《生天经颂解(王吉昌)》

The Shengtian jing songjie (Explication of the Hymns of the Scripture of Birth in Heaven) states that the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning (Yuanshi Tianzun)—a revered deity of Daoism, regarded as the source of the myriad things and the lord of teaching and transformation—is supreme and vast. He is the root that receives and guides living beings and from which the myriad methods arise, and he is also the teaching lord of the Thirty-Two Heavens. His inherent nature is constant and unmoving, and for this he is venerated.

Heaven, Earth, and human beings are all brought forth by transformation from the Great Dao (Dao, the Way). The Four Images, the Three Powers, and the Five Phases (Wuxing: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water) together constitute the order by which Heaven and Earth operate. At the beginning of Heaven and Earth there was neither form nor name; once the myriad things had acquired bodily form and disposition, they took the Great Dao as their foundation.

Cultivating the Dao requires effort at the root: one firmly guards the foundation and returns to original nature. The scripture uses “refining to completion the golden cauldron of the nine yangs” as a metaphor for cultivation reaching fulfillment; at that moment the light of wisdom shines throughout Heaven and Earth.

Already at the chaotic beginning, when Heaven and Earth had not yet differentiated and the myriad things seemed at once to exist and not to exist, the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning embraced all phenomena. Thereafter Heaven and Earth gradually came into being, forming the initial cosmic stages known as the Five Greats (Wutai) and others, and in time the human world and the celestial realms arose.

The Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning dwells on Mount Yujing in the Daluo Heaven. That place is vast and luminous, without dust or defilement and without the bustle of coming and going. If a person awakens in a single thought, that person can enter the realm of clarity and stillness; if veiled by deluded feelings, it is as though separated by barrier upon barrier, and difficult to reach.

The Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning tells the assembled immortals that he will briefly reveal to them the essentials of cultivating the body and cultivating the mind. What is called “body and mind” means relying on the body and the thoughts of an ordinary person to carry and practice the methods of cultivating the Dao. The Celestial Worthy discloses the profound meaning of the Dao and its methods, so that one may comprehend the mystery of the creative transformations of Heaven and Earth, together with the principles of generation and transformation contained in Hunyuan (the primordial state before Heaven and Earth had divided).

The essential meaning of the Dao is profound and subtle, and cannot be simply summed up as “being” or “non-being”: from what is without form or image, the body that has form is generated; by cultivating the formed body, one can return to the formless realm, attaining a state of ease, freedom, and release from entanglement with external things.

The divine immortals of the ten directions who have attained the Dao all cultivate according to this scripture, and only thereby penetrate its subtle and profound principles. Although the scriptures of the Dao comprise tens of thousands of chapters, the pursuit of immortality must still begin from the fundamental method of birth in Heaven and attainment of the Dao. If practitioners are caught in the current of craving and desire, they must rely on the methods of cultivating the Dao to cross over; once they have reached the other shore, they should set aside those methods, which served only as the means of crossing the river, and accord with what is natural.

The teaching of the Celestial Worthy reaches everywhere throughout the ten directions. It regards men and women alike and holds that all living beings are originally one. In general, so long as one clarifies the mind within and reveres the great Dao (the Way), whether clever or dull, an ordinary person or a sage, one can cultivate and attain the way of the immortals.

By relying on the practice of fasting and abstinence, one can raise a bridge that leads toward the great Dao.

To wash the thoughts clean and guard against fault is true fasting and abstinence; to cast off emotional clinging and desire is the bridge toward the great Dao. When outer conditions no longer stir the mind, and the mind no longer clings to outer conditions, one is not stained by worldly dust. Luminous, clear, and still in this way, one can remain perfectly integrated wherever one may be.

All methods of youwei (purposeful action) display the first traces of what is real.

Before the physical body and the activity of thought have stirred, one originally rests in Wuwei (non-action). When pristine and genuine Qi (vital energy) disperses, bodily form arises from it, and one enters purposeful action. By means of what has form, true nature is nourished, and only then does true nature become manifest. One must not, through dependence on external things, instead injure one’s own luminous clarity.

Only when this principle has been realized can it be transmitted and upheld.

