What is the Mysterious Female in Taoism 玄牝是指什么？
Paul PengWhat is the Mysterious Female in Taoism
Mysterious Female is a term in Taoism and cultivation practice. It appears in Chapter 6 of the Dao De Jing:
“The Spirit of the Valley never dies; this is called the Mysterious Female.
The gate of the Mysterious Female is the root of Heaven and Earth.
Continuous, as if ever present, its function is inexhaustible.”
What is the Mysterious Female in Taoism
There are various interpretations of its actual referent: Heaven and Earth, nose and mouth, upper and lower, male essence and female blood, kidneys, original spirit, Yellow Court middle elixir field, the two orifices left and right of the heart, among others.It is also regarded as the Mysterious Pass. Straightforward Explanation of Awakening to Reality states:
“The movement and stillness of the Spirit of the Valley is the gate of the Mysterious Female. This gate in the human body is where the Four Great Elements do not attach, the center of Heaven and Earth, an empty suspended orifice, opening and closing in due time, moving and still naturally — called the Mysterious Pass, also known as the Gate of All Wonders.”
(See entry: “Mysterious Pass.”)
Mysterious Female also means desire. When desire arises, thoughts abide.
Explanation
The Spirit of the Valley never dies; this is called the Mysterious Female.
The gate of the Mysterious Female is the root of Heaven and Earth.
- Xuan (Mysterious): profound, subtle, and remote.
- Pin (Female): the female principle in birds and beasts; generally refers to yin‑natured things.
- Mysterious Female: the subtle generative power, meaning that The Dao gives birth to all things without revealing how it does so.
The Dao (Spirit of the Valley) that nourishes and gives birth to Heaven, Earth and all things is eternal; this is called the Mysterious Female.
The wondrous gate of yin and yang generation is the root of Heaven and Earth.
Continuous and everlasting! It abides eternally, and its function is infinite.
Extension
- Gate of the Mysterious Female: refers to the Dao giving birth to all things, from which all things emerge.
- Root of Heaven and Earth: the fundamental source from which Heaven, Earth and all things arise and transform.
The Dao gives rise to the One; the One gives rise to the Two; the Two give rise to the Three; the Three give rise to all things.
The Dao is the origin of Heaven, Earth and all things. All things in the universe are produced by it; it is the cosmic mother of all beings.
As the cosmic origin, the Dao exists eternally. In other words, the laws governing the generation and evolution of beings, and the basic particles constituting all things, never perish — this is what is meant by “the Spirit of the Valley never dies.”
Laozi calls the Dao “the Mother of All Under Heaven.” In a certain sense, Laozi advocates a philosophy centered on the yin and soft principle.
His thought values softness and honors the feminine. Proceeding from “The weak is the function of the Dao,” he emphasizes:
“The softest thing in the world overrides the hardest in the world” and “Softness overcomes hardness.”
The Dao, which he esteems as non‑action yet accomplishing everything, is characterized mainly by softness and compliance with nature.
In the Dao De Jing, many passages uphold softness and yin, such as:
“Embracing yin and encompassing yang”; “The female always conquers the male through stillness”; “Knowing the male, yet keeping to the female.”
In an age of warfare and masculine conquest, this represented a holistic balancing thought.
Laozi used the philosophy of softness overcoming hardness to ease the violent, aggressive atmosphere of his time.
Introductory Guidance
Another interpretation of Mysterious Female: a state of spiritual awareness realized in ancient cultivation practice.
When the mind abides nowhere, perfectly good like water, utterly empty like a valley — being empty‑hearted like a valley, king of all grains — a special clear awareness arises, called the Spirit of the Valley, also known as the Mysterious Female.
Reference 1
Guan Yinzi, Chapter 2, “Pillars”:
(1) “In dreams, in mirrors, in water, all contain a Heaven and Earth.
To end the dream‑Heaven, you cannot sleep;
to end the mirror‑Heaven, you cannot reflect form;
to end the water‑Heaven, you cannot draw from the jug.
Their being or non‑being depends on this, not on them.
Therefore, the sage does not reject Heaven and Earth — he rejects cognition.”
(2) “Waving clothes stirs the air into wind; breathing on things forms water; water poured on water sounds; stone struck on stone makes light.
One who understands this can summon wind, rain, thunder, lightning.
For all arise from Qi, and qi arises from mind.
Like inwardly imagining great fire, and after long feeling heat; inwardly imagining great water, and after long feeling cold.
One who understands this can share the virtue of Heaven and Earth.”
This shows that ancient masters explored and called the illusory Heaven and Earth of spiritual perception “Heaven and Earth.”
They discovered that even knowing spiritual awareness as the root, one cannot realize the root of Heaven and Earth in dreams or meditation without deliberate training.
Chapter 5, “Mirror,” is an authoritative and in‑depth study of mental states.
It states: “Only the sage can gather all things into one breath, so no thing can enslave his clarity; scatter one breath into all things, so no thing can obstruct his actions.”
This shows the emphasis on clear awareness and teaches later generations how to attain it.
Reference 2
Academic research has long confirmed that Guan Yinzi and the Dao De Jing are closely related in authorship and content.
Chapter 16 of the Dao De Jing says:
“Push emptiness to the extreme; hold stillness in sincerity. All things arise together; I watch their return. All things flourish, each returns to its root.”
This echoes the exploration of spiritual perception in Reference 1.
It concludes that there is a “Heaven and Earth” in meditation; by emptying thoughts and observing stillness, one can know its root.
According to ancient masters’ spiritual studies, this root can rightly be called the “Root of Heaven and Earth.”
Thus, “The gate of the Mysterious Female is the root of Heaven and Earth” emphasizes that the Mysterious Female is a spiritual state of awareness, not a physical organ or point.
This accords with “Seeing the true nature” in Buddhism and “Refining the mind and nature” in Taoism.
Therefore, the non‑action of the Dao De Jing must be extended to the spiritual level — the level of absorption and meditation — to possess deeper research and exploratory value.
