The Sanfeng School 三峰派

The Sanfeng School, a school of Taoist inner alchemy cultivation.

It evolved from the art of sexual cultivation. Named after Puyangzi's Sanfeng Danjue (Three Peaks Alchemy Manual), it once flourished during the Ming Dynasty.

This school focuses on sexual practices with women to extract and refine vital energy, employing the "mud and water alchemy method" that draws essence from others, which has long been regarded as a heretical and deviant technique.

The alchemy cultivation of this school begins with foundation building and self-refinement, "simmering the furnace and forging the sword"; in the middle stage, it involves extracting and absorbing essence for supplementation, refining and transforming through the "circulation of the heaven"; finally, it entails silently cultivating and flexibly applying the techniques, obtaining the elixir through "adding and subtracting". The practice steps are complex, including: "breathing from the heels to refine qi", "gathering qi to open the meridians", "refining both gold and jade", "embracing the origin and nurturing emptiness"; also, "selecting the location and the cauldron (referring to the partner)", "choosing the time to use the cauldron" (which includes variations such as using the "broken cauldron", "middle cauldron", "old cauldron", and the "nine cauldrons method"), "subduing the dragon and tiger", "skillfully using the divine sword", "chasing and absorbing qi and blood", "capturing true lead", "transforming yin and yang"; furthermore, "reversing creation", "jade liquid to prolong life", "golden liquid returning to the elixir", "facing the wall (meditation)", "freeing the fetus", "sending out the spirit", and so on. It is also accompanied by a complete set of formulas, such as the "essence-sealing formula", "essence-returning formula", "essence-refining formula", "great golden palace locking formula", "reverse absorption of the west river water formula", "pass-crossing and ingestion formula", "internal forging formula", "external forging formula", "great consecration formula", "small consecration formula", "furnace-simmering formula", "flute-blowing formula", "nurturing formula", "cave and celestial canal opening formula", "divine application formula", etc. It is a secretly transmitted technique of dual cultivation between men and women.