people already practiced the method of swallowing saliva to improve the physique and nurture life.
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The Daoist scholar Ge Hong's 318 CE ("Master Who Embraces Simplicity") is described as "one of the major sources on breath control practices in pre-Tang China". is mentioned in three of the esoteric . Chapter 19 ("A Taoist Library") is a bibliography that mentions a , which is the name of the possibly related received text (discussed below).
Chapter 3 ("Rejoinder to Popular Conceptions") remarks that since a Daoist adept knows "the great age attained by tortoises and cranes, he imitates their calisthenics so as to augment his own life span", and quotes a poem: "He who swallows Cinnabar and keeps the One / Will only finish in Heaven / He who makes the Essence return and practises Embryonic Respiration / Will have longevity unlimited".
In Chapter 8 ("Resolving Hesitations"), Ge Hong praises embryonic breathing and tells an underwater breath-holding anecdote about his granduncle Ge Xuan (164âÂÂ244), who was prominent in early Daoism and the first recipient of the Lingbao sacred scriptures. Ge Hong seems to have understood as the culmination of long-term daily practice of "pneuma circulation". First, he describes as a potent panacea and gives a detailed description of timing breath-holding by counting heartbeats. <blockquote>By practising the circulation of the one can cure the hundred diseases, one can walk through the midst of plagues and epidemics, one can ward off snakes and tigers, stop bleeding from wounds, stay under water or walk across it, free oneself from hunger and thirst, and protract one's years. The most important thing is simply to (know how to) breathe like an embryo . He who can breathe like a foetus will respire as if still in the womb , without using nose or mouth; thus will the Tao be achieved. When one first begins to learn how to circulate the , one must inhale through the nose and then close up that breath. While it is thus hidden within, one counts up to 120 heart-beats , and then exhales it (gently) through the mouth. Neither during exhalation nor inhalation should one hear with one's ears the sound of the breathing, and one should make sure that more goes in than comes out. A wild goose feather may be placed in front of the nose and mouth, and during exhalation this should not show any movement. After continual practice one may very gradually increase the number of heart-beats (during which the breath is held) to as much as 1000 , and when this proficiency is reached, an old man will be able to grow younger daily, returning to youth by one day every day. </blockquote> Compare Ware's translation, "The most important part of it is simply to breathe like a fetus. He who succeeds in doing this will do his breathing as though in the womb, without using nose or mouth, and for him the divine Process has been achieved." Second, in a context about how few people can successfully practice the art of breath circulation, Ge again mentions his granduncle. "My ancestral uncle , whenever he was overcome by wine in the heat of the summer would incontinently retire to the bottom of a deep pool and stay there till the eveningâÂÂthis was because he could retain his breath and respire like a foetus in the womb ." The fetal condition "was considered worth reverting to because doing so was thought to constitute a reversal of the aging process and a restoration to the condition that existed when your vital forces had not yet begun to be expended."
also occurs in one of the exoteric : "It is like 'embryonic-breathing-in-which-the-Mystery-is-preserved' . In deep breathing we throw out the old and take in the new, retaining the vista and looking inwards." The translator Sailey interpreted the practice of "breathing as in the embryo, ⦠a kind of very deep breathing with both the nose and the mouth enabling one to achieve a state analogous to that of a foetus in a womb."
====== In addition to the , Ge Hong wrote the c. 4th-century (with later additions) (Biographies of Divine Transcendents), which mentions in four hagiographies.
Two repeat the above phrase . The Wang Zhen () hagiography quotes the description of his "embryonic breathing, 'embryonic eating', subsistence on his own saliva". The Ji Liao () or Ji Zixun () entry has two consecutive sentences, where Campany compared sources and omitted the first "Because he proclaimed methods of embryonic breathing, embryonic eating, stopping aging, and turning white hair black again" and translated the second "In over two hundred years his countenance did not age."
The other two hagiographies mention in the phrase . The entry for Huang Jing () records that "he is said to have circulated pneumas, abstained from grains, subsisted on his saliva, practiced embryonic breathing and interior vision" . The hagiography for Huang Hua () or Jiuling zi () says "He obtained Ways of turning back the years, banishing aging, and fetal breathing ".
