《丹阳真人语录》

In the third month of the Guimao year of the Dading era (1183), I began to take a master and paid my respects to him south of the hermitage of Fan Mingshu in Muping. The Master asked, “Where have you come from?” I replied, “I come from Shuwu. I admire the Master’s De (Virtue/Power): he does not take wealth and goods as true riches, but contentedly cultivates the Great Dao (the Way). Having heard of the Master’s renown, I felt a longing in my heart and wish to attend at his side and respectfully receive his teaching.” The Master said with pleasure, “To have a heart that seeks the Dao while still so young is rare indeed.” After a moment he added, “When you are hungry, go and eat; when you have finished eating, go and sleep.”

One day the Master saw me standing with my hands clasped in formal salute and rebuked me, saying, “One who cultivates the Dao should be at ease and unobstructed, and need not mind appearances. This is a hermitage, not a government office, and you are not an official. If we still insist on worldly etiquette, it will be hard for us to draw close to one another. The ancients said, ‘Among the Three Mountains, human feeling is plain and detached; within the Four Seas, people associate through the righteousness of the Dao.’ These words were not spoken lightly.”

The Master often taught, “In learning the Dao one must rely on one’s own realization. If one cannot realize it, it is because the mind is dull and clouded. To dispel this dullness, first cleanse the inner heart so that the mind becomes clear and bright. When one’s practice has matured, attainment comes of itself; there is no need to ask others again and again. In this way the depth of one’s cultivation and the results it yields will appear clearly.”

As the Master walked the roads of the Shu-Mu region and met monks and Daoists coming and going, whether he knew them or not, he would bow to them first. Those accompanying him were puzzled and asked, “If you have never met, why bow?” The Master answered, “Cultivating the Dao takes gentleness and humility as its root. Moreover, the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism differ only in their approaches; at the root they communicate with one another. Confucius said that even to hold the whip and drive a carriage for another, he would be willing; I have never heard that a single bow counts as a fault.”

The master said: The Patriarch had always been skilled at writing, and after he attained the Dao (the Way) his wit became especially quick. Whether acrostic poems, character-dissection poems, veiled sayings, or linked-pearl verses, he could compose them almost without stopping to plan. He often exchanged poems with others. Once, everyone rhymed on the character jie (“joint”). After each had finished a matching poem, the Patriarch responded last, and the moment he opened his mouth he said, “Two hundred and sixty golden bone-joints.” All present sighed in admiration and took this for the speech of an immortal. Who today can carry on such a gift? Only Master Fanxi (a Daoist name or title; the original is unclear) seems well able to follow the Patriarch’s pace.

The master said: The Patriarch once went to Dengzhou (in the area of present-day Shandong). He wore a bamboo rain-hat and tattered clothes, held a length of something in his hand, and carried an iron mirror. His appearance was strange and austerely antique. He begged in the marketplace, and no one in Dengzhou recognized him. At night he returned to the Daoist abbey and inscribed a quatrain on the wall:

“Long have I been away from the village of waters and bamboos at Zhongnan. At home there are neither brothers and sisters nor sons and grandsons. I have trudged several thousand li only to seek one who truly knows me, and to lead him into the gate of long life without death.”

Early the next morning he brushed his robes, set his dress in order, and left in haste. A few days later the prefect Heshilie Miao came to the abbey, saw the poem on the wall, and could not cease admiring it. Matching the original rhymes, he wrote:

“Thinking back, I have been away from my native place for three years. I have long forgotten how the bamboo in the courtyard has grown, and my children and grandchildren are already grown. One day I shall brush my sleeves and go to seek you, hoping you will allow me, at my ease, to knock once upon your gate.”

The master said: A plain and simple diet can nourish Qi (vital energy); restraining anger can nourish one’s inborn nature; dwelling in humiliation and low station can nourish De (Virtue/Power) and preserve singleness of purpose; a mind clear and at peace can nourish the Dao. When one’s name is not entered on the registers and one’s thoughts are not bound by power and profit, only then can one cast off the shell of an ordinary person and keep company with the Way of Heaven.

The Master said, “Wine disorders a person’s original nature, and the eating of meat cuts life short; it is best to take neither. To break the precept against wine or the precept against meat may still be forgiven, but if one breaks the precept against sexual desire, the offense is so grave as to be beyond pardon. Why is this? Because lust is fiercer than wolves and tigers: it corrupts a person’s moral character, obstructs good deeds, depletes Jing (essence) and Qi (vital energy), extinguishes Shen (spirit), and may even cost one one’s life. Thus, for one who cultivates the Dao (the Way), this is an exceedingly great offense.”

