《太上灵宝净明天尊说御殟经》

At this time, in the early morning of the gengxu day in the sixth month of the jiyou year, the Most High Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure and Pure Brightness (Taishang Lingbao Jingming Tianzun), a revered deity of Daoism, summoned the assembled Perfected Persons and expounded the supreme secret method of Jingming (Pure Brightness). The newly initiated disciple, Perfected Person Huiwen, stood in attendance before the Celestial Worthy, his face full of worry, his expression sorrowful, and his mind in confusion, as if he had lost something.

The Celestial Worthy knew that Perfected Person Huiwen still held many anxieties in his heart, that he clung to the ordinary world, had not yet cast off mistaken views, and had not awakened to the truth. He also did not yet understand how to settle the spirit, gather the Qi (vital energy), nurture a peaceful frame of mind, and rescue all living beings. The Celestial Worthy then asked, “Perfected Person Huiwen, why do you show such a worried look? Have you perhaps met with something that has gone against your wishes?”

Perfected Person Huiwen bowed his head to the ground and bowed again, saying through his tears, “This disciple has had the good fortune to be born into the human world, to encounter a true teacher proclaiming the great Dao (the Way), and even to be chosen as leader of the ritual assembly, yet I still cannot escape calamity. The disciples who join the assembly all suffer just as I do. I have heard that all who wear the precious registers—the Fulu (talismans and registers) conferred in Daoism, which represent the ritual office and the protection of the one who receives them—can thereby leave behind every calamity…” [The scripture is fragmentary from this point.]

The disciples earnestly besought the Celestial Worthy (Tianzun) to remove calamity. In the villages where we now dwell, epidemic disease is raging; it makes no distinction between good and evil, and everyone suffers from it. We have been fortunate to attend the Celestial Worthy’s grand assembly and, together with the other disciples, to study the arts of the immortals, never daring to slacken. Yet the younger brothers and sisters in our homes, and other disciples as well, have all contracted sores and eruptions, and their suffering is hard to bear. We have all taken refuge in the gate of the teaching and cultivate the good, hoping thereby to be spared disaster; yet even now we cannot escape it, and anxiety weighs upon our hearts. We had meant to wait for a fitting moment to put this grave question to the Celestial Worthy. Unexpectedly, the Celestial Worthy inquired of us first, and the disciples could not help but weep.

Earlier, the Celestial Worthy transmitted to us the teachings of the Great Dao (the Way) and bade us practice them; yet we ourselves have still not been able to leave calamity behind. Those who commit the ten evils, obstinate and unyielding in will, destroy the teachings of the Dao and refuse to accept instruction. We earnestly beg the Celestial Worthy to bestow special guidance and deliverance, so that we disciples may be spared the plague disasters of the four seasons.

The Celestial Worthy (Tianzun) ascended the teaching seat and, with a heart of compassion, expounded the superior method to the Perfected Person (Zhenren) Huiwen and the others:

Heaven and Earth have no partiality. They transform and nurture the myriad things, and they do not decide beforehand who is good and who is evil. It is because worldly people are selfish that they bring disaster upon themselves. The Lord on High, pitying the people who had fallen into corruption and lost their original nature, established the Lingbao method of the Most High, teaching them to cultivate themselves in pursuit of long life. When pestilence and other calamities sometimes descend, they are punishments for those who violate the teachings; the various ghosts and spirits each have charge of these matters. Those who do good may rest at ease and rejoice, while those who do evil ought to fear punishment.

This is like a person who built a broad, level highway, paved with patterned bricks so that travel would be easy, while another set traps beside the road, hoping to catch fierce beasts such as tigers and rhinoceroses. Travelers who do not follow the great road, but look about this way and that, accidentally spring the mechanisms, and then turn about and say that the one who built the road did not build it well. Once one is walking on the road, one ought not to spring the mechanisms; the mechanisms were never set for travelers. The road and the traps each have their own use, just as good and evil are different from the outset.

Now some disciples violate and neglect the teaching. In their cultivation, their visualization is not sincere and single-minded; their ingestion and refinement are not carried out at the proper times; and they pay no heed to dietary prohibitions. As a result, the orthodox spirits who guard them all withdraw. Good conduct is obscured, while faults stand revealed. The spirits charged with punishment can then perceive this and send down poisonous Qi (vital energy), causing people to fall ill. If, after falling ill, they still do not recognize their own faults, but instead resent the methods of the Dao and blame their teacher for failing to protect them, the illness grows still more severe.