=== === The c. 4th-5th century CE ("Classic of the Great Peace") biography of the Daoist Zhou Yishan () says: "Every morning after dawn, when the sun was rising, he stood up straight facing due east, and having rinsed out his mouth, swallowed (much) saliva, then he absorbed the more than a hundred times. This being done he turned towards the sun and saluted it twice. And every morning he repeated these procedures." The air "must be inhaled slowly through the nose, held for as long as possible, and finally exhaled through the mouth".
The also ranks the importance of strict dieting for adepts practicing embryonic respiration, "In the first place feed upon airy breath ; in the second place feed upon drugs; in the third place eat little." The best diets, thus, were those that dispensed with all solid food; either feeding upon saliva, or upon air. The first method was called "Embryonic Nourishment" () with a name paralleling "Embryonic Respiration" (). The second was called "Feeding upon Breath" ( or ) or "Feeding by Respiration" ().
Although the says that Ge Xuan could hold his breath underwater all afternoon, even allowing for typical hagiographic exaggeration, attempting extreme could be dangerous for embryonic respiration practitioners. The current world record for static apnea (without prior breathing of 100% oxygen) is 11 minutes and 35 seconds (Stéphane Mifsud, 8 June 2009).
According to the French sinologist Henri Maspero, Daoists believed that learning to hold one's breath for a long time extends the opportunity to feed upon it. Commenting on the legend that Liu Gen () supposedly held his breath for three days before becoming a transcendent, "But what a long effort it takes to attain such mastery! The practise of 'holding the breath in' is painful; it brings on all sorts of physiological difficulties, which the Adept has to surmount little by little." Sometimes when an adept holds their breath for too long, "beads of sweat form and the head and feet become heated: this is because the breath is passing through them", and at other times from the strain of "holding the breath firmly, after some time, the belly aches." In traditional Chinese beliefs, respiration is closely associated with digestion and circulation. An adept who practices Embryonic Respiration "in a perfect fashion has no need for ordinary food" because they have "realized the Taoist ideal of 'Feeding upon Breath'" ( or ). Feeding upon Breath could never have been more than a temporary diet; "for if it had been followed too long, deathâÂÂor, if one wishes to express it in the Taoist way, the Liberation of the CorpseâÂÂwould have occurred so regularly with the beginning of this practice that it would make the Adepts think again, and cause them to abandon so dangerous a procedure."
Daoist technical terms for breath-holding used the word ; a "small" was 12 respiratory cycle suppressions , and a "large" was 120 . Joseph Needham imagines that "serious and painful effort was required", and quotes Sun Simiao's c. 652 : "'At the end of 300 respiratory cycles [~ 15 minutes], the ears have no hearing left, the eyes see no more, the mind can no longer think; then one must stop holding the breath."
The historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham describes the many side effects of and hypothesizes why early adepts eventually abandoned it. This breath-holding technique produced considerable hypoxemia (insufficient oxygen in the blood) with its strange effects, "buzzing in the ears, vertigo, perspiration, sensations of heat and formication in the extremities, fainting and headache." Furthermore, if Daoist breath-holding was practiced in temples on high mountains, it could result in chronic mountain sickness, with symptoms of "headache, dizziness, tinnitus, breathlessness, palpitations, sleep disturbance, fatigue, confusion, cyanosis, and notably loss of appetite." This could have made the delimited diet of the recluses easier to bear, "contributing as it did in its turn to the reduction of cardiac strain and heightened awareness and well-being consequent on loss of all excess body-weight". <blockquote>Perhaps what happened was that the pre-ang idea of the circulation of the gradually came to be more emphasized at the expense of the breath-holdingâÂÂwhich might indeed have led to certain accidents just as the metallic elixirs didâÂÂand thus the breathing became secondary to an imaginative voluntary circulation of the of the internal organs, with the idea that the more this was done the more the of primary vitality would be re-formed. This was a significant conceptual expansion, for the "essences" of all the organs were now emphasized as valuable, not only the saliva (from the lungs) and the semen (from the reins); and it did embody the truth that all the organs contribute their products to the blood-stream. This inner round, it was thought, corresponded with the respiratory cycle though not part of it; when the external came upwards to be exhaled, the internal also came up from the lowest region of vital heat , and when the air went down into the lungs in inspiration so also the internal pursued a downward path. The expression is now increasingly supplemented by the phrase , a more specific term for swallowing; this was one process and the circulation was another. </blockquote>
In what Joseph Needham called "an important turning-point" in the history of embryonic breathing, Henri Maspero revealed that "a great change which came over respiratory technology (if we might so call it)" towards the middle of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Daoist priests realized that breath circulation was not specifically Daoist, since the practice was common in traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese Buddhism."They discovered then that the men of old had interpreted the books wrongly, and that Embryonic Respiration was something else". Instead of traditional Daoist adepts inhaling and circulating the , Tang adepts would meditatively visualize manipulating and reshaping the , attempting to recreate their received at birth and gradually used up in the course of life, which may be conserved but never replenished.