The Master said, “For ease and freedom, nothing compares with unhurried leisure. If a cultivator of the Dao grows somewhat weary of dwelling in the hermitage, he may find one or two companions, take up his traveling bundle and a staff, and set out wandering while he sings. Whenever he comes upon fine mountains and fine waters, he should stop and linger to enjoy them, and not be greedy to press on along the road.”

The Master said to me, “One who studies the Dao must see the matter through from beginning to end, and must not abandon it halfway and become a laughingstock to others. Besides, you are a person of learning—do you not know that anyone who would establish himself in the world must accomplish something of substance? Cultivating the Dao is precisely the great undertaking by which a man establishes himself.”

The Master often wrote out a couplet in large characters to give to his fellow practitioners of the Dao: “Hasten to topple the Mountain of Self and Other; urgently break open the Dragon-Tiger Cavern.” I then asked, “The Mountain of Self and Other I understand, but may I ask where the Dragon-Tiger Cavern lies?” The Master smiled and said, “I dare not lightly transmit the secret of Heaven. Look carefully, and see whether you can grasp it.”

One day the Master called for me, and only after quite some time did I go to him. He asked, “Where were you just now?” I answered, “I had just awakened from a midday nap, and my spirit was clear and settled. At the head of the bed there was a copy of the Zhuangzi, so I took it up and read, which is why I was not here.” The Master said, “Cultivating the Dao calls for realization with the heart-mind. If one is once again bound by written words, when will one ever truly bring the matter to completion? Hence it is said that if one cannot truly comprehend the Nanhua Jing (the Daoist name for the Zhuangzi), the more one reads, the more bewildered one becomes.”

When the Perfected Danyang was at Huating, he said, “What is the Dao (the Way)? A person’s root is ancestral Qi (vital energy, the source of life). Do you not know that it passes in and out through the nose? Have you never heard Guangchengzi say, ‘The Dan’ao river carriage (the circulation of breath in the practice of Neidan, internal alchemy) need not be forcibly stirred; crane-embryo and tortoise-breath (inward guarding like a crane’s embryo, and breathing drawn out long like a tortoise) naturally continue without end’?”

The Perfected said to those gathered, “If one studies the Dao with single-minded devotion, anyone can cultivate and become an immortal. This is unlike the worldly pursuit of rank and fame, in which some succeed and some fail. Confucian learning ranges widely, yet it is often not concise enough; the Dao is simple and easy to practice. So long as one remains pure and still and practices Wuwei (non-action), that is the highest method of cultivation.”

The Perfected lived in a small, narrow room. Inside there were only a table and a couch, brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and a single sheepskin. It was bare and empty, with nothing to spare. In the morning he ate only one bowl of porridge; at noon, one bowl of rice; at all other times he took nothing into his mouth.

One day he called his servant in and had him sit for a long while. The servant asked, “Teacher, is there something one must do in cultivating the Dao?” The Perfected said, “There is no need to do anything on purpose. The lyrics often sing of dragon and tiger, and of the infant and the crone (terms in the art of Neidan symbolizing the union of Yin-Yang); these are only borrowed ways of speaking. The essential of cultivating the Dao is nothing more than nurturing Qi. People are constantly entangled by fame and profit, and they often deplete their primordial Qi because of it. In studying the Dao there is no other urgent task; the key lies in nurturing Qi. The heart-fluid (a Daoist term for the fluids of the heart) descends, kidney Qi ascends, and they reach the spleen. Primordial Qi mingles in a dense vapor and does not disperse, and the Neidan coalesces. The liver and the lungs are the passages through which breath comes and goes. Practice long with a quiet mind, and realization will come of itself. If one does not nurture Qi, then even if one could, as the old tales tell, tuck Mount Tai under an arm and leap across the Northern Sea, one would still not count as having attained the Dao.” These words were spoken ten days before his death.

I was standing outside the little room with two or three companions, Cao and Liu among them, when the Perfected suddenly came out and said, “The road…” The original text breaks off at this point.

I was standing outside the courtyard wall with two or three companions, Cao and Liu among them, when our master suddenly came out and said, “The Dao (the Way), in the end, is nothing other than clarity and stillness, Wuwei (non-action), and carefree ease: one remains unstained by external things and clings to nothing. If these twelve characters can be pondered again and again until they are truly understood, one can become a cultivator who has thoroughly grasped the principle. Simply trust this old man’s words and practice accordingly, and benefit will come of itself. You young people will surely have no regrets in the future.”

In the hermitage of Ma Congren, in the western suburbs of Huang County, the master recited, “Even if one spends ten thousand taels of gold every day, it is still not as good as plain clothes and simple fare.” He said, “Last year, as I was passing through Waiguan, I heard someone recite this line. I thought it very much to the point, so I committed it to memory, though I did not know who had written it.” Ma Yuanzhi said, “This line comes from Elder Shun’s Weijiang ji (Reed River Collection).” The master said, “How fine these words are!”

