Lower vehicle path (Taoism)

This is a method of comfort and bliss and includes over 100 operations. It will nurture life if the practitioner can forget feelings. In method this is similar to the three upper grades of practices but in application it is different. Terminology includes body as alchemical cauldron, mind as furnace, vitality and energy as medicinal ingredients, heart as fire, genitals water, five internal organs as five forces, liver as dragon, lungs as tiger, semen as true seed. Year, month date and hour are significant in the firing process. Swallowing saliva is bathing (irrigation of the digestive system). The three essentials are mouth and nostrils, the mysterious pass is the space in front of the kidneys and behind the navel. Completion of the elixir pill is through merging of the five forces.

The lowest of the three vehicles of the gradual method, superior to the nine grades of practices which are sidetracks and auxiliary methods.