Xue Yannian (, 1252-1313) quotes the c. 664 about the new Tang theory of two breaths. The external breath, which when "dispersed, is like a cloud of smoke and, gathered together, is like hair, which is seen on the skin, which has the five colors, green, red, yellow, white, and black." The internal breath of a person "comes from the Cinnabar Field, his breathing is deep; what it nourishes is distant, what it emits is thick. In ordinary people, it "rises from the liver and the diaphragm: they breathe like monkeys and puff like rats."
The c. 745 defines the technique: "One must carefully pull the breath while inspiring and expiring so that the Original Breath () does not exit the body. Thus, the outer and inner breaths do not mix and one achieves embryonic breathing." According to the "the embryo is formed within the stored breath, and breathing occurs from within the embryo."
The Daoist and Buddhist literature on embryonic breathing expanded during the Tang and the early Song dynasty (960âÂÂ1279) periods. The following example texts dealing with are limited to major ones with reliable English translations.
=== === The , a.k.a. , is a brief text of 88 characters that dates from circa 755. The above lists a book titled , but it is not mentioned in the bibliographic section of the 636 Book of Sui. <blockquote>The womb is formed from within the subdued . The breathes from the inside of where there is a womb. When enters the body, you live because of this. When the spirit leaves the body, you die because of this. If you know the spirit and , you can live long. Firmly guard the empty nothingness and thereby nurture your spirit and . When the spirit goes, the goes. When the spirit stays, the stays. If you want to live long, spirit and must concentrate on one another. If your mind does not give rise to thoughts, it will not come and go. Not leaving and entering, it naturally constantly stays. To diligently practice this is the true road. </blockquote> Compare Frederic H. Balfour's early English translation: "The Embryo is formed by the concretion of concealed Breath; and the Embryo being brought into existence, the Breath begins to move in Respiration. The entrance of Breath into the body is Life; the departure of the Spirit from the external form is Death."
====== The Tang is found in three versions of the Daoist Canon, two of which are accompanied by a commentary, and one attributes the text to Huanzhen Xiansheng (, late 9th century?). The explains that practicing Embryonic Breathing will enable one to keep the Primordial Qi, have gods enter the body, and thus to attain immortality. For instance, this commentary explains the first sentence. <blockquote>The sea of breath lies three inches below the navel. It is also (called) the lower (the elixir field.) It is also (called) the dark female . People usually say that is the mouth and the nose. That is wrong. The mouth and the nose are the entering and exiting doors for . The word means (also) water, and the word means mother. It is known in the world that the Yin and Yang breaths meet and coagulate, (originating) from a (father's) water (sperm) and a mother. It becomes an embryo within three months. The form is completed in ten months and has become a human being. Those who are practicing the nourishing way , store the breath beneath the navel and keep their soul inside their body. Soul and breath combine together and produce the mysterious embryo. Once the mysterious embryo is conceived, it will produce a body by itself. This is the inner elixir and the way of nondeath. </blockquote>
=== === The Tang explains breathing techniques, proper diet, avoiding foods, and self-cultivation. It begins: <blockquote>BLOCKING THE BREATH. If you suddenly have a disease that does not involve an injury, gather up your mind and go to a room where you can be at ease. Take off your clothes and lie down on your back on the bed and hold your fists tight. Tap your teeth (often) and burn incense. After you have swallowed 36 swallowings (and done the corresponding blockings) of the breath, the breath in the elixir field will exceed what is normally there. Use your mind to guide it to where you feel the ailment. That is the best way. When perspiration appears, it is the sign to stop. Do not do it in excess so you may reap the best benefits. </blockquote> This brief text about absorption of discusses dietetics, sexual hygiene, and the otherwise-unknown exercises to be practiced in times of illness.
