- Lesser Mandala of Heaven: A Taoist Secret to Cultivating Personal Power
- Greater Mandala of Heaven: Advanced Introduction to Taoist Alchemy
This is Part II of what we started in Part I on the Lesser Mandala of Heaven. Part II covers the Greater Mandala of Heaven, and in doing so, provides an advanced introduction to Taoist alchemy.
We are continuing from Part I, so I’ll presume you’re already familiar with what we covered there. If you haven’t watched that video lecture “A Taoist Secret to Cultivating Personal Power: Inner Alchemy Basics,” please do before proceeding.
In this introduction, I want to explore the inner logic that underlies one of the world’s most sophisticated (in my opinion) systems of spiritual cultivation. I intend for this intro to be a deep-dive into the heart of Taoist alchemy by delineating the Greater Mandala of Heaven.
The ultimate goal of Taoist alchemy is to transform the finite into the infinite, matter into spirit, and limitation into transcendence. We cover this ground by first understanding the distinction made between inner alchemy and outer alchemy.
Philosophically, this is a system and tradition that presents a compelling perspective on how Change happens.
Historical Textual References
In addition to the two texts mentioned in Part I, these are some of the oft-cited sources of insight on the Greater Mandala of Heaven 大周天. The titles are hyperlinked to the full texts over at ctext.org (the Chinese Text Project). While CTP as a site has its limitations, it’s one of the best free, accessible, and online databases for primary sources of pre-modern Chinese texts, so it’s the most user-friendly for folks like you and me.
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