The master said, “In the transmission of this lineage, who are the patriarchs? The two perfected ones, Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, both handed it down in person.” He then composed a verse: “A single point of numinous brightness shines through the Great Void; even a painter of the highest skill could not depict it. Do not casually compare it with the bright moon—even if the bright moon wanes, how could it be set beside me?” The master said that these lines let their edge show just a little.

The master said, “The mind’s Qi (vital energy) is the hardest thing to master. When it races, it is as swift as a galloping horse, and only when it grows quiet is it easily tamed. One must cast off craving for external things. Even when splendor and bustle fill the eyes, one should keep the original mind as if dwelling in a deep mountain valley. This is the state of mind proper to a cultivator. If one has not reached the realm of no-mind, one cannot govern the mind’s Qi. Thus what is precious in the Dao lies in no-mind.”

The master went on, “When the mind is settled, desire fades and is forgotten; when body and mind are empty and still, the working of Qi begins to move; when thoughts cease, Shen (spirit) grows lively instead; when Yang qi is full and abundant, Yin qi recedes (Yin-Yang). This is the natural principle. Those who do not understand it fail to see this. They think only of making plans for their children and grandchildren, and they suppose instead that studying the Dao is of no benefit. How can their reckoning be so incomplete?”

The Master said, “Only when I was past forty did I meet my teacher and begin to enter the Dao (the Way), so the hair at my temples was already streaked with white. Yet there is another tuft of hair within my belly—how did that come to be? I had longed for Guanzhong (the area of present-day Shaanxi) for more than ten years, and the Shen (spirit) I had been nurturing also turned black.” The Master then repeated these words.

“It is like someone calling out in an empty mountain gorge: the sound answers at once. Is there really something else responding? It is only because the space within is empty that the sound can return. My friend does not believe this. If one can grow quiet and cultivate in person, one will naturally understand.”

The Master said, “Lord Haichan (the Daoist figure Liu Haichan) was originally prime minister of the state of Yan. One day he suddenly awakened to the Dao and cut off all attachment to family and property. His poem contains these lines: ‘I cast off the burning house of three thousand mouths and set aside a million households of household troops.’ Thereafter he lived only by begging, content with whatever came his way and sporting through the human world. He even went into the houses of prostitutes to fetch wine and take up a comb, and felt no shame in it. Later some who studied the Dao said, ‘I was born to wealth and rank; compared with Lord Haichan, you fall far short.’”

The Master said, “If a person can discern and practice the Dao of clarity and stillness, one can reach complete excellence. Thus the Jing (scripture/classic) says, ‘If a person can constantly preserve clarity and stillness, heaven and earth will both return.’ The heaven and earth spoken of here are not the outer heaven that covers all things and the earth that bears all things, but the heaven and earth within the human body. Above the diaphragm (the membrane between chest and abdomen) is heaven; below the diaphragm is earth. If the Qi (vital energy) of heaven descends and the channels of earth are unobstructed, so that the Qi of the upper and lower body is harmonized, Jing (essence) and Qi will naturally be firmly conserved. This is the teaching of the Immortal Xiaoren.”

The Master said, “The subtlety of guarding Qi lies in preserving Jing and Qi, and one must be especially attentive to sleep. Just as one is about to lie down…” The original text breaks off here, and then repeats the earlier passage about the upper and lower body as heaven and earth and the harmonizing of the channels of Qi.

The Master said, “The essential point of guarding Qi (vital energy)—that is, of safeguarding the primordial Qi within the body—lies in preserving Jing (essence) and Qi, and above all in preventing their dissipation during sleep. When preparing to sleep, one should keep right mindfulness lucid and awake, lay aside every kind of thought and care, draw body and mind inward, and lie on one’s side. The breath should be long, continuous, and gentle; the hun and po souls should not churn restlessly within the body, nor should the spirit wander and scatter outward. In this way, black Jing—a form of Jing and Qi spoken of in Daoist Neidan (internal alchemy) practice—will naturally settle and grow calm.”

The Master said further, “The Confucians speak of ‘repaying De (Virtue/Power) with De, and repaying resentment with uprightness.’ The perfected persons of ancient times said, ‘Bind friends with trust, and requite fuyan with kindness.’ These words, one may say, have been stated with thorough clarity.” (Fuyan is suspected to be the wording of the original text and is retained literally.)

