144 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
medieval period, the supernormal efficacy of physiological exercises was fur-
ther elaborated, as daoyin gymnastics were harnessed to the search for immor-
tality. This evolution took place largely within the context of the emerging
Daoist faith, which incorporated the ancient gymnastic tradition into its reli-
gious regimen. Daoism integrated calisthenics with other disciplines—ethical,
ritual, meditative, and alchemical—that led to transcendence. Even as they re-
tained their therapeutic importance of old, daoyin exercises were now part of a
religious system that was directed toward eternal life.
The significance of physiological cultivation in Daoism ultimately de-
rives from the centrality of the body in the religion’s conception of immor-
tality. As Joseph Needham has emphasized, the Chinese did not conceive the
possibility of eternal life enjoyed by a disembodied soul. For them, liberation
took the form of “material immortality”—eternal life of a biological entity.^18
Daoist immortals (xian) were not spiritual beings. They possessed physical
bodies, albeit more refined than those of ordinary creatures. By an arduous
process of self-cultivation, the immortals transformed their perishable and
heavy bodily building blocks into durable and light substances—so light they
could fly. It is exactly because Daoist eternal life was not merely spiritual that
spiritual self-cultivation did not suffice. In order to enjoy liberation, it was
necessary to create within the mortal bodily frame a new physiological entity
that would ascend into immortality. Hence the Daoist significance of physio-
logical exercise—gymnastic, sexual, dietary, and alchemical.^19
Why did Chinese conceptions of immortality differ from Western ones?
Why did the former envision “material immortality” whereas the latter imag-
ined “spiritual eternity”? The answer is related to fundamentally diverse con-
ceptions of nature. The Chinese did not establish a dichotomy of spirit and
matter, of god creator and created world. For them, there were only grada-
tions of spirituality, which separated refined beings such as the immortals
from gross matter. From another perspective, the body contained numerous
spirits that were believed to disperse upon death. To preserve a post-mortem
personal identity, it was necessary to sustain the physical body that held them
together, as Henri Maspero has noted:
If the Daoists in their search for longevity, conceived it not as a spiritual
but as a material immortality, it was not as a deliberate choice between
different possible solutions but because for them it was the only possible
solution. The Graeco-Roman world early adopted the habit of setting
Spirit and Matter in opposition to one another, and the religious form
of this was the conception of a spiritual soul attached to a material body.
But the Chinese never separated Spirit and Matter, and for them the
world was a continuum passing from the void at the one end to the
grossest matter at the other; hence “soul” never took up this antithetical
character in relation to matter. Moreover, there were too many souls in a
man for any one of them to counter-balance, as it were, the body; there