The Doctrine of the "Mysterious Female" in Taoism

His bones are weak and his sinews soft, yet his grip is tight.

He knows not the joining of male and female, yet his penis is aroused.

His essence has reached a peak.

He screams the whole day without becoming hoarse; His harmony has reached perfection.

Harmony implies constancy;

Constancy requires insight.

Striving to increase one's life is ominous;

To control the vital breath with one's mind entails force.

Something that grows old while still in its prime is said to be not in accord with the Way;

Not being in accord with the Way leads to an early demise.

Here, an infant (a baby; the text uses Ch 'ih tzu, "red," or "ruddy" infant, i.e., a just newborn child) represents the image of the perfect sage hill of the vital force. An infant in the Tao Te ching is something like an androgyrie who does not know the parting of male and female, and who, because of this, is overflowing with vitality. His energetic essence (ching) does not flow below; it does not change into semen yet, and so it is perfect. Thus, an infant is like the great Tao itself Tao is a source of life, and like an infant also can not be tired, because exhaustion is a result of energetic deficiency. An infant enjoys absolute security; nature is not dangerous to it because he or she is at the center of its forces and powers. We should note the following words: Striving to increase one's life is ominous; To control vital breath with one's mind entails force. Here we can find a direct reference to the relation existing between ideas of obtaining immortality and religious psychopractice. Taoism proclaims that a human being is nothing more than an inseparable psychosomatic unity. So people can obtain inimortality only when their body-microcosm becomes a self-sufficient whole--a self-containing reservoir of the vital energy from one side, and when it realizes its potential, isomorphism with the world-body of the cosmos from another side. One of the most important means on the way to this exalted state is the so-called "regulation of the vital breath" (or "regulation of the pneumata" - hsing ch 'i), that is, a complex of gymnastical and breathing exercises, the aim of which is to obtain mind control over the flowing of the energy streams in the human body. The most important principle of such techniques is often repeated in medieval Taoist writings: "Pneuma (breath, ch'i) is led by will-consciousness (yi)." This means the presence of some volitional enforcement which leads the streams of the vital energy along the channels of the body (analogous to the meridians of acupuncture) in the desirable direction. The Tao Te ching is just one text which clearly formulates this idea in ancient times. Instead of the "volitional impulse" (yi), the Tao Te ching speaks about "mind" or "heart-consciousness" (Hsin), but it is the same idea.

It was thought for a long time that the concept relating the Taoist ideas of immortality and different practices was described only in medieval tests, but recent archeological discoveries in Ch'angsha Mawangtui (Hunan province) demonstrate the profound antiquity of both. Thus, the Mawangtui texts describe numerous respiratory exercises for the "regulation of the Pneumata" (hsing ch 'i) and postures of the Taoist gymnastics (tao yin). Special pictures painted on silk, which were known under the general title, Tao yin t 'u (Schemes of Gymnastics), were even dedicated to such practices. So it may be concluded that these practices were well-known in China in the days when the Tao Te ching is now regarded to have been composed (4-3 B.C., rather than the traditionally accepted period of 6-5 B.C.).The Tao Te ching everywhere prefers the softness and weakness of the infant to the strong hardness of adults. Strictly speaking, a newborn child is the concentration or manifestation of the vital energy. This is quite clearly demonstrated in §76:

Human beings are

soft and supple when alive,

stiff and straight when dead...

Therefore, it is said:

The rigid person is a disciple of death;

The soft, supple, and delicate are lovers of life.

But the theme "infant-sage" cannot be reduced only to the metaphor of the newborn child. Much deeper and more interesting is the image of the nonborn child, which also plays an important role in the teachings of the Tao Te ching. Let us cite a part of §20 of the text: