《天乐集》Vol. 5

Plain-Language Reading of Tianle Ji (Collection of Heavenly Joy)

A Chan master said:

“Sitting at leisure in the mountains, peaks all around and white clouds over the head; in the deep valley orioles call again and again, yet it is as if spring’s whereabouts were unknown. Before the cliff, a rain of blossoms falls; waking from a midday nap, it is as if an old friend had appeared once more.”

Chan Master Jiangshan Mo said:

“More than forty years I mixed with the dust of the world; only now does the true dignity in my heart show itself. One night at Yantou, the east wind rose and blew every branch into bloom—spring intent everywhere.”

Chan Master Changsha Ling

The master returned from wandering in the mountains. The chief seat asked: “Where have you been?”

The master answered: “I have just left where the fragrant grass grows, and come back following the falling blossoms.”

The chief seat said: “That really has the flavor of spring.”

The master said: “It also surpasses autumn dew dripping on hibiscus.”

(The same exchange appears twice in the source text, with identical wording.)

Chan Master Shanrong Bo said:

“On the Ruoye Stream I fished until the full moon was exhausted; in the cave I blew the jade flute to its end, the lingering tone still carrying spring. At night I do not lodge in the deep palace—I only drive a single leaf of a boat, with fishermen’s songs, past Mengjin.”

Note: Most of the above are Chan gathas (verse sayings). They use images such as mountains and water, blossom rain, and fishermen’s songs to express the state of mind and awakening in practice; they need not be read line by line as travel writing. Proper names such as shouzuo (a senior monastic office, “chief seat”), Ruoye Stream, and Mengjin are kept as in the original.

Chan Master Xuechao said: “The World-Honored One (Shakyamuni Buddha) illuminates the three realms with a single eye; non-Buddhist practitioners use both eyes yet hope to penetrate the five regions of India and beyond. When hibiscus is in full bloom and peach blossoms smile, the true spring is not at the tip of the willow branch.”—The point is that the Buddhist insight differs from outsiders’ clinging; awakening lies not in chasing outer signs but in clarity of mind.

Chan Master Huanji said: “Wild birds call without cease; the Lord of Spring secretly turns spring out of the jar of time. In the woods the flowers have not yet opened but already look torn and scattered; a trace of fragrance remains, cold and quiet, yet enough to intoxicate the heart.”—Spring’s force turns in secret; flower affairs are impermanent; even leftover scent can fully move the heart, likening practice in which one sees conditions without attachment.

Chan Master Xinwen Ben said: “With both hands you lift something up only to be told to put it down; empty body and empty ground still breed doubt. In root, dust, consciousness, and realm there is nowhere to seek; thank the spring wind for opening everything in riotous bloom.”—One is told to release what is grasped; even “empty body” and “empty ground” still arouse suspicion; finding no fixed place in the fields of sense, root, and consciousness, one can only thank the spring wind and let all conditions bloom freely.

Chan Master Sanfeng Zang said: “Before the reed-ash moves [to mark the solar term], snow already lies three feet deep; where in heaven and earth is it not spring? Birds vanish on a thousand peaks, rivers freeze deep—and still no one goes seeking flowers and willows.”—Before the season turns, heavy snow still falls, yet the “spring” of the Dharma-nature fills heaven and earth; outwardly bleak, inwardly spring is already here, so none of the worldly spring wanderers appear.

Sanfeng Zang also said: “The elevated eye never settles on dust; who would share eager courtesies with servants? In harsh winter the three rivers are one sheet of ice—yet ten thousand plants and a thousand blossoms are spring everywhere.”—The eye of the Way does not stick to defilement; it does not join servants in fawning pursuit; though the three rivers are frozen like deep winter, in the mind it is already spring with myriad flowers.

Chan Master Xiangchuang Hai said: “An eighty-year-old woman never married; to whom can she unfold her knotted heart? Now, borrowing the Lord of Spring’s power, she joyfully sees her brows open to a touch of spring.”—An old woman unmarried all her life, her sorrow tied in knots, stands for someone who awakens late; once the force of spring is borrowed, even between the brows a spark of spring can appear—one thought turning the light within.

Chan Master Weiyi Run said: “The mother of transformation is impartial as a level palm; flowers like brocade, spring at its depth. Usually one embroiders mandarin ducks to admire alone; today one threads the needle to pass the skill to others.”—Nurturing is even-handed; spring deep, flowers like silk; what was once embroidery for one’s own delight becomes teaching the stitch to others—turning from private enjoyment to guiding others.

Chan Master Zhongfeng Mu said: “Flowers fall on the silver bed, spring in riotous bloom; the moon sinks beyond the golden canopy, the night vast and far. The empty hall is lonely with no one to share it; one burns chandana incense to the full intent of the heart.”—Flowers fall, the moon sets, spring vivid yet the night deep and remote; in a silent hall with no companion, only chandana is burned with complete devotion—solitary practice, quiet purity, offering fragrance to the mind.

Chan Master Wen of Qingshan said: “In the jade garden and Liang’s park we savor early spring; the whole grove’s fragrant splendor intoxicates the wanderer. Unawares, outside the curtain the oriole’s cry grows urgent—while in vain fallen blossoms scatter in disorder across the ground.”

Chan Master Meng of Sanyi said: “Manjushri’s wisdom, Moonlight’s virtue—how can speech be brought to completion as they come and go? Spring light still wears the same face as the east wind, yet it stirs the cuckoo in Jiangnan to cry out again and again.”

Master Jin of Xue’an said: “Who stands west of the painted tower? When we meet, our laughter is hushed and low. By the time we reach home, spring is already late—where petals fall, the partridge calls.”

Chan Master Yun of Shuzhong said: “The vermilion strings play beneath the moon at night; emerald sleeves dance in the spring wind. Where those who can harmonize roam freely—who else can wander there with them?”

Chan Master Sheng of Juelang said: “Not made by one character, not the eight characters either”—beyond the reach of words—“spring breeze brushes the railing yet the flowers still sleep. Where has the noble traveler not yet returned? Lush grass spreads grief across the land.”

Chan Master Duan of Baiyun said: “If you can turn things around, you are the Tathagata; warm spring hills and flowers open everywhere. You have your own pair of ‘poverty-marked’ hands—they have never lightly danced on the high platform of the three tiers.”

Chan Master of Qian’guang Hermitage said: “Rain washes pale-red peach calyxes into elegance; wind stirs light green willow threads into softness. Strange rocks show through the white clouds’ shadow; ancient trees stand clear in the green water’s light.”

Chan Master Bi of Xinwen said: “Sun warm, wind gentle—the scene grows stranger still; every flower and blade of grass reveals the whole pivot of Chan. A gust of fragrance rises from the bramble roses, drawing wandering bees to fly everywhere.”

Chan Master Wen of Beijian said: “When the six faculties exert no function, nothing gets through; for a moment all is entrusted to the spring wind. A thread of incense smoke idle in a quiet painting—no birds come, yet the flowers redden on their own.”

Chan Master Guang of Jishui said: “A thatched hut half hidden beside the stream; parting the mist, I move orchids and plant a stone field. Turning a step to view the flowers, I nearly drunk—unawares the wandering oriole has alighted before the window.”

Chan Master Nong of Yuan’an said: “One path red as another, one red as another; a thousand peach trees, ten thousand pear trees—all dense with bloom. Who recognizes the face of the spring wind? Five-colored fragrance meets you at every turn.”

Master Yangshan Qin said: Every dharma gate frees one from the fetters of discrimination and clinging to appearances; the myriad forms right before the eyes are, from the outset, the suchness of what is real. In bright spring light, heaven and earth seem especially open, and the boundless rivers and mountains unfold like a scroll slowly unrolled.

Master Ciming Yuan said: To chase bird tracks in empty space is futile; a hidden bird’s cry at dawn is also a cry that spring has come. Once you know that “the east wind” is this one road and no other, you see that Vimalakirti’s tiny room does not become unequal or sunken for being small—everywhere is the equal dharma realm.

Master Yushi Fang said: Birds call at every pass, red and green answering one another; a scented breeze brushes the couch and breaks the nap at noon. Dancing sleeves and a thin robe still fall into the dust of the world; Zhang drinks the wine, yet it is Li who gets drunk—the same event, the same nature, only the names differ.