The fish trap and the rabbit snare are used only because one seeks fish and rabbits; once the fish and rabbits are caught, the tools may be forgotten. Practice is the same. Even though the method depends on some support, one must understand that to act purposefully without clinging to contrivance is what allows one to pass beyond the two extremes of one-sided attachment.

One can screen out every entanglement and forever cut off defilement and clinging.

In outward affairs one must still be thorough, drawing on the many causes and conditions; yet one must not lose the root for the sake of fame and profit. When a great bell is struck, sound issues in response. One answers outer things, yet the mind within remains free of clinging. Neither of these two sides may be neglected.

Do not let outer distracting thoughts enter, and do not let inner delusive thoughts rush outward.

Gather in the six faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—sealing them as tightly as a closed pass, and do not allow the Three Corpses (spirits spoken of in Daoism that disturb body and mind and deplete Jing (essence) and Qi) to come and go freely. Harmonize the two Qi of Yin and Yang (Yin-Yang), and gather Jing and Qi into the precious cauldron, an image of refining and nourishing in Neidan (internal alchemy). A radiance like a silvery flame then rises from Mount Kunlun, which here symbolizes the place where Jing and Qi are condensed and refined.

In this way the five viscera can be made pure and clear, and inner delusive thoughts no longer race outward.

Gather in the six faculties, strictly guard the passes and apertures, and do not let the Three Corpses come and go. Harmonize the two Qi of Yin and Yang, gather Jing and Qi into the precious cauldron, and a silvery flame of light then rises from Mount Kunlun.

Thereupon the five viscera are cool and clear, and the six bowels are peaceful and smoothly regulated.

The Four Images, referring to several powers in the transformations of Yin and Yang, return to the center, and first there is the one Qi, the primordial Qi of the cosmos. It circulates through the Three Realms and moves freely. The Azure Dragon sprays cold mist amid the fire, and the White Tiger exhales red smoke within the pool. All of these are figurative ways of speaking about the transformations of the mechanism of Qi in internal refinement.

If there is obstruction among the three hundred and sixty joints of the whole body, one must clearly distinguish the karma of the ten evils, ten kinds of evil conduct commonly found in Buddhist and Daoist writings.

“Three and three, six and six” gathering to form a body refers to the various faculties of a person’s body and mind. The mouth, the body, the mind, and such places as the eyes and ears may at first all be sunk in the seven emotions and stained by passion and desire. One should screen out the ten evils and realize the Dao of the original source.

One must also cut off the one hundred and eighty kinds of afflictive karma.

People have the seven emotions (three emotional desires) and the three karmas (acts created by body, speech, and mind), which injure their innate spiritual nature. They are half like ordinary mortals and half endowed with an immortal nature. If one can cultivate to the realm of utmost Yang and formlessness, afflictions will naturally cease to cling.

The roots of every kind of suffering and of sinful karma can all be cleared away completely.

When the Three Peng—spirits of which Daoism speaks, who tempt people to do evil and record their offenses—indulge themselves and work mischief, they are the root of creating karma. To sink into the five desires (the desires of the five senses) is to invite fault. Remove sinful karma, and distress is gone; one can then naturally pass beyond the barrier of birth and death.

One then draws in harmonious true Qi (vital energy), the qi that is the source of life, and settles thought in the body-field, the bodily site where, in cultivation, one visualizes and nourishes true Qi.

When intention is settled and the heart-spirit is tranquil, do not strain to seek anything. True Qi comes and goes without cease and will of itself flow freely. With the Huachi—a term of Daoist Neidan (internal alchemy), often referring to the saliva in the mouth or the inner water that nourishes true Qi—one irrigates the three fields, the upper, middle, and lower Dantian (energy centers), so that they are nourished. Let the lingzhi grow, to feed the white ox, a symbolic expression in Neidan cultivation that refers to nurturing Jing (essence), Qi, and Shen (spirit).

Contemplate the five viscera and the six bowels, and let the heart-spirit observe inwardly.

The five Qi, the Qi corresponding to the five viscera, turn toward the original spirit, and the five Qi are clear and harmonious. The Qi of the six Yin recedes, and the Qi of the six Yang arises. Discerning with the eye of wisdom, one finds no dust or stain within or without, and body and mind reveal their original truth.