If someone in the household cannot join with a single heart in cultivating the Dao, practice diligently, and examine himself, but instead does many improper things and goes against the principal deity he serves, this too will draw ghosts and spirits to watch in secret and to punish and reprimand him. This is not a lack of justice; it is also a means of using the punishment of evil deeds to urge people toward goodness. Having already committed offenses, they still harbor a divided mind, and even say, “The one I serve cultivates the Dao and practices its methods, yet cannot protect my wife and children.” If one’s own conduct is licentious and depraved, and one moreover offers sacrifice to deviant ghosts, how could I grant such a person protection?

In sum, nourishing oneself through the four seasons must be kept in due measure. Wearing Fulu (talismans and registers) and transmitting the Jing (scriptures) serve to show that one honors the highest good; taking medicines and practicing the movement of Qi through exhalation and inhalation serve to foster upright Qi. The Celestial Worthy said that he possesses precious registers, which people may wear day and night so that the hundred ghosts stand in awe and good spirits attend and guard them; he also has immortal formulas that teach methods of ingesting Qi, exhalation and inhalation, and visualization, in order to relieve suffering. The Fulu used for healing, medicinal preparations such as Red Powder (Chisan) and Male Elixir (Xiondan), and the principles of seasonal regulation—dispersing and releasing in spring, supplementing and nourishing in summer, gathering in and restraining in autumn, and storing and concealing in winter—have already been explained at considerable length. Yet you have not carefully investigated the principles within them. Instead you hastily put the method away, supposing that, because you are disciples of the Most High, you ought by rights to be spared disaster. This is like hoping to end famine without tilling the fields, or hoping to obtain clothing without raising silkworms.

Now I shall further transmit the secret seal-script divine talismans for warding off pestilence, Red Powder and Male Elixir, together with the methods of wearing them, receiving and upholding them, and ingesting them. I shall choose an auspicious day to transmit them to you, and I shall transmit the secret incantations as well.

The incantation is: “An; yi (indicated by the fanqie spelling wu-ke); mu; zhi (pronounced zhi); hun; va (pronounced ma); [missing graph] (pronounced lü); mo; [unresolved graph]; fu; yi.”

If one can observe the fast and recite it every day, the Emperor-Lord and the divine generals will keep guard day and night. All the spirits of wen-poison—the malign, toxic Qi (vital energy) that causes epidemics—know that the reciter is a disciple of the Most High, and so they hold him in awe. Recite the scripture (Jing) one hundred times, and the hundred ghosts will have their heads broken and their brains split. If you cannot practice it in this way, there is nothing I can do for you either.

At this, Perfected Huiwen once more bowed and paid homage. The Exalted and Brilliant Great Envoy of the Nine Provinces wrote the contents out with a cinnabar brush and prepared to choose a day on which to carry out the art, instructing the disciple to receive it in sincere faith and to practice it accordingly. What follows is the “True Talisman of the Exalted and Brilliant Great Envoy of the Nine Heavens, the True Lord of Divine Merit and Wondrous Salvation, for Driving Off Wen, Banishing Epidemics, and Dispelling Calamity.”

The incantation is: “Scarlet script of the Grotto-Heavens; the Cinnabar Numen illumines the void, drives off wen, and seizes the toxin. By mandated celestial writ, golden register, and jade slips: the True Talisman of the True Lord of Ghostly Merit and Wondrous Salvation for Driving Off Wen, Banishing Epidemics, and Dispelling Calamity.”

The incantation is: “Scarlet script of the Grotto-Heavens; the Cinnabar Numen shines upon the void, drives out the malign Qi of plague, and gathers in the toxic Qi. This talisman comes by Heaven’s mandate and is recorded in the celestial writ and in the golden registers and jade slips. It is the ‘True Talisman of the True Lord of Ghostly Merit and Wondrous Salvation for Driving Off Wen, Banishing Epidemics, and Dispelling Calamity.’”

The incantation is: “Scarlet script of the Grotto-Heavens; the Cinnabar Numen shines upon the void, drives out the malign Qi of plague, and gathers in the toxic Qi. The celestial writ and the golden registers and jade slips, coming by Heaven’s mandate, drive off every ghost and specter. The Most High has already issued his edict, and the Primordial Lord may dwell in peace. Swiftly carry out the edict of Great Clarity and the Purple Void.”