When the Master was in Laizhou, a man named Jiang Xi came to pay his respects, bringing with him the Biography of Lord Lü. The Master read a sentence in it: “People of the world pursue fame and profit with their whole heart, not knowing that Shen (spirit) resides in their own persons. Chasing external things and not knowing how to turn back, they lose all their innate genuineness—whom, then, can they blame?” The Master closed the book and said to Jiang Xi, “These words truly hit upon the principle. Yet if the world has no one who is awakened, how can the Dao (the Way) be easily put into practice?”

There was a man named Han Tao, whose courtesy name was Qingfu. He admired Tao Yuanming and Shao Yaofu (that is, Shao Yong), and styled himself the Lord of the Garden of Peace and Joy. When the Master, returning from Guanyou—a general name for the region west of Hangu Pass—to Shumou, passed through Jinan, Han Tao invited him into the garden and entertained him with a plain meal of simple, light vegetarian fare. After they had eaten, Han Tao bowed his head to the ground before the Master and said, “From youth I have admired the Dao. Now I am nearing white-haired old age. Having had the good fortune to meet you, Master, I beg you to grant me a single word to illumine my ignorance.”

The Master replied, “The Dao takes no-mind as its fundamental substance and the forgetting of words as its function; it takes softness and weakness as its root and purity and stillness as its foundation. To carry these principles into daily life, one should moderate food and drink, cut off distracting thoughts, sit quietly and regulate the breath, and sleep in stillness so as to nurture and protect black Jing. When the mind does not race outward in pursuit, nature and feelings can settle; when the body is not worn by excessive toil, Jing and Qi can be preserved; when the spirit is not disturbed, Neidan can coalesce. Thereafter, within emptiness and stillness, one eliminates passion and desire and brings the spirit to the utmost point of calm. In this way, even without stepping beyond one’s own door, one can comprehend the profound and subtle Great Dao.”

Han Tao bowed in thanks and said, “The Great Dao is far-reaching, deep, and subtle, and there is no place from which even to begin a question. Now that I have heard this refined discourse, I have found the path by which to enter.”

The two gentlemen Cao and Lai were both originally scholars trained in the Confucian classics. Later they turned from Confucian learning to the study of the Dao (the Way). Over many years they came to know one another, and their friendship grew deep. They once asked, in an unhurried way, “Master, when you were in Guanyou (in ancient times a general term for the region west of Hangu Pass), how did you cultivate the Dao?”

Cao and Lai replied, “In winter and summer alike the Master wore a single cloth robe, and he ate coarse tea and plain food, seeking only to be full. In the bitter cold of midwinter, when the snow lay heavy, there was no fire in the hermitage, and at times he even drank ice-cold water. His Shen (spirit) and Qi (vital energy) remained peaceful and at ease, and he showed not the least sign of fearing the cold. He lived in this way for ten years. Had the Qi of the Dao not sustained him from within, he could hardly have endured it.”

The Master said, “In whatever one undertakes, one should prepare beforehand; only then can misfortune be avoided. Those who cultivate the Dao should restrain passion and desire while they are still young and strong, and make preparation early; only then is there hope of becoming an immortal. If one waits until the hair has turned white and hangs down to the collar, until resolve has waned and the spirit is exhausted, and only then thinks of learning the Dao, it is like seeking fur garments only after the severe cold has arrived. Is that not far too late?”

The Master said, “The thirty-six arts of daoyin (guiding and pulling) and the twenty-four methods of reverted elixir are all preliminary gateways into the Dao; they should not be taken for the Great Dao itself. To confine the Great Dao to such methods as refining the elixir in furnace and cauldron, or taking the tortoise and the snake as images, is to produce something out of nothing and to add human contrivance to original nature. All these practices make very high demands on a person’s innate capacity. For this reason the elixir scriptures and the books of the masters left by the Daoist tradition—a thousand Jing (scripture/classic) and ten thousand discourses—may be summed up in a single phrase: clarity and purity.

The Master said, “As for what is called clarity and purity, ‘clarity’ means clearing the source of the mind’s thoughts, and ‘purity’ means purifying the Sea of Qi (Qihai, the place where, in Daoist teaching, the breath within the body gathers). When the source of thought is clear and bright, external things cannot disturb it; the emotions can then settle, and spiritual illumination arises from this. When the Sea of Qi is pure, deviant thoughts and desires cannot intrude; Jing (essence) and Qi are preserved, and the abdomen in turn grows full. One should therefore clarify the mind as one clarifies water, and nurture the breath as one nurtures an infant. When the breath is abundant, Shen and Qi become numinously bright; when Shen and Qi are numinously bright, the breath in its turn is transformed. All of this is the result brought about by clarity and purity.

“If, in cultivation, one deliberately exerts the mind and clings to human contrivance, what one obtains is a technique that has an end. If one follows the principle of no-mind and Wuwei (non-action), one can reach the boundless realm of pure vacuity.”

