Everyone in the world knows the path of going along, but not the path of reverse operation. What is going along? It means going along with the natural process. What is reversal? It means the reverse of the natural process. Following the natural process, humans and other beings are born. The cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death never ceases. Reversing the natural process produces enlightened adepts. People of great wisdom reverse the natural process. They are not bound by the natural process, not compelled by myriad things or conditions. Reversal means going back to the origins of life. It is like someone who has left home and gone far away, then turns around and finds their way back home.

Ordinarily, after people are born, they become imbued with temporal conditioning, the actions of the bodily world upon them. Once this conditioning occurs, the primordial retreats, the acquired temperament emerges, and external influences corrupt the senses, which then trigger unwholesome thoughts, emotions and desires. Pristine purity is gradually inundated by mundane bodily energy. Once mundane energy enters, it gradually grows, and celestial energy gradually wanes away.

Inwardly, emotions and desires distract us from reality, while outwardly, objects and events tax our bodies. Following our desires to any length can deplete our original vitality energy and spirit, the naturally complete treasure that we came in with, to the point of exhaustion. The body becomes pure mundanity, full of aberrant energies, as if afflicted with a serious illness, thoroughly obscuring our inherently round, bright and true essence, unwilling to stop until we die.

This is called throwing oneself to one’s death even without having been called by the king of death. If it were not for genuine, effective medicine, we would have no way to restore the mundane with the celestial and preserve essence and light. What is genuinely effective medicine? It is the primordial, true, unified energy, vitality, and spirit —the three treasures, not physical things, but formless realities.