Master Tudu Ce first said: See color, hear sound, and reach outward. He also said: To see color, hear sound, and reach outward is not necessarily wrong; to embroider mandarin ducks in the shadow of a hundred blossoms is its own kind of work. Since recognizing the “golden needle,” you may let the spring wind blow—your sleeves fill with fragrance.

Master Benzhuyue said: Old trees sealed in cloud breathe out pure scent; a light wind stirs, and birdsong sounds new. Moonlight at night beyond the curtain—turn once in bed, and your sleeves hold flower fragrance and the whole of spring.

Master Tiantong Jing said: To raise the eyebrows and answer is to have seen buddhas and ancestors in person, with nothing held back. Still today one responds to offerings throughout the four quarters; spring on the plum tips still carries the chill of snow—new life and harsh cold together.

Master Zide Hui said: Prince Nezha is originally the dharma body, standing alone, not leaning on conditions, unstained by dust. Clouds scatter, water runs clear, heaven and earth are pure; yellow leaves by the fence also compete to announce spring.

Master Zuan Jian said: Face in the dirt, head in the ash, yet not stained by dust; flower lanes and willow alleys, innocent delight in oneself. The golden cock heralds dawn, a jade tower spring dream; when one tree bursts into bloom, that is the spring that no kalpa can destroy.

Master Zundao Qi said: Spring in the Wuyuan region has always come late; in the second month the willows have not yet put forth silk. Yet on the day the river ice breaks here, it is precisely when the flowers are falling in Chang’an—north and south keep different seasons, and the pulse of spring each has its own place.

Master Daozong Ji said: Wild inns and mountain bridges, hoofbeats marking the miles; peach and plum in row after row make their own footpath. Who would guess that beyond the ancient shore’s hanging willows, spring wind still dances on its own among the green peaks?

Master Xueqiao Xin said: Along the paths, rape and wheat bloom in profusion; purple swallows carry mud to nest under painted eaves. Pity the boundless spring light scattered everywhere—that touch of “grace” cannot be fully tinted by crimson gauze. Worldly glamour and what is naturally so neither block each other, nor need to be forced into one.

This passage from Tianle Ji collects gathas by several Chan masters on the themes of spring, flowers, and awakening. The gist is as follows.

Master Ling Sou Yuan said: When the mind busies itself “seeking the mind,” the mind has nowhere to stand; once you see through this, ordinary days are what is real. From then on you need not be tugged by idle matters—like snow melting of itself when spring comes.

Master Xinwen Ben said: Plum blossoms bear frost and snow, half leaning on a fence; in slanting shadows their pure form shows. Spring reached the village ahead last night, yet the old monk in the bamboo hut has not noticed—meaning awakening sometimes arrives without your knowing.

Master Gushan Gui said: The world’s waves and storms make long partings hard to bear; each meeting wounds the heart. Water flows, flowers fall—where they go is hard to tell; yet the peach blossoms at the cave mouth are another kind of spring—worldly and beyond-world, delusion and awakening, cannot be judged by the same measure.

Master Yunyan Yin said: Vast and without a “sage” to cling to, the whole body is manifest; if you still hold to a “face-to-face” image, you are already one layer removed. No need to dredge up old tales of Liang gardens or Wei parks—one flower, five leaves (a metaphor for the Chan transmission), spring’s fullness was always complete.

Master Tianzhang Yu said: Who speaks of old times in the jade tower? One cry of a hidden bird cuts closest to the heart. Do not say you have not tasted the ache in that call—spring wine runs deep, and the “flower slave” (spring god or one who cherishes blossoms) is drunk with joy—feeling and awakening often hide in small things.

Master Cishou Shen said: In the third month, soft light and harmony; brocade mountains and rivers everywhere the same. Blue tiles in dawn mist, light rain on Cold Food Day; vermilion blinds rolled in clear weather, apricot blossoms in a clear breeze—the spring scene itself is the ready-made gong’an.

