Small Reversion Elixir

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Inner Alchemy
Terms of Inner Alchemy
Mind , Spiritual Nature and Bodily Life
Essential Matter , Vital Breath and Spirit
Great Reversion Elixir
Small Reversion Elixir
Integrated Cultivation of Spiritual Nature and Bodily Life
Three Flowers Condensing onto the Head
Transporting through the Three Vehicles
Meeting of the Three Parts
Refining the Mind through the Nine Cauldrons
Intercourse of Dragon and Tiger
Refinement of Essential Matter into Vital Breath
Refinement of Vital Breath into Spirit
Refinement of Spirit Back to Emptiness

Refinement of Emptiness into Dao
Reversing Kan with Li
Centering Merits When Yin And Yang Join
The Five Vital Breaths Oriented to the Origin
Rebirth from the Original Fetus and Bones
Basic Cultivation
Self-Refinement
Harmonizing the Breath
Obtaining the Elixir Drug
Collecting Elixir Drugs
Fire Phases
To Increase Fire
To Reduce Fire
To Nourish in Warmth
Bathing
Unfixed Zi Phase
River Chariot
Mysterious Pearls
Passages and Cavities
Cosmic Orbit
Feminine Alchemy
Cutting the Red Dragon
Refining the Form through the Supreme Yin
Body of Original Chastity

In parallel with the Great Reversion Elixir ( 大還丹 Xiaohuan Dan ), the Small Reversion Elixir was also popularly used in books on Inner Alchemy ( 內丹 Neidan ). In these books, it used to stand for the mixture of Kidney Water ( 腎水 Shenshui ) and Mind Fire ( 心火 Xinhuo ), or the mating between Yin ( 陰 Yin ) and Yang ( 陽 Yang ), in another term. According to the Trigram Figures from the Book of Changes ( 易 Yi ), one Hexagrammatic Line standing for Yang ought to be taken from Kan, and one Hexagrammatic Line standing for Yin added to Li. In this way, the Trigram Figures of Kan and Li return to those of Qian and Kun, namely, a circle from the Posterior Heaven to the Anterior Heaven, or a “return” in another term. Since the “return” in this case pointed to a reversion to the original state, the character “small” was used. Liu Yingming, a famous Daoist scholar in the Qing dynasty, likened it to “resuming all stuffs of the old home, and reclaiming its original simplicity.” He suggested that the Return to Original Simplicity constituted the most important aspect of cultivation. Without it, other refinement and cultivation were out of question. In this sense, the Small Reversion Elixir constitutes the fundamental element in a bid to extend human life.