《上清太玄鉴诫论》

Written by Taixuanzi of the Divine Dwelling Cavern on Mount Guye.

The verse says:

To state the fundamental essentials plainly and directly is a matter of uprightness and firm resolve; why should one hesitate out of regard for others’ feelings? It guides people onto a path of cool clarity and peace, and also draws them out of the pit of karmic fire (the suffering brought on by evil karma). One need not mind whether the noble value these words, nor fear the scorn of the petty. Whether to speak or to remain silent must in either case follow the principle of Heaven; so long as the heart holds loyalty, the words one utters should be just, even, and plain.

The Great Dao (the Way) is still and silent, without form, empty and remote, without image. Before Heaven and Earth took shape, the primordial Qi (vital energy) was already blended and fused; subtle, mysterious, and profound, it lies beyond Heaven and Earth. Originally it is spontaneous emptiness and non-being, yet from it arise formed images. The myriad phenomena respond within the deep and obscure darkness, taking form in accordance with the principle of emptiness and stillness. True Qi transforms into the True; true Jing (essence) transforms into Shen (spirit); when Shen and the True unite, they return to the Dao.

The Dao is the “One.” The One gives birth to the Two, the Two give birth to the Three, and the Three give birth to the myriad things. Among the myriad things, the human being is the most spiritually refined and the most honored. What is precious in the human being is the capacity to cultivate the True. The “True” meant here is the constant, unchanging original nature. People make use of it every day, yet often do not know it. To recognize it, the key lies in the heart-mind. The heart-mind is the “spirit within Dui” (a term of Neidan, internal alchemy, referring to the dwelling place of the heart-spirit). Within Shen there is true nature. True nature is originally perfect and luminous, and innate disposition is originally pure and clear, yet it becomes disordered along with emotion and desire, and thus turns away from the correct Dao.

Do not forget where you came from, or where you return after death. There is no need to keep dwelling on the past, nor to speculate idly about the future. First take hold of this present thought, and you will be free and openhearted, a person of clear understanding. Heaven and Earth cannot restrain you, nor can ghosts and spirits govern you. The body is like the Great Void, and nature and life stand independent, without a counterpart. Abiding in Yang (Yin-Yang) you are not scorched, and lodged in Yin you do not decay. Water and fire cannot harm you, and mountains and seas cannot bar your way. You reach upward to Heaven and downward to Earth, pass through metal and pierce stone, roaming free and at ease, as though transformed into the radiance of the sun and moon. This is the perfected Dharma-body (the pure and true body attained by the cultivator).

Only such a person truly understands the principle involved; otherwise one will be delayed and obstructed on the path of cultivation, and err throughout one’s life. Only by accomplishing the sacred work can one transcend life and death. Why is this so? Casting an image in copper or iron depends upon a mold; cultivating immortality likewise depends upon transmission from a teacher. The master indicates the essential instructions and the subtle crucial points, distinguishing host and guest, movement and stillness, the clear and the turbid, ascent and descent, floating and sinking, together with the three essentials of inner and outer and the methods of being and non-being, and then blends them into one. Although pure and quiescent cultivation has its method, it cannot do without concrete practice; even when a wondrous method has been obtained, obstacles may still be met.

The mysterious and minute methods must not be disclosed at will; here only a brief indication can be given. At the critical juncture one must recognize the “guizhong” (a Neidan term for the central, crucial position in cultivation), discern what is great and small and what is fine and subtle, and ensure that no error occurs—only then will one remain unobstructed throughout life. If one cultivates according to this method, the secrets of Heaven may then be transmitted further.

The Most High said: “Only one who can see what is minute may be called clear-sighted.” He also said: “Only when the bodily form dies and yet the Dao does not perish may one be called long-lived.” Zhang Pingshu (a master of Neidan) said: “An error even as slight as a hair, and the elixir cannot be refined.” He also said: “When discussing the Dao carefully with the immortals, do not recklessly present what you do not understand as the Dao, lest you mislead the many and imperil the lives of others.” If one does this deliberately, Heaven and Earth will grant no protection: one will suffer severe punishment, fall forever into Fengdu (the underworld of legend), and never again be reborn in the human world.

Some people are dull in spiritual capacity and shallow in insight. They do not believe in their hearts, and instead dispute right and wrong with one another. In private they merely steal one or two vague and barely intelligible phrases, and use them to confuse others. They themselves do not cultivate purity and stillness, yet they urge others to cultivate. Their conduct is like that of beasts, and their understanding is like that of livestock that only graze on grass. They will not cast off desires such as wine, sex, wealth, and anger, nor will they cut off stinginess, greed, and jealousy. Every day they nestle with wife and children at home, and everywhere they indulge in idle talk and reckless speech—how could they possibly attain correct awakening? If one does not personally practice in accordance with the Dao, is this not to ruin one’s own prospects in cultivation?

Jealousy only makes a person more angry, and the licentious are inhumane in mind and nature. Day after day they covet profit; day after day they are enthralled by the red dust (worldly, secular life). They keep constant company with pigs and dogs, and day and night they draw close to foxes. If the heart of carnal desire has not yet been cut off, how can one speak of tianzhen (the pure innate nature of which Daoism speaks)?

One who cultivates the Dao (the Way) and wishes to become an immortal must be firm and resolute in heart, cutting off attachment and leaving kindred as a single stroke of the knife severs a thing in two, casting off passion and desire, reducing stray thoughts, and forgetting cunning calculation. One must remain clear, pure, and undefiled, concentrated and free of doubt, seek out a teacher and the Great Dao, and practice with sincere and steadfast resolve. The Taishang says: “Even if there is a splendid dwelling, one should rest in it at ease.” “Resting at ease and standing above it” here means keeping far away and not living there. The jing (scriptures) further say that all who cultivate the Dao should shun the dust and clamor of the world and dwell in quiet stone caverns deep in the mountains, cut off from chickens and dogs and severed from the tangle of dispute, seeking wholly within and not laboring to seek without. Only when one gives rise to no stray thoughts and is bound by no entanglements of any kind can one be counted a person who has left the household to cultivate the Dao, and become a Daoist of leisure, free and unobstructed.

From ancient times to the present, no one has realized the Great Dao while nestling beside a wife, and no one has ascended to immortality while holding a child. I now exhort you, yet you flare up in anger and often lose your temper, and you even say that Liezi attained the Dao while still at home. You who do not understand the matter! Liezi was a great sage; though he remained at home, he cultivated in hidden seclusion. Do not imagine that you yourself can attain the Dao merely by living as a hermit.

The song (a rhymed verse of admonition) says:

To speak of it is like a flying dragon out in front; to practice it is like a lame person left behind. The karmic fruit of cultivating immortality has not yet been achieved, yet the merits and faults of creating karma have already been committed. Lust and craving for beauty are like those of wild beasts; clinging to fair form even surpasses the birds and beasts of the mountains. If one harbors the mind of a brute, one should not look to Heaven and Earth for protection.

In the original, the song appears in two repeated passages. The final passage, after “lust like wild birds,” continues with such lines as “craving beauty beyond the mountain silence.” Expressions such as “flying dragon in front,” “lame cloak behind,” and “mountain silence” are not clear enough in meaning; the above is a plain rendering according to the literal sense.

From the very first day of seeking the Dao (the Way), one ought to burn incense and make a vow, seeking a teacher and inquiring into the Way. When one listens to others speak, one may seem on the surface to understand the principle involved, yet in fact one cannot grasp what is essential; for what is said with the mouth is not the same as what is truly understood in the heart.

If I were to open the wondrous Dao for him and reveal the secret workings of Heaven, he would take himself for a cultivator of the Way, when in truth he remains an ordinary being. Now, having learned only a little of the rules of the methods, he begins to grow slick and to seek clever shortcuts, using poems and verses to mock others, harboring cunning in his heart and acting without humaneness; he strives everywhere to outdo others, and even sets up a school of his own. If such a person appears among the followers of the Dao, how can he fail to provoke cold laughter?

Day after day he deceives Heaven and Earth, abandons moral duty and conscience, and turns kindness into resentment; he further boasts that he has already attained sudden enlightenment and that the apertures of his mind have opened wide, reviling his teachers and the patriarchs, yet supposing himself wholly without fault. Do not say there is no fault—try it and see: once one offends the principle of Heaven, one will surely be seized by the authorities and put to punishment.

A person’s nature and life are entirely governed by the working of the Great Dao, and in the unseen a watch is also kept on human good and evil. The scripture (Jing) says: “The net of Heaven is vast; though its mesh is wide, nothing is lost.” Look at the beauty and ugliness, wealth and rank, poverty and low station of this life: all are brought about by the causes and conditions planted through cultivation in former lives. If you claim already to have penetrated the secret workings of Heaven, yet hold that nothing you do is of any consequence, there will come a day when you suffer Heaven’s punishment—deafness, blindness, paralysis, swelling, and pain. When that time comes, how will you be able to change your circumstances, comprehend the principle, and put it into practice?

With no merit or sustained practice at all, one already wishes, far too soon, to become an immortal. Even if such a person is unwilling to violate Heaven’s principle or to betray Heaven and Earth, he still often does unkind things in secret, lusting after women, indulging desire, breaking the precepts, and going against his vows. Creating karma and committing offenses in this way, he will one day receive Heaven’s punishment, and after death he will still bear endless regret.

I pass these words on to you so that you may understand that karmic deeds accumulate layer upon layer. If you still do not reform, you will later sink to become a strange insect whose eyebrows are painted to look human, or turn into a monster with a body like a person’s and a face like a beast’s. When you make people open their mouths and laugh, will you not feel shame? Still less could there be any talk of expounding the Dao or discussing cultivation. I fear only that you are unwilling to believe now, and that later the truth will of itself be seen by others.

“The verse says” means that what follows will then conclude with a gatha.

Those who study the Dao (the Way) yet will not make a firm resolve only sport with their tongues and offer clever arguments. Their minds run scattered like a horse that has slipped its reins, and their thoughts are as hard to restrain as an ape or a monkey. In secret they do things, bound up with cultivating the Dao, that they dare not discuss in public, for fear you will not believe them; with time, they are naturally seen for what they are.

The verse says:

Those who study the Dao will not make a firm resolve, and only sport with their tongues. The mind is forever scattered, and the thoughts are forever hard to govern. In secret they sink into sexual desire and into wicked, deluded thoughts, yet before others they boast of their own purity. Having done deeds that weigh on the conscience, their offenses and their retribution are grave, and a day will come when they suffer punishment under the Dao of Heaven.

O followers of the Dao, people of this sort seek the true and inquire after the Dao with their mouths, yet in their hearts they harbor malice akin to killing their teacher and harming their father; and when they turn their backs on the great Dao, they do things akin to debauching their own kin and defiling relatives and friends. Why say this? After seeking the true, inquiring after the Dao, and obtaining the method, they instead form enmities and bring retaliation on themselves. They take no kindness to heart, yet keep resentment constantly in mind—is this not like killing one’s teacher and harming one’s father? They have set out to study the Dao, yet still cling to passion and will not rid themselves of a lustful heart, and they constantly do base deeds fit for pigs and dogs—is this not like debauching one’s kin and defiling relatives and friends?

The Buddha said, “All men are my fathers, and all women are my mothers.” Can people who act in this way still hope to become good persons? Phrases here such as meiri jia you geng wannong wo appear, in the original, to be corrupt or incomplete, and the sense is far from clear. What follows says that the author does not take the offenses of such people to heart: the foolish are like dung and soil—filthy, yet able to nourish grass and trees; without fools, the worth of the worthy would not stand out. Even if someone continually disturbs and injures him, gossiping this way and that and still boasting of being clever and quick-witted—even if that person knows a few minor arts and can pick up a technical phrase or two by stealth—he may thereby bring on the disaster of his household’s destruction and his own beheading. One should know that favor and kindness can sometimes invite misfortune instead.

The verse says:

To bestow kindness and favor sometimes invites misfortune instead; to treat others with compassion may also turn into enmity. Day after day they wallow in wine and sexual pleasure, and every day they crave meat and rich foods. They are always thinking of borrowing another person’s fire, yet they never clear the smoke from their own house. I urge you not to be cunning and treacherous, for Heaven above sees all clearly.

There is yet another kind of person who has obtained the method. No sooner has he obtained it, and before he has truly understood it, than he hastily charges others, saying, “This is a secret of Heaven and must not be transmitted to others at will.” When he later turns his back on his teacher’s lineage… (The original breaks off here; of what follows, only the words zhao jian you qing tian remain, meaning that Heaven above clearly observes all things.)

There is a kind of person who, having only just picked up a little of the method and not yet truly understood it, is eager to pass the secret on to others, saying, “This is my confidential teaching; it must not be spread about casually.” Later they turn their backs on their teacher’s lineage, set up a school of their own, and slander the worthies of former times. You should know that to produce one such person is worse than to kill a person. In doing this worthless thing, are they not pushing themselves into hell?

Before they have practiced cultivation or studied the Dao (the Way), they first commit karmic offenses; they even treat the methods of the Dao as a means of making a living, collecting magical arts to exchange for clothing and food. When they drink tea they talk of tea; when they drink wine they talk of wine. Gathering in twos and threes, they gossip at length, discuss the rights and wrongs of others, and pass judgment on every strength and shortcoming of the people of the Dao, yet they never examine themselves. When this bodily shell dies, it will in the end fall to the ground. The moment something comes up they change their faces, just like monkeys.

When all is said and done, they have not accomplished a single proper thing, yet they still claim that they will become immortals. If you could truly remain unmoved by the external “eight winds” (praise, ridicule, slander, reputation, gain, decline, suffering, joy, and similar circumstances) and never speak such idle talk, it would instead leave me feeling pent up and miserable. So inverted and bizarre is this: if the wild and disordered mind is not removed, and the mind that craves sensual desire is not cut off, one is like a bee without wings that, smelling a little sweetness, flies toward it, only to have its limbs stuck fast, unable to struggle free no matter what; having stumbled and fallen on level ground, it can only helplessly excuse itself by saying that its fate is bad and its luck has run out.

Did the ancients not say, “The myriad affairs of the world have nothing to do with Heaven or Earth; it is all a matter of oneself seeking death rather than seeking life”? When someone urges them to cultivate the Dao of the immortals, they say that becoming an immortal depends entirely on karmic affinity from a previous life. They regard themselves as lacking the good fortune for it, yet they do not understand that every person has the possibility of attaining the Dao, and that each one’s original nature is perfectly luminous. The Jing (scripture/classic) says, “Ever without desire, one may observe the wonders of the Dao; ever with desire, one may observe the first stirrings of the Dao.” Having desire and being without desire are both states of the human mind. These two statements come from a single source and differ only in name. “Difference” means that each is distinct from the other. Why is this so? If one constantly uses desirelessness to quiet the mind, one can open an inner clarity of insight and recognize the empty, numinous, and subtle awareness, together with the radiance in which mind and Shen (spirit) dwell. That realm, standing alone and relying on nothing, transcendent of the dusty world, is the pure and luminous realm of the celestial immortal, which every person may hope to reach.

Fellow followers of the Dao, let me give you an example of cultivating immortality; you must examine it carefully and not refuse to believe. If you cannot awaken and bring the cultivation to completion in this life, do not count on being able to continue it in the next. Although one will be reborn in a future life, one does not know into whose livestock pen one may fall, or with what creatures one may be mixed. The scripture says that once the human body is lost, it is hard to obtain again even across ten thousand kalpas. If you still do not believe, find a place where no one else is about, rest your two hands one upon the other, and think it over carefully in your own mind.

The hymn says that some people are forever boasting in words of their own cultivation and merit, yet they often sink into wine and sensual indulgence. They have not truly grasped the intent of the sacred teaching, and care only to set up a school tradition of their own. Human nature is stained by the habits of the dusty world, and the body seems as if placed within a burning house. At the moment of crisis, if a single thought goes astray and one takes a false step, one may sink for a long time and find release hard to attain.

In the first passage, the wording “caotou wei sihun qu xie” appears corrupt or incomplete, and its meaning is not clear. The general sense urges people not merely to argue their merits by mouth while failing to follow the sacred teaching and mixing with what is deviant and false. It further says that if one loses the human form, even through myriad kalpas it is hard to obtain again; if one does not believe this warning, one may, when alone, quiet the mind and ponder it carefully.