Master Xuedou Zong said: An iron ox plows through the “world inside the cave”; peach petals fall piece by piece from the deep source. The Qin people (inhabitants of the Peach Blossom Spring) left no word; yet for a thousand years the peaks grow clearer—when the source is seen through, the realm renews itself.

Master Qing Shi Xin said: Spring wind fills the sleeves in a flowery dell; red and white reflect each other. And someone more tender—a single note of reed flute crosses the wild pond—nature and Chan opportunity answer each other.

Master Caotang Qing said: Rabbit horns need not exist, ox horns need not be absent; where you do not dwell in “is” and “is not,” fragrance rises on the path—not falling into either side of being and non-being.

Master Shangfang Yi first said: The sun’s face east, the moon’s face west—who says going with the flow means falling into the stream ahead? Mountain peaches are gone, spring has left, yet the cuckoo still cries on the branch—the seasons turn; spring’s meaning is not fixed in one appearance. He also said: After rain, travelers have not returned; thunder suddenly in a clear sky; ridge plum already has spring’s news—it does not open in the same moment as mountain peach—awakening has its before and after; do not demand one uniform pattern.

The whole passage uses spring scenes, flower signs, Peach Blossom Spring, and an ox plowing heaven as images to point to Chan’s “this moment is it” and “do not chase appearances”; each master’s tone differs, yet most aim at this: when mind and matter accord, days pass at ease and snow melts on its own—spring is on the branch and also in that moment when the old monk has not yet known spring has come.

Selected Passages from the Collection of Heavenly Joy — Plain-Language Commentary

Yizuzi wrote:

Listening to rain night after night breeds weariness; a lone lamp shines on the inkstone, and the whole room feels cold. Spring has gone, yet under the flowers there is still a faint rustle; everywhere birds call, their cries tinged with the last breath of spring.

Chan Master Huiguang Sou said:

In every household people are watching that “wild fox”—the one who misuses a turning phrase and lands in heterodox views. Many see him, but few truly recognize him. When every odd posture and uncanny thought has been swept clean, the spring breeze has already reached the “branch of ten thousand years”—a image for original awakening and the ever-living vitality that does not perish.

Chan Master Shigu Yi said:

The spring wind blows down the green peach blossoms; the image of a single petal seems to flow through ten thousand homes. Who is at the painted tower where wine is sold? Come share a cup of Zhao Zhou tea—using everyday tea to break through the Chan point; there is no need to seek far away.

Chan Master Yi [name incomplete in the original] Quan said:

Planting flowers on stone is especially ingenious; spring on the branches secretly perfumes the air. Fragrance fills the dharma realm yet no one calls it foul; however the wild wind blows, the flowers still open as before—a metaphor for how self-nature is not harmed by outer conditions.

Chan Master Xiaofeng Zhe said:

“Spring colors fill the garden and cannot be shut in; one branch of red apricot blooms over the wall” is a famous line from a Song poem. Do not be surprised that the young noble’s bearing is lofty; this kind of flair and grace has always been given to those with talent—using spring colors to speak of how the Chan spark shows itself freely.

Chan Master Ru Jiu Xue said:

Palace birds roost; jade towers are deep and still; a sliver of moon on the eaves tugs at the heart night after night. The scented carriage does not return, yet flowers open on their own; spring has come, carrying only empty “gold that wards off cold”—using palace spring scenery to write impermanence and flowers that bloom by themselves.

Chan Master Nan Jian Wen said:

Better to accept the moment as it comes in due measure—thirsty, drink; hungry, eat—only you know that best. In bright spring and ample misty rain, walk as you please; stretch your body across the cosmos—who can still bind you?—stressing that ordinary daily use is the Way.

Chan Master Shanfu Zheng said:

The young lord of the five tombs need not boast of wealth; the patch-robed elder need not despise poverty. After the second month south of the Yangtze, orioles cry through every apricot-blossom village—rich and poor, lay and monastic, each find their place in the spring light.

Chan Master Jue’an Xiang said:

Three strikes on the cauldron lid, and the universal gate opens wide; beings toiling in the sea of suffering are called but do not turn back. Ninety days of spring are half gone again; only petals drift onto the moss in vain—mid-spring nearly spent, yet people in the wheel of birth and death still refuse to look back.