True Qi, like the water of a pool, moistens the three fields and fills them. Let the lingzhi grow, to feed the white ox.

Contemplate the five viscera and the six bowels, and let the heart-spirit observe inwardly.

The five Qi turn toward the original spirit, and the five Qi are clear and harmonious. The Qi of the six Yin recedes, and the Qi of the six Yang arises. Discerning with the eye of wisdom, one finds no dust or stain within or without, and body and mind reveal their original truth.

True Qi is full, pure, clear, and luminous, presenting a realm of empty brightness, spotless white, and shining radiance.

This empty-bright numinous light illuminates the great void, splendid and brilliant, and has existed from ancient times to the present. Do not compare it to the bright moon and the clear wind, for the clear wind and the bright moon also disperse and cannot remain for long.

The heart within is secluded, still, and profound; within and without, there is nothing to cling to.

The heart within is not stirred by external things, and outwardly there is no craving; one then attains true joy and delight, free and unobstructed. The heart-spirit is dim and tranquil, as if in a drunken dream, and nothing at all weighs upon the mind.

Within that dim and secluded stillness, one truly penetrates Wuwei (non-action), the cultivated state of not acting rashly and not forcing anything.

Consciousness is murky and remote, seeming both to exist and not to exist. In the secluded stillness, original nature rests peaceful and empty. Even if the spirit roams the dharma-realm, the vast spiritual realm of which Daoism speaks, it abides nowhere. By not acting rashly and not contriving, one returns to the primordial state.

It has endured from ancient times to the present, and with still mindfulness one holds body and mind together.

Through endless kalpas it seems both to be and not to be. It neither increases nor decreases, nor does it fall into empty nothingness. It is like the Yangtze over ten thousand qing: the surface does not overflow into waves; it is clear and quiet, and wind and waves have subsided.

From here one begins to awaken, and receives the aid of the power of the Dao (the Way),

When delusive obstructions disperse, heaven and earth return to stillness, and the mind becomes bright and limpid, like a clear mirror reflecting the myriad things. The Jade Hare (symbolizing the yin aspect, the moon, or water) races toward the Crimson Gate-Tower (a golden or vermilion celestial gate), while the Golden Crow (symbolizing the yang aspect, the sun, or fire) flies into the Guanghan Palace (the palace of the moon). This depicts the harmonizing of Yin-Yang and the meeting of sun and moon.

Aided by the medicines of the method, one must at the same time still practice restraint in food and drink.

When the Qi (vital energy) of heaven and earth unites in harmony, the myriad things are likewise eased and set in order. When diet and clothing are properly regulated, body and mind naturally become open and unobstructed. In cultivation one regulates water and fire (commonly used as metaphors for Yin-Yang and the movement of Qi within the body), so that their rising and descending stay moderate, neither excessive nor deficient, and at last the divine elixir is refined, its light illuminating the Nine Palaces (palace stations within the body or in the heavens).

One drives out the ghost-corpses (in the context of cultivation, the yin malignities that obstruct the purity and clarity of body and mind), settles the six roots (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind), and with pure wisdom illumines and examines the eight consciousnesses (a Buddhist term for a person’s eight kinds of consciousness).

Yin demons are dispelled, and the six spirits (in traditional teaching, the divinities that preside over body and mind) are brought to rest; the precious cauldron (a symbol of elixir refining) sends forth auspicious light that brightens the sky. The Eight Scenes (eight kinds of scenes within the body or in the course of cultivation) are transformed into water of eight colors, condense into cloud seal-script (talismanic writing like cloud-vapor), and emerge into view from Kunlun (the mythical mountain of the immortals).

One brings the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness—the five kinds of factors that make up a person’s bodily and mental experience) to empty stillness, and rectifies and harmonizes the Three Origins (in Daoism, explained in different ways as heaven, earth, and the human being, or as Jing (essence), Qi, and Shen (spirit), among other accounts).

When the five desires (craving for sight, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, and the like) are cut off, the five aggregates become empty and still, and five-colored rays of roseate light shine forth, vying with one another in brilliance. The movement of Qi in the Three Palaces (sites of cultivation within the body, such as the upper, middle, and lower Dantian (energy center)) rises and descends without cease; the practitioner rides securely upon a golden dragon and proceeds to the Jade Capital (an immortal realm in the heavens).

