text: Despite the varieties of impressions, interpretations and opinions expressed by translators, the meditation technique described by The Secret of the Golden Flower is a straightforward, silent method; the book's description of meditation has been characterized as "Zen with details". The meditation technique, set forth in poetic language, reduces to a formula of sitting, breathing, and contemplating.
  Christopher Cott and Adam Rock describe it in the context of Taoist doctrine. The practice involves meditative exercises on the spiritual soul (hun) and the primordial spirit. In contrast to the material soul (po), the spirit soul resides in the heavenly heart-mind (xin) and is the Yang qi obtained from the cosmos. It is described as a house where "the light" is the master, being the stage for the "turning the light around". The procedure consists in refining the material soul and interrupting conceptual thought (of the world of the senses) through this meditation; thus, the true nature of the primordial spirit would be revealed. Practitioners should be aware of states such as "submersion in darkness" (cessation of conceptual thinking). They summarize the work in three stages: the initial stage is "harmonizing the breath", in which the conceptual mind still predominates, but the breath in the heart-mind and the heart-mind in the breath are used to calm this awareness. A second stage involves energetic and mental aspects (a metaphor of the interaction between Water and Fire). The third stage ("turning the light around") is finalized by the culmination of mental quiescence, the spirit incubating in qi ("Heaven entering Earth").
  Sitting primarily relates to a straight posture. Breathing is described in detail, primarily in terms of the esoteric physiology of the path of qi (also known as chi or ki). The energy path associated with breathing has been described as similar to an internal wheel vertically aligned with the spine. When breathing is steady, the wheel turns forward, with breath energy rising in back and descending in front.  Bad breathing habits (or bad posture, or even bad thoughts) may cause the wheel not to turn, or move backward, inhibiting the circulation of essential breath energy. In contemplation, one watches thoughts as they arise and recede.
  The meditation technique is supplemented by descriptions of affirmations of progress in the course of a daily practice, suggesting stages that could be reached and phenomenon that may be observed such as a feeling of lightness, like floating upward or slight levitation. Such benefits are ascribed to improved internal energy associated with breath energy circulation, improvements that alleviate previously existing impediments. Several drawings portray imagery relevant to the personal evolution of a meditation practitioner, images that may be somewhat confusing in terms of pure rational analysis.  "Only after one hundred days of consistent work, only then is the light genuine; only then can one begin to work with the spirit-fire."
  The first such illustration represents the first one hundred days, or "gathering the light". The second one represents an emergence of meditative consciousness. The third stage represents a meditative awareness that exists even in mundane, daily life. Stage four represents a higher meditative perception, where all conditions are recognized. Then, varied conditions are portrayed as separately perceived, yet each separate perception is part of a whole of awareness.