Chan Master Da Bian Quan said:

In coming and going, repay others with full integrity; blend your light with the dust to receive guests. Like the great potter’s wheel turning, a thousand trees bloom; in the guest’s heart they still do not know spring has arrived. Hinting sideways or striking straight, sometimes even the grip on “the whole body” must be released. A few notes of yellow birds beyond the green hills—claim all the scenery and be master yourself—the Chan edge lies between responding to things and letting go.

Chan Master Ken Tang Chong said:

Light does not illuminate objects, and objects do not truly exist; light and objects forgotten, even “traces” are empty. No birds come; spring is already old; fallen flowers and flowing water wind around the lone village—using late spring’s emptiness to suggest that after awakening no image is retained.

Most of these passages are Chan gong’an and verse comments on old cases, using spring scenes, fallen flowers, orioles, and Zhao Zhou’s tea and other everyday images to point to seeing nature, the ordinary, and letting go; the genre differs from internal alchemy or liturgical scriptures in the Daoist canon, but it belongs to the same broad tradition of “speaking the Dharma through poetry” in cultivation literature.

Master Yongmidǐng

The peach and plum blossoms in the mountains seem to smile, yet seem empty as a passing dream. A thin mist wraps them; tree shadows merge into one stretch. You have looked your fill at every flower that opened in spring—yet the partridges fly into the depths of the jumbled peaks and call, call again.

Master Yuan’an Fa

The orioles’ songs have gone silent; green willows cast deep shade. In Changmen they still say, “Spring never comes.” The jade flute has blown its last; the flowers have fallen white and bare. The emperor’s carriage has long passed; the moon has already sunk.

Master Boji Jian

You are still in Shanglin Park, at the height of spring—yet you take trees full of red and purple and ask the Lord of Spring how things stand. A fragrant wind rises from a hidden valley and sets the orioles calling, again and again, until the sun slants west.

Master Tiantong Jue

You sleep frozen in a snow hut, as if the night might crush you. The wicker gate is lovely and narrow, yet at night it stays shut. In a withered, cold garden you watch spring change its face; the spring wind stirs the ash in the pitch-pipes—the old sign that warmth is returning.

Master Xueren Qi

In warm wind and slanting sun you walk alone with your staff. On the stone path, who pities the green grass, sealed as if under lock? When you reach home, spring is already gone. You gaze to the horizon: snow mountains, and nothing but layer upon layer of deep green.

Master Purong Ping

Before Mount Luzu the old road runs through; a thin path east and west both vanish from sight. In the cuckoo’s cry spring grows old; scattered peach blossoms carpet the ground in red.

Master Gunanmen

Mist on mist, rain on rain—at the valley mouth, how many stream bridges must you cross? In the twelfth month the spring wind is still not warm; over the wall you already see a single branch of red.

Master Huanji Ting

Fallen petals chase the east wind piece by piece; spring lies in ruins, the ground all red. Even if you gather everything before your eyes into your arms, lingering fragrance still drifts past the east wall.

Master Fohui Quan

With no teacher, yet filling the Great Tang—yet you only feed on wine lees and dregs and never awaken. You pass idly by a bamboo temple; spring is already deep. Fallen flowers speckle the moss and lichen at random.

Master Xianyun Bao

Thunder and lightning flash—the whole working of the mind stands revealed—just when the hidden dragon sleeps soundly. Suddenly you wake from the dream; spring’s old regret is cut off. Dawn wind blows rain past the stream ahead.

Chan Master Chu of Lingyan said: Riding out of the capital on jade bit and golden saddle, apricot blossoms open slowly and willow branches hang sparse. Every flick of the whip and every step falls in the spring breeze, treading through the road of “the top scholar returning home.” (In the Chan gate this is a common metaphor: set down fame and wealth and go straight toward awakening.)

Chan Master Zhe of Xueguan said: A clear sky is still taken as something that blocks the view; a thousand layers of surging waves are not yet true billows. Put down both “two paths” (in Chan speech, pairs such as deliberate action and non-action, ordinary and sage) and stop making emotional or intellectual interpretations—in spring breeze everywhere, tread through the road of the top scholar going home. He also said: the same meaning—everywhere in the spring breeze, willows and peaches bloom together.