Once the Golden Elixir (Jindan) is refined, it can uphold and preserve long life; the jade-nature (an original nature as clear and pure as jade) is delicately lucid and transparent, and all phenomena are empty. After one attains the Dao (the Way), it seems as though something has been gained, and yet as though nothing has been gained at all; in this way one naturally ascends to the nine empyrean heavens.

At that time, the immortal hosts of the various heavens addressed the Celestial Worthy (Tianzun), saying:

All the immortal hosts of the various heavens take refuge in the Celestial Worthy and lift their heads in thanks to the Celestial Worthy, by whom the delusions of living beings are washed away. The clouds scatter and the wind ceases; the sky is clear and still, and a bright moon illuminates Xiyi (the subtle realm of the Dao, faint and hard to perceive).

From the beginningless past down to the present day:

In the initial state, when the Five Greats (a Daoist name for the successive stages before heaven and earth took form) had not yet differentiated and Primordial Unity was still a single whole, the myriad things were hazy and hard to distinguish, seeming at once to exist and not to exist. Through long kalpas the substance of the Dao has always been present, neither increasing nor decreasing; if there is already a remainder, how can one realize that which is without remainder?

We have never heard of such a “Great Vehicle scripture” (Jing; here meaning a scripture able to deliver living beings broadly and lead them to ultimate liberation):

Looked for, it cannot be seen; listened for, it cannot be heard. It does not fall within tangible form, nor is it the same as empty nothingness, and it transcends the distinction between “self” and “other.” Only because living beings cling to every kind of appearance does the teaching expediently establish the Three Vehicles (a Buddhist term for three paths of practice and liberation).

We are fortunate that causes and conditions have converged, so that we may hear and receive this scripture; may its teaching extend to all living beings, and may the fruit of the Dao be brought to fulfillment.

We do not know what causes and conditions were formed in former lives, that in this life we should together encounter the methods of the Dao transmitted by the Supreme Perfected. The karmic obstructions accumulated over the long ages have all dispersed; when cultivation is complete and meritorious practice is accomplished, one may go on to the Nine Heavens.

Thereupon they composed a hymn, saying:

How fortunate we are to have met; may the teaching reach all, and the fruit of the Dao be fulfilled.

It is unclear what karmic affinity was formed in a former life that allows one, in this life, to encounter together the methods of the Dao (the Way) transmitted by the Supreme Perfected (perfected persons who have attained the Dao). The karmic obstructions accumulated in the past have all dispersed; once cultivation is complete and merit fully realized, one may proceed to the Nine Heavens.

The Hymn speaks thus:

The Dao, deep and unfathomable, still and luminously clear.

From non-being the Dao gives rise to being, and from this the principle of Yin-Yang becomes manifest. The workings of the Five Phases (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water), both within and without, must be contemplated by turning ordinary reasoning around. Forget thoughts, rules, and bodily form, and return to the Dao that is deep and still, clear and bright in Wuwei (non-action).

Drowsy and silent, let the mind and spirit (Shen) roam at ease in the Great Void (the vast and boundless emptiness).

Neither constrained nor stained by worldly dust, one goes beyond the ordinary state of compliant harmony. Sound and visible form no longer stir the mind and spirit; the myriad phenomena return to empty stillness. Once the meaning within has been grasped, one no longer clings to words, and, as if intoxicated, roams in drowsy silence through the Great Void.

Original nature is limpid and at peace, attached to nothing.

Cut off desire and intention, and forget all care; the light of wisdom remains untouched by the slightest speck of dust. Even across long kalpas, one can alone move freely and reach through without obstruction. Original nature is limpid and at ease, and does not abide in any place.

Visible form and mental notions both return to stillness—this is the True Teaching (the real and non-dual fundamental principle).

With right view, brush away the scenes of the dusty world; upon the Spirit Terrace (the dwelling place of mind and spirit) not a thread remains. True purity and peace hold a mysterious and subtle principle; when form and thought alike return to stillness, this is the True Teaching.