Among those who cultivate the Dao (the Way), some leave their kin and cut off affection and desire to renounce the household life, yet every day they are like a donkey wandering at random, never settling in one place. They go from door to door, gossip and stir up trouble, quarrel and haggle, do everything topsy-turvy, and always love to contend over who is higher and who is lower, dividing “you” from “me.” When others ask about cultivation, they fall silent and put on the air of simple, honest people, unable to explain anything clearly, and gain only an empty reputation. Even standing before people’s eyes, or even between heaven and earth, one cannot tell what they actually understand.

Still less can they say clearly what the “original face” is (in cultivation, the true nature inherent in a person). A way out lies plainly before their eyes, yet they will not seek it, and instead deliberately mystify matters and confuse others. Though the body has left the household, the mind still clings to worldly affairs. When people are present they put on a show; when no one is there they secretly heave long sighs. Lacking both firm resolve and decisiveness, dragging through whatever they do, they truly fail the offerings of donors from the ten directions. With what will they repay this in the future? You will only pull the plow and labor under heavy burdens—this is the karmic consequence to be borne in the next life. When others rebuke them, they again take as their excuse the saying, “When one person leaves the household, the heavens send offerings.”

Followers of the Dao! To study the Dao with such a mind is as false as something merely painted, and utterly without shame; yet you still boast of yourselves and say that you are cultivating. Who told you that cultivating the Dao means not speaking and explaining nothing? You unreasonable person—what did you leave the household for in the first place? Should you not care about the great matter of your own nature and life? You believe what others say. If cultivating the Dao is truly without words and without discourse, then would the Great Treasury of Scriptures (the comprehensive collection of Buddhist classics) not all become deceptive heterodoxy?

The Most High said: “I obtained the true Dao not of itself and naturally, but only after learning.” Lord Lü also said: “Without a teacher’s guidance, this matter is hard to understand.” If you say that cultivating the Dao need neither be spoken nor transmitted, then the sages of high antiquity were all lying.

You further say that purity and clarity, together with Wuwei (non-action), are cultivation. Leran said: “Purity, clarity, and non-action are nothing but two cartloads of dung and dirt.” If you say dung and dirt are not filth, then your whole body, from head to foot, is likewise a stinking, filthy thing that attracts maggots. An ancient verse says: the apertures of the head have eye discharge; the apertures of the middle have mucus and saliva; the apertures of the lower body have excrement and urine; Jing (essence), fluids, blood, and flesh, together with sinews, bones, skin, and hair, are all things that decay.

The “true clarity and true purity” spoken of in cultivation is not merely cleanliness on the surface of the body. “True clarity” means that the Great Mystery (the profound and subtle realm of the Dao) is lofty, remote, and still, without trace or form. “True purity” means that the Dharma-eye (the wisdom that penetrates truth) is bright, clear, and unobstructed: one abandons the false and returns to the real, recognizes the innate spirit-pearl (a metaphor for the true nature originally possessed), sheds the ordinary body, removes the turbid and filthy substance, and makes body and mind like empty space and mind and nature like the sun and moon. Only this deserves to be called pure and clear. Once such a state is reached, no filth can stain it.

As for Wuwei, what exactly are you holding to and calling non-action? If every day you are merely like a heap of grain husks, sitting without moving, that does not count as cultivation. You quiet your body and sit in meditation, knitting your brows and puffing your cheeks, yet in your mind you call up all at once the idle matters accumulated over many years; your heart is in an uproar, and still you say you are practicing non-action. In the twelve double-hours of a day you must chop wood and carry water, dress and eat, walk, stay, sit, and lie down—in every case you are active. How can Wuwei be understood as doing nothing at all? And when the urge to relieve yourself presses, do you not hurry off to the latrine?

True Wuwei is to recognize that luminous awareness which stands solitary and independent, and the innate true nature that transcends external things. It is bright as the blazing sun and pure as the autumn moon, illuminating heaven and earth, clear through and through, without a speck of dust. Only when one understands this principle may it be called pure stillness and non-action.

Not understanding the true teaching of the sages, yet taking laziness and indolence for cultivation, you are like a boundary stone: you cannot be pushed, nor can you be pulled away. You unreasonable person cannot even distinguish good from bad, or the deviant from the correct. I think that even if one counted the divine immortals in heaven, there would be none so muddled and so lacking in clear awareness.