The master said: What is called “Wuwei” (non-action) means not deliberately pondering or planning. One carefully restrains desire and anger, does not accumulate wealth, and does not calculate benefit and harm. Such a person may appear to be engaged in activity, yet inwardly always abides in Wuwei; though situated amid affairs, the mind is not pulled about by them. How much more is this so when one devotes oneself to purity and stillness, rectifies one’s thoughts, and regulates Qi (vital energy), so that Shen (spirit) roams freely in the realm of carefree wandering and enters a state free of attachment.

The master said: Liu Gaoshang lived for forty years in a cramped and humble dwelling. He had nothing else to do but keep the mind empty and still and the body full and substantial, cast off ostentation, seek no reputation, abandon profit, clarify the spirit, and preserve primordial Qi. In this way Neidan (internal alchemy) naturally congeals, and the path of immortality is naturally accomplished. Someone praised him: “Close the apertures of the senses, and shut the gates through which mind and spirit race outward.” I had read these words before; only now, having seen such a person, do I know that the saying is concise and apt.

The master said: What is called “no-mind” is not dull unknowing like that of cats and dogs. It means letting the mind abide in purity and clarity and harbor no deviant thoughts. Worldly people do not have a pure and clear mind, while those who cultivate the Dao (the Way) do not have a mind stained by dust. This is not to say that either is wholly without awareness, like wood and stone, or cats and dogs.

The master said: When one is no longer dragged by arising and ceasing, one can see the Tathagata (a Buddhist term referring to the awakened one or to suchness); at the moment of thorough awakening, one can avoid being reborn again. Master Qiu said: This refers to the emergence of the yin spirit (the state in cultivation in which the yin spirit manifests and leaves the body); only if one can reach the celestial court and suddenly see the twin blossoms fly forth does it count as the emergence of the yang spirit (the yang spirit manifesting and leaving the body). This is merely the preliminary stage of cultivation.

The master said: The great Dao transcends ordinary human sentiments and takes Wuwei as its subtle foundation. If one gives rise to no craving toward the myriad things of the world, afflictions will not follow.

The master said: If a cultivator’s merit and practice are not yet complete, then when the allotted span of life has come, even sages and worthies cannot keep that person from dying; if one does not cultivate, then when the allotted span arrives, death likewise cannot be avoided.

The master said: If only a single thought is kept unbroken, one can bring to rest the transmigration of an entire lifetime. Gong Daosheng asked, “When one reaches the state of limpid stillness and constant quiescence, what should one do?” The master replied, “Even the state of ‘limpid stillness’ itself must be let go; there is no need to cling to it.”

Yu Qingfeng asked, “After many years of cultivation, the eye of the Dao (the Way) is still not clear, and the mind-ground is still not quickened. What is the reason?” The master said, “There is no other cause; it is simply that the cultivation of the Dao has not been concentrated and thorough enough.”

Yu Qingfeng asked again, “When one is limpid and quiet, constantly abiding in stillness, what should one do?” The master replied, “Even the state of ‘limpid clarity’ must be let go; there is no need to cling to it.”

The master said: From time without beginning, all men and women have been entangled by every kind of affection and craving and have been unable to escape the cycle of rebirth. Beings of every sort—those born from the womb, from the egg, from moisture, and by transformation—together with their differing dispositions and appearances, all receive life through love and desire. Disposition arises from love, and life comes into being through desire. Love and desire then give rise to all manner of distinctions between the favorable and the adverse, producing jealousy and resentment, so that the cycle of rebirth continues without a break. The scripture (Jing) says, “If one would gain this pure land, one ought first to purify one’s own mind.” When the mind is pure, the cycle of rebirth naturally comes to rest.

By nature the master loved to drink porridge, and at noon he often took a single bowl. When he had finished, he would talk of the Dao with others and instruct those who came after him, never growing weary of it, from which one can see that he was a kind and magnanimous man. While in Laiyang he wrote these lines: “When the bowl of porridge is finished, one must put forth a full ten parts of effort.” Those who study the Dao should take to heart the reminder in these words: if one attends only to food and drink and to sitting at ease, yet does not take the cultivation of the Dao seriously, the faults thereby incurred can well be imagined.

The master also said, “To study the Dao, one must apply a full ten parts of effort.” Those who study the Dao should remember these words. If one merely eats and drinks and sits upright, yet does not cultivate the Dao, the faults thereby incurred can well be imagined.

The master said: Those who study the Dao need not read the scriptures widely, lest the mind grow scattered and practice be hindered. The Daodejing annotated by Heshang Gong and the Yinfujing annotated by Jinlingzi may be read now and then without harm; yet it is best to read nothing at all and devote oneself solely to nourishing Qi (vital energy). This is the superior course.

