Memory №4: China. The Daoist Master Li Bao. (The Art of Inner Alchemy)

The air in the coffee shop suddenly became dry and filled with the spicy aroma of wormwood and old scrolls. The sweet taste of latte on my lips was replaced by the slight bitterness of medicinal tea. I closed my eyes, and the familiar coolness of a stone pavilion in the mountains of China enveloped me.

My search led me to Li Bao not by chance. After the refined aesthetics of Japan and the passionate mysticism of India, I longed to understand the very essence-the alchemy of transforming the carnal into the divine. Master Li Bao was revered as a man who had grasped the secrets of fang zhong shu-the art of the inner chambers.

I found Li Bao through rumors circulating among silk merchants. They spoke of a stern hermit who knew the secret of eternal youth. I expected to see a wise elder, but before me stood a man in his prime, with eyes the color of dark water-absolutely calm and bottomless.

His dwelling breathed the harmony of yin and yang. Treatises like "Su Nü Jing" and the "I Ching" lay on a low table, and the quiet melody of a qixian-a Daoist lute-drifted in the air. The master himself sat in a pose of contemplation, and in his stillness, one felt the power of a mountain river hidden beneath a smooth surface.

"Usually, people come to me for the secrets of immortality," he stated without preamble, assessing me with a gaze that seemed to see the energy flowing within me, right through the flesh. "You, however, explore pleasure, but as a dilettante." He smirked and once again swept his gaze over me with the cold appraisal of a specialist. "You study the effects, not the causes. I will teach you to control the source."

"I have come for knowledge," I replied, correcting him as had become my habit.

"Very well. Most seek the elixir of life in potions. Fools. The true elixir is born here." He placed his palm on my lower abdomen. His touch was impersonal, like a physician's. "From the correct union of yin and yang."

His approach was devoid of any fuss. He took his time, explaining how the energy jing transforms into qi, and then into shen-spirit. He spoke of the body as a system of channels and reservoirs, of qi energy as a substance obeying strict laws.

Our sessions resembled an elegant dance. First, he taught me to feel the flow of qi within my body, as if golden mercury were shimmering inside me, sometimes spreading warmth through my limbs, sometimes gathering in the dantian-the sea of energy in the lower abdomen.

His words were like silk threads weaving an elegant pattern:

"A woman is the sea (yin)," he instructed during meditation. "A man is the sky (yang). The fool dives into the sea to disappear within it, to squander himself without a trace. The wise man allows the sea to rise into the sky as vapor, only to later fall as life-giving rain and give birth to new life. We do not waste power. We multiply it. We transform the carnal into the spiritual. Jing into qi, qi into shen."

"Forget passion," he said, watching me meditate. "Passion is noise that prevents you from hearing the true music of the body. First, learn to hear the silence between heartbeats."

One evening, with a full moon drifting outside the window, he offered me something special.

"Tonight, we shall weave a silk thread without a spindle," he said, settling across from me. "We shall listen to the music of qi without instruments."

We sat opposite each other in the lotus position. He did not touch me. Not a single finger.

"Close your eyes. Breathe. And listen only to my voice," he commanded.

I obeyed and gradually began to feel. First, a barely perceptible warmth at the huiyin point, then a light pulsation in the lower dantian. His breath became my breath, his energy my energy.

"Now, imagine a golden nectar rising along your spine," his words floated toward me through the twilight. "Imagine it filling every cell with divine light…"

I felt it! I sensed a clot of energy, real, almost physical, moving upward, spiraling. The heat grew, concentrating in my lower abdomen.

"Do not release it," his voice came, and for the first time, it held notes of tension. "Breathe deeper. Direct it even higher…"

And then a miracle happened, something I had never experienced before. Without a single touch, my body trembled in ecstasy. A cry lodged in my chest, unable to escape, while waves of pleasure-pure, almost painful-rolled one after another, washing away consciousness. They emanated not from a single source, but from the entire body at once, from every cell that seemed to vibrate in unison with his voice.

When I came to my senses, I discovered with horror and delight that my clothes were soaked with the juices of my own body. Without a single touch.

I lay on the mat, drained as if after a long battle. Li Bao sat in the same pose, his face damp with sweat, his breathing slightly ragged.

"There it is," he said softly. "The true union. When yin and yang unite in the dance of qi, and the bodies are merely conductors, renewal occurs, leading to longevity and youth. Now you see? Jing is preserved. Energy is transformed. We have both become stronger."

He was right. I did not feel depleted. I felt… reborn. Filled to the brim with a quiet, pulsating light. It was not exhaustion, but saturation. Not expenditure, but a path to one's own immortality.

I opened my eyes. The coffee shop. The couple by the window had been replaced by a new one, practically indistinguishable from the previous, with the ever-present smartphones in hand. A guy was staring at his phone screen, awaiting a reply to a message.

My gaze fell to the bottom of my cup, where only brown grounds remained.

Ahead of me lay the darkest of memories-the Dark Ages, an era steeped in the fumes of funeral pyres and the stench of miasma. The time of Knights-though hardly in shining armor-an era demanding the art of survival amidst filth and dogma.

But more on that next time.