=== === The preceded the similarly titled below. The quotes the in entirety. It describes the method as equivalent with absorbing the Inner Breath through holding the breath and swallowing saliva seven times.
The beginning echoes the opening lines of the . "Generally speaking, the womb is formed from within the . The is produced from the breathing of the womb. The womb gets completed from within the . This is glossed as, "If the is pure, it will congeal and bind together. If the is turbid, it will scatter and exit". Thus, whether the will either stay inside to form a womb or exit the body, is contingent upon the purity or turbidity of the itself, which the text does not explain.
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The Daoist Shangqing School patriarch Sima Chengzhen (, 647-735) composed the 730 , which presented integrated outlines of health practices, with both traditional Chinese physical techniques and the Buddhist-inspired practice of , as preliminaries for attaining and realizing the Dao.
The text is divided into nine sections (, describing the consecutive steps toward attaining purification and longevity. Some editions only have the first two.
The second section is the longest one and of central importance to embryonic breathing. Adepts begin by absorbing the above , which enables one to gradually abstain from eating grains. They then ingest by visualizing the first rays of the rising sun, guide it through the body and viscera, until they can permanently "retain the ". Sima Chengzhen points out that when one begins abstaining from foods and survives only by ingesting breath (and repeats this warning for taking drugs), the immediate effect will be undergoing a phase of weakening and decay, but eventually strength returns all illnesses vanish. Only after nine years of further practice will an adept rightfully be called a ("Realized One; Perfected Person").
=== === The text attributes embryonic breathing methods to divinities like Laozi and Lishan Laomu; to semilegendary characters such as Bodhidharma, Zhang Guolao, Guiguzi, and Liu Haichan; to historical characters like Ge Hong and Chen Tuan; and to female adepts like He Xiangu.
=== === The preface to the Tang-era abundantly explains the central role of emulating the fetus, navel, and belly. <blockquote>That which is in the womb is called foetus, that which has been born is called child. As long as the foetus is in the abdomen of the mother, its mouth is filled with a kind of mud , and respiration does not penetrate there; it is through the navel (and the umbilical cord) that it receives (lit. "swallows") the , and the nourishment for its bodily form. Thus it is that it arrives at its completion. Hence we know that the umbilicus is the 'gate of destiny' . Most babies, if they are alive at birth, fail for a short time to breathe in (the external air), but when the umbilical cord near the belly, is dipped into warm water three to five times, the infant 'resuscitates' (and breathes). So indeed we know that the umbilicus is the 'gate of destiny', no mistake about it. All those who wish to practise the Tao of reversion and to attain embryonic respiration must first know the source and origin of this, then they can do it themselves, breathing like the foetus in the mother's abdomen. Hence the name (of the technique). It is in reverting to the origin and regenerating the primary vitalities that old age can be chased away, and that one can return to the state of the foetus. Truly there is a point in this (exercise). Softly, gently, without holding the breath, that is the way to bring about the germination of the Tao of immortality. </blockquote> This all fitted together very reasonably. Understanding that the mammalian embryo "breathes" through the placenta and the maternal circulation as well as gaining its nourishment, its food materials, through the same route, was an "excellent piece of early biological observation, as also the awareness of the occlusion of the foetal intestinal tract by the meconium". Adepts who would recreate in themselves into the youthful perfection of the embryonic tissues must also cease mouth breathing. "The subsequent insistence on the swallowing of saliva was also reasonable, as it could help to re-create the aquatic environment of the mammalian foetus".