The master said: Whether walking, standing, sitting, or sleeping, those who study the Dao must not let the mind leave the Dao for even a moment. When walking, let the steps fall on level ground; when standing, gather Shen (spirit) into the Great Void; when sitting, regulate the breath evenly through the nose; when sleeping, keep the awareness fixed on the “pearl” below the navel (that is, the Jing (essence) and Qi nurtured within the Dantian (energy center)). By regulating the breath over a long time and not allowing the work to be interrupted, so that the whole day seems as if nothing at all were happening, one has a solid and genuine practice of cultivation. It is not something deliberately contrived or forced into being.

When the Master first began to study the Dao (the Way), he said, one must cut off all attachments as one cuts the thread of a string of pearls. After that, regulate the breath (tiaoxi, evening out the breathing) over a long period and practice without interruption. Appearing all day like a dull and simple person is true, grounded cultivation, not something achieved through contrivance or by putting on the appearance of a practitioner.

The Master said: When you first begin to study the Dao, you must break off worldly affairs from this very day and no longer keep them in mind. If even the slightest attachment remains uncleared, the mind of the Dao cannot become steady. Do not think of the past, do not dwell on the future; simply attend to what is before you. This is what it means to be a person free of entanglements.

The Master also said: Practitioners of the Dao do not despise poverty, for poverty is beneficial to nurturing life. When hungry, eat a bowl of porridge; when tired, spread a bed on a bundle of straw and sleep. Living each day on simple means is precisely the daily life of a practitioner. For this reason, the state of stillness and Wuwei (non-action) is not easily attained by the wealthy and noble.

When the Master passed through Qingshe, someone invited him to a vegetarian meal. Several monks were present, and one of them, showing off his learning and eloquence, kept challenging the Master with words and argued without end. The Master answered calmly, "Apart from this one body of mine, I know nothing else." The monk was immediately ashamed, his face changed color, and he could say nothing more.

The Master said: In cultivating the Dao, one must be a firm and decisive person and never waver or hesitate. As long as you keep in mind the great matter of nature and life (xingming), you should strive in your practice without retreating, and resolve that you will certainly accomplish something. If one has too much sentimental attachment to children and family and too little longing for the mountains, forests, and clouds, one cannot be called a true student of the Dao.

The Master said: The "black" within the body must not be scattered, and the spirit (Shen) of the mind must not be clouded. Someone asked, "How can one keep the Qi (vital energy) from dispersing?" The Master answered, "Do not move the body recklessly." The person asked again, "How can one keep the Shen from being clouded?" The Master answered, "Have no affairs in the mind." The person asked further, "When body and mind have reached this state, may one live in a hermitage and practice there?" The Master said, "Once things have been settled so well, you may stop and rest."

Here, "hermitage" (an) refers to the simple, quiet room where a practitioner lives; "body without action, mind without affairs" stresses reducing reckless movement and stray thoughts. The original phrase "the black within the body" is kept literally, as its specific meaning is difficult to determine from this passage alone.

The Master said: The mind and nature of one who cultivates the Dao (the Way) must not be led about by worldly affairs. If one leans on an ornate staff, chants of the wind and enjoys the moon, and nurtures a cool, pure, and detached disposition, what is there to object to? As for begging from door to door and being shoved and scrambled over by others, that is precisely the ordinary way of life in a Daoist’s daily practice.

The Master said: When you first entered retreat to cultivate, you ate whatever single meal you had managed to beg. Now your merit and practice are still slight, yet you choose pleasant places to stay and fine food to eat. If you go on like this, even should you attain the Dao in the future, you will hardly escape having to repay the debts you have incurred.

The Master said: When I first came to Guanzhong to beg for food, I once entered a wineshop. A drunkard insulted me and struck me with his fist. I turned to leave, but he seized me and struck me again, and I could only endure it. Have any of you met with a demonic hindrance of this kind? The disciples answered, “No.” The Master said, “Then bear such encounters well, and do not contend.”

The Master said: The Patriarch said not to wear fine clothes, not to eat fine meals, and not to sing and make merry. What matters most is that the mind cling to nothing among the myriad things.

The Master said: When I was still in lay life, I used to weigh out meat and buy wine; I have now given these up for more than ten years. Even if one eats meat and drinks wine, it is not that one cannot become an immortal—only that the progress of cultivation will be somewhat slower. If the Dao is not in the heart, and one merely craves the savor of wine and meat and the appetites of mouth and belly, one cannot escape retribution for one’s faults, and will in the end sink among the lower orders of ghosts.

