14. "Dissolving the lower soul" means detachment from the feeling of
physical existence. As the text subsequently makes clear, there is no real
lower soul that is in substance
1.
different from the higher soul. They are both aspects of one spirit,
artificially alienated by confusion. When energy is freed from obsessive
clinging to the body or lower soul, it can be used to restore the original
spirit to completeness.
15. Turning the light around, or directing attention toward the source of
awareness, counteracts the tendency to dwell on objects or modifications of
consciousness. Here this is called "dissolving darkness and controlling the
lower soul."
Taoists use a symbol from the I Ching known as heaven or the creative
to represent what Chan Buddhists call the original face or the mind
ground. When the text says that other than turning the light around
there is no special exercise for restoring this primal wholeness, it
confirms that the practice being taught is that of Northern Taoism as
influenced by Chan Buddhism, and not the physiological energetics of
Southern Taoism as influenced by Tantric Buddhism.
16. The term embryo of sagehood or embryonic enlightenment is very
common in classical Chan Buddhist texts of the Tang and Sung dynasties. It
