Turning the Light Around ~ The Secret of the Golden Flower ~ Inner Alchemy

This reading is from chapter 3 and 4 of the teachings found in the text, The Secret of the Golden Flower, and explains in detail the method of 'turning the light around'. Translated by Thomas Clearly. According to Cleary, this text is is a lay manual of Buddhist and Taoist methods for clarifying the mind. A distillation of the inner psychoactive elements in ancient spiritual classics, it describes a natural way to mental freedom practiced in China for many centuries. The golden flower symbolizes the quintessence of the paths of Buddhism and Taoism. Gold stands for light, the light of the mind itself; the flower represents the blossoming, or opening up, of the light of the mind. Thus the expression is emblematic of the basic awakening of the real self and its hidden potential.

The text was written by means of the spirit-writing (fuji) technique, through two groups, in 1688 and 1692. After publication of the translation by Richard Wilhelm, with commentary by Carl Gustav Jung, it became modernly popularized among Westerners as a Chinese "religious classic", and is read in psychological circles for analytical and transpersonal psychology considerations of Taoist meditations.