The Master said: When one speaks of the Patriarch leading four disciples, one means Qiu, Liu, Tan, and Ma. Look at how Ren Fengzi conducted himself in the cultivation of De (Virtue/Power). The Patriarch said, “If one hears these principles, it is as if the ears were stopped and one cannot take them in; yet once one has seen them with one’s own eyes, one still clutches them as if holding a precious treasure, and dares not let them go.” Uncle-Master Liu once said the same.

The Master said: I once chatted idly in the “Huanguo” and happened to speak of fresh melons. When the followers of the Dao (the Way) heard of it, the next day they made melon buns, brought them into the Huanguo, and ate three of them. For this they were punished by being forbidden to eat for three days.

The Master said: The Patriarch once sent a disciple to Ninghai to solicit some money and rice, saying that he himself would use them. The disciple replied, “And what came of it after the other fellow disciples had gone? I once vowed not to return to my home district.” Hearing this, the Patriarch grew angry and beat him until daybreak before he stopped, striking him many times. At the time the disciple felt an impulse to withdraw; fortunately Senior Brother Qiu dissuaded him, and only then did he not leave. To this day he dares not forget the matter.

The Master said: While I was still in my home district, the Patriarch ordered me to go to Laizhou to solicit alms. Several days passed, and I was still hesitant at heart. At night I dreamed that the Patriarch said, “Tomorrow stretch out your hand, be a stout-hearted man, and go into the street to beg with hand outstretched.” The vain thoughts and obstacles in my mind had not yet subsided at the outset, and that is why the Patriarch spoke these words.

The Master said: After I returned to my home district, the first time I went into the street the Patriarch set a little horned cap on me and daubed rouge on my face. I thought secretly to myself, “I do not fear meeting young men and women I know; I fear only meeting my in-laws.” Whenever I thought of the household of Fan Mingshu, I wanted to go in and rest a while; but when I saw that elder relatives were already at home, I thought, “This time I shall surely be put to shame.”

A disciple asked: The Account of the Ascent of Perfected Lord Xu says that in the one thousand two hundred and forty years to come, there ought to be eight hundred people who attain the Dao and become immortals. What does this mean? The Master said: The Patriarch once said that he would teach and transform ten thousand people; Wang Zixian also spoke of this matter.

The Master said: Zhang Wenzi put one remark very well. He often said that in the give-and-take of conversation one must always take care to watch over the “treasure that nourishes the person” (the precious root that sustains one’s own being).

The Master said: Sayings such as the “Song of a Hundred Don’ts” and the “Ten Admonitions against Wrong,” were they things spoken by oneself, would still be nothing more than the words the Patriarch once spoke: that one must look after the treasure that nourishes the person. And so I wrote them out along the line of this meaning.

The Master said: Most people are always fond of praising themselves, feeling that they surpass others in every respect, and so they are often unwilling to show others respect and compliance.

The Master said: A contract for a donkey was picked up on the road—a document proving to whom the donkey belonged—and the Patriarch went on striking until daybreak, punching and kicking at the head and face. How many blows were landed in all, no one could count.

Someone did not believe the Master’s words. Qingfeng happened to be present, and that person asked, “Qingfeng, do you believe it?” Qingfeng said, “I believe.” The Master smiled faintly. Suddenly Dacheng asked, “When the Master acts in this way, is there still anyone who believes?” Qingfeng replied, “One person who believes is one immortal; it is precisely because there are unbelievers such as he that the preciousness of belief is brought out.”

The Master said, “To keep White Snow deeply stored is not stinginess; to amass Yellow Sprout in abundance is not greed.” When he had finished, he smiled and asked, “Is it good to put it this way?” He went on, “In a dream one forges a shadowless sword; in cultivating the method one removes the mind of emotional attachment.” He also said, “Before the halls of the Jade Pool (Yaochi), the azure luan rises in dance; within the precincts of Yueyuan, white cranes take flight.”

When the Master returned to the coast, the local households all strictly observed fasting and the precepts and came to follow the Five Assemblies (rites of gathering for cultivation). These had been established by the Patriarch. The Master’s disciples heard that when Master Ma was in Dengzhou, there had once been more than a hundred members of the assembly. The disciples reported to the Master, “Each of us has bathed and dwelt in quiet, abstaining from meat and wine, for seven days already. We wish to join the Pure Assembly, pray for blessing and protection, and remove the karmic retribution of the past.”

The Master said, “Very good. You have kept purity and observed the precepts for seven days, and you speak of yourselves as blessed. The disciples under Ma Feng’s gate each maintain purity throughout life, cut off craving and desire, and abstain from meat and wine; the blessings they obtain are greater still.” All the assembly bowed in reverence to the Master and sighed, “The pure teaching is truly inconceivable.” From then on, households of the three prefectures accepted the teaching one after another, and its influence gradually spread to every place. People heard of it and believed and followed; the teachings of the Great Dao (Dao, the Way) flourished anew, and this began with the Master.

