Reproduced from:
Fabrizio Pregadio, Awakening to Reality: A Taoist Classic of Internal Alchemy
Golden Elixir Press
Three, Five, One —
all is in these three words;
but truly rare are those who understand them
in past and present times.
East is 3, South is 2,
together they make 5;
North is 1, West is 4,
they are the same.
Wu and jiThe Yang and Yin aspects of the central agent Soil, respectively. dwell on their own,
their birth number is 5;
when the three familiesThe five agents are arranged into three sets ("families") that share a numerical value of 5:
① The first set is made of Water (1) and Metal (4)
② The second set is made of Fire (2) and Wood (3)
③ The third set only consists of Soil (5)
The “five” are first reduced to “three” by reintegrating Wood into Fire and Metal into Water. The “three” are then reduced to “one” by conjoining Fire and Water through the mediation of Soil.
See this table for some of the main correspondences in Neidan. see one another,
the Infant coalesces.
The Infant is the One
holding True Breath;
in ten months the embryo is complete —
this is the foundation for entering sainthood.
This page is part of a series on the Awakening to Reality. See the complete index.
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