=== === Li Fengshi's () late 8th-century stresses the importance of oral tradition. <blockquote>The most important techniques of Taoism are not to be found in the books but rather in the instructions orally transmitted. The procedures of absorbing the described in the two Manuals of the Yellow Courts, with those called the "five ya " and the "six mou" all have to do only with the external (of the air). But the [] of the external world is hard and powerful; it is not something coming from the interior (of the body), and so no benefit is to be gained by absorbing it. As for the internal , that indeed is what can be called (the breath of) "embryonic respiration" ; it exists naturally within (the body), it is not something which one has to go outside to borrow. But if one does not obtain the personal explanations of an enlightened teacher, all one's efforts will be but labour and sorrow, and one will never succeed in one's objective. </blockquote> The contents of this work can be grouped under three headings: respiratory practices, dietary regimens and general recommendations, and the theory of Embryonic Breathing.
=== === According to the : <blockquote>There were two ways of making it circulate . Concentrating the will to direct it to a particular place, such as the brain, or the site of some local malady, was termed . Visualising its flow in thought was "inner vision" , differentiated (not very convincingly to us) from ordinary imagination. "Closing one's eyes, one has an inner vision of the five viscera, one can clearly distinguish them, one knows the place of eachâ¦" </blockquote>
Based on texts like this, Needham proposes that "anatomical demonstrations may have taken place from time to time in the Taoist temples, and of course all possible parts of the domesticated mammals were eaten, so that there could have been much familiarity with their visceral and vascular system." The passive method of letting the take its normal course in circulating, was called . "Here the analogy with protochemical and metallurgical alchemy was close, as always when the word appears, and the regions of vital heat doubtless represented the action of the fire upon metals and minerals." Thus, the ancient retention of the breath was not entirely given up, but incorporated into the whole system of employing .
practices continue in modern times. Hsuan Hua (1918-1995), a Chinese monk of Chan Buddhism taught that the external breathing reaches a state of stillness in correct meditation: <blockquote>A practitioner with sufficient skill does not breathe externally. That external breathing has stopped, but the internal breathing functions. With internal breathing there is no exhalation through the nose or mouth, but all pores on the body are breathing. A person who is breathing internally appears to be dead, but actually he has not died. He does not breathe externally, but the internal breathing has come alive. </blockquote>
Sinologists have varyingly interpreted the principles behind embryonic breathing practices.
Mircea Eliade said Chinese embryonic respiration was not like Indian yogic , "an exercise preliminary to meditation, nor an auxiliary technique, but sufficed in itself to set in motion and bring to completion a 'mystical physiology'."
According to Jay Sailey, "The philosophical basis of the practice is simple enough: since while a man breathes he is alive, and when he stops breathing his life comes to an end, it is reasoned that is one could increase his intake of air and limit its outgo, then he could increase his lifespan."
Joseph Needham proposes that embryonic breathing techniques likely began with the observation that air was necessary for life, "and perhaps the idea that the more closely one could hug it to oneself the more it would contribute to lifeâÂÂthought of in our terms, it was as if by long retention of the inhaled air one could store an infinite abundance of oxygen. Air was clearly a highly vivifying agent for the mortal bodyâÂÂtherefore (by ancient logic) it followed that if only one knew what to do with it the body could be made immortal. After all, before modern physiology, this was not so illogical." He also says this "purposive" apnea (temporary cessation of breathing) was "accompanied by an interesting theory" of "embryonic respiration". However, the Daoist embryonic respiration system involved a physiological fallacy, "no retention of the air could compensate for the absence of a placenta in the adult". This somewhat parallels the Daoist sexual practice of , just as the semen was afterwards voided from the bladder by retrograde ejaculation and had no way to ascend to the brain such as the early Daoist physiologists imagined. Nevertheless, the mistaken theory persisted for centuries, and early commentators described "reducing respiration to its utmost softness and imperceptibility". Needham concluded that "The circulation-mindedness of traditional Chinese physiological thought, so much in advance of the rest of the world, however archaic in form" is always worth emphasizing."