The master asked his disciples, “How many double-hours are there in a day?” The disciples answered, “There are six double-hours in a day.” The master asked again, “And how many double-hours are there when day and night are taken together?” The disciples answered, “Day and night together make twelve double-hours.”

The master said, “Within these twelve double-hours of day and night, the Dao (the Way) of Heaven—the patterns by which heaven and earth move—turns in endless cycles and drives the transformation of all things. Has it ever paused for a single moment?” The disciples answered, “It has never paused.”

The master said, “All who study the Dao ought to take the Dao of Heaven as their model and set transformation in motion within their own bodies. Through all twelve double-hours, the mind and Shen (spirit) must remain constantly clear and still, without giving rise to the slightest worldly or distracting thought. Only then does it count as cultivation. Accumulated day after day and month after month, without a break, one may at last become an immortal. If one’s practice is impaired, or if one’s De (Virtue/Power) is wanting, how can one realize the Great Dao?

“As I see it, among the lot of you there is not a single one of the twelve double-hours in which you truly devote yourselves to cultivating the Dao. You have accepted the offerings of patrons from the ten directions—the faithful of every quarter—so how can you repay that support? Once you close your eyes in death, you will enter the cycle of rebirth once more. When will you ever escape it?

“I now solemnly admonish you: so long as you clarify your thoughts, cast aside desire, remain undisturbed by the myriad entanglements, and keep Shen and Qi (vital energy) harmonious and settled, this itself is the Dao. Cultivate in this way, and you will not go astray. But if you grow slack and fall back, and your practice is never truly carried out, then that will no longer be my responsibility.

“Should you not also think of your seven generations of ancestors? In life they committed all manner of evil karma, and in the netherworld they endure the suffering of their offenses, hoping that their descendants will realize the true Dao, deliver them, and enable them to ascend to heaven. All of you ought to keep this in mind, arouse a firm resolve, and hold to the Great Dao until death. This is what I hope for. Take good care.”

Hearing their master’s compassionate instruction, the disciples were filled with reverence and came to a new awareness, and so they vied with one another in diligent cultivation.

The master said to those assembled: The Dao (the Way) has no fixed form or name; it is the root of Shen (spirit) and Qi (vital energy). When primordial Qi descends and undergoes generation and transformation, numinous spirit arises from it. To refine and nurture Jing (essence) and Shen so that spirit unites with the Dao—this alone is called cultivating the True. All the other names and teachings are tangled and confused, and can hardly serve as a reliable basis. I wish to explain the essentials for you.

The key to cultivation never leaves Shen and Qi. Shen and Qi are nature and life; nature and life are the dragon and the tiger; the dragon and the tiger are lead and mercury; lead and mercury are water and fire; and water and fire are the infant and the maiden. The infant and the maiden symbolize true Yin and true Yang (Yin-Yang), and true Yin and true Yang are, in the end, nothing other than Shen and Qi. One must not cling to these different names; reduced to their core, they are only the two words “Shen and Qi.”

To nourish Qi and keep Shen whole, one must set aside every care and attachment, so that both the inner mind and the outer world are pure and still, and cultivate with long, single-minded devotion until spirit and intention are settled and Qi is full. After three years of cultivation without Jing and Qi leaking outward, the elixir can form in the lower Dantian (energy center); in six years, the elixir forms in the middle Dantian; in nine years, the elixir forms in the upper Dantian. This is called the fulfillment of the three elixirs and the completion of the nine transmutations. At that point the marrow condenses, refines, and transforms, and the blood and vessels become a true body. Inner cultivation is complete, outer radiance overflows, and light shines through all. The mind is silent and unmoving, yet it can respond whenever it is stirred.

Such a person can transform without limit, and whether sitting or standing may depart this world. The thirty-six thousand spirits within the body move freely, roaming throughout the world, and the spirits of the Three Realms come to receive them. Amid every kind of calamity, a thousand perils and ten thousand poisons cannot harm him. Even if a great catastrophe occurs and floodwaters strike from all sides, Shen and Qi fill the void and nothing can obstruct him.

Thus heaven may at times collapse, earth may at times sink, mountains may at times be destroyed, and seas may at times run dry. Whatever has form and appearance will in the end be ruined. Only one who cultivates the Dao and reaches the state in which Shen unites with the Dao can remain forever undestroyed, and the merit of that cultivation can also raise nine generations of ancestors into the Shangqing (the higher immortal realm spoken of in Daoism).