The verse says:

When has the true treasure ever lain outside? Those whose hearts are empty can only argue and tangle themselves without end. Knowing themselves to be no more than little birds in the nest, how could they ever behold the great whale and the great Peng of the sea? Their ability is limited, yet they boast of their cleverness; their achievements are still unmade, yet they presume upon their own capacity. Were it not for so much flattery and deceit, evil karma would not accumulate ever more heavily.

There is another kind of person whose conduct is wholly at odds with principle. They dwell in hermitages, like grass that grows all alone, having no contact with the world outside. Day after day they keep their doors shut; yet the moment someone arrives bringing provisions of the Dao (Dao liang, food offered to support those who cultivate the Dao), their hands and feet turn nimble and they rush in a fluster to receive them, snatching like monkeys—and they even dare to show disrespect toward the Supreme Perfected (Shangzhen, the lofty perfected ones and immortals so called in Daoism).

A warning to the clever and quick-witted gentlemen of the ten directions: hereafter, if you meet such persons who do not know how to behave, kick their hind feet out from under them so that they are thrown to the ground, pry their mouths open with a wooden stick, pour thin excrement into them, and then rinse them with urine. One rebukes beings of this kind in this way because they do not understand correct principle, and have offended and defiled the Supreme Perfected.

The verse says:

The beings of the world muddle-headedly gather into a crowd, drift with the current, and sink into the mire. Conduct such as this brings setback and injury upon the Lord of Mysterious Origin (Xuanyuan zhi zhu, a Daoist designation for the Dao or for a venerated deity), and it also goes against the Most High Venerable Deity (Taishang). People do not understand the true teaching, and instead, in ignorance, enter deviant paths. After death they must endure the sufferings of the uninterrupted hell, as though their whole bodies were pierced through by ten thousand swords.

You who cultivate the Dao (the Way), it is not that I lack compassion or deliberately treat you without kindness, nor do I speak this way out of resentment. It is only that your insight is like that of beasts, and your conduct still remains at the level of ordinary worldly beings. I now admonish you frankly, so that you may suffer less sorrow and hardship hereafter. Words bitter to the taste are like good medicine; words harsh to the ear are true counsel.

Why do I say this? Words that accord with principle are not necessarily pleasing to the ear, and words that please the ear do not necessarily accord with principle. The upright and good receive the blessings of the heavenly realms, while the utterly wicked suffer the calamities of the hells. Karmic offense and fortunate reward are both perfectly clear, and the final outcome rests entirely on one’s own conduct.

Cultivating the Dao must be swift and resolute, like a single cut that severs—decisive as chopping nails and cutting iron—with no further hesitation. Turn the mind back and awaken, and become a person free and at ease. Bear in mind that birth and death are the great matter of human life: even if children and grandchildren fill the hall and gold and silver fill the storehouses, in the end it is all emptiness. The preciousness of nature and life cannot be bought with wealth; the matter of birth and death cannot be taken on in one’s place by one’s children.

Practice is like climbing a slope, and each person must exert effort. Be sincere and careful, and do not let doubt arise in the mind. Accumulate merit, set the correct Way aright and remove deviant thoughts, and refine and nurture Jing (essence) and Shen (spirit) so that they accord with the Dao. Reach a state of intimate accord with the true Shen, and enter the most mysterious and subtle, the most pure and faint level—only then has the work of cultivation been fulfilled. This is the essential point of cultivating the Dao and learning immortality.

The verse says:

Look about you: children and grandchildren fill the hall, and gold and silver fill the storehouses; yet once death arrives, both in the end return to emptiness. One should seek the true Dao early, open the eye of wisdom, and let numinous clarity become fully penetrating. The light of Shen shines as brilliant as sunlight, and one ascends in flight to the Palace of Great Numinosity.

Another verse says:

All the myriad beings issue from the Mysterious Primordial Ancestor, and in the end all return to the lineage of the Most High. The myriad things each receive the mandate of Heaven, and yet they interpenetrate one another. It embraces the configurations of primordial Qian and contains the realm of the beginning of Heaven and Earth. If one wishes to fathom the ancient source, one must recognize the Palace of the Five Luminosities.