Chan Master Jian of Zu’an said: Without walking the usual old road, one can still penetrate the subtle, detached realm; when the Way and peace accord, then the superior opportunity and function can be released. On the shadowless tree, spring color appears as soon as day breaks; the golden rooster (a Chan image for the moment of awakening) crows on a branch that casts no shade—not in dependence, not in obscuring.

Chan Master Lai of Boshan said: Neither walking the “bird path” (the path beyond the ordinary) nor stuck in “red dust” (the world); eyes drunk and drowsy, broad daylight is like sleep. Do not say that meeting people one cannot raise the teaching—plucking willow catkins is exactly the depth of spring. (Using an ordinary act to point to the present moment.)

Chan Master Miao of Gaofeng said: When Zhaozhou answered “Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?”—the full spring color was scattered over rivers and lakes. How many who pick leaves and seek branches let the departing spring sun shine only to fill the road with fallen blossoms in vain.

Chan Master Chuan of Yefu said: The forms of the three bodies of the Buddha are ultimately not real; the pupil in the eye still faces this person before you. If you can trust the treasure already in your own house, crying birds and mountain flowers are the same spring.

Chan Master Quan of Wu’an said: Warm sun and gentle wind; the yellow oriole’s song is utterly fresh; willows hang like golden threads—the work of the Lord of the East (the spring spirit). The Lord of the East does not stint unselfish effort; one speck of red on a blossom is one speck of spring.

Chan Master Yuan of Foyin said: How can it compare with the spring breeze, idle and quiet everywhere; flowers bloom and fall—what has that to do with it? Even drifting white clouds are hard to match; mindlessly, drumbeats (or wind in the sails) fill the world.

Chan Master Duan of Baiyun said: Plum blossoms fall clean and apricot first opens—you cannot avoid the spring breeze stripping open wherever it reaches. One breath moves without speaking, yet holds the ten thousand images; where can the ten thousand beings thank “unselfishness”? (Spring’s giving has nothing to be thanked for.) He also said: white clouds drifting freely are still hard to liken; mindlessly, drumbeats fill the world. He also said: plum fallen, apricot spread—you cannot avoid the spring breeze pressing everywhere; one breath unspeaking yet holding images—where can the ten thousand beings thank unselfishness?

Chan Master Yuan of Huguo said: Investigate principles to the limit, then household affairs can be settled; when the moment gathers, recognize this mind. Thanks to the spring breeze’s lack of partiality, even a poor family’s peach and plum can make shade.

Chan Master Qin of Fojian said: Though each carries their own verification; coming and going both have someone “watching the shop.” After treading through straw sandals on the way home, fallen blossoms and crying birds are the same spring as ever.

Plain-language reading of this passage from the Tianle Collection

Master Meng’an Cong said: The Way is plainly present, yet it cannot be grasped by ordinary knowing—so who is it that can truly “know” it? When a gust of spring wind blows, petals scatter all along the road—like the moment awakening appears: the surface world looks even more tangled, and most people get lost in it.

Master Tianduo En said: Around the Wuling region spring is so lush it feels almost “fat,” and the east wind at one’s back never stops. Drunk, you call to the traveler on the river and he will not return; the cuckoo’s cry breaks off, and on the green willow branches there is nothing but parting sorrow—spring is beautiful, yet people may still refuse to wake up.

Master Yun’an Yan said: Raise any old “seven-jin shirt” (the phrase often points to Dongshan Liangjie’s koan of the seven-jin hemp robe)—how many Chan students earnestly investigate it. Everyone digs hard toward “Qingzhou’s burrow” (clinging to one lineage or one spot), not knowing that real spring is in Jiangnan—awakening is not where you stare fixedly.

Master Baiyan Fu said: Spring mountains reflect in the river, all red; orioles and willows are tender, lingering with the jade steed. Do not blame the fairy’s brush for being clumsy—you are already inside the painting—already in the realm, yet still thinking there is another “picture” outside.

Master Longmen Yuan said: Willow color is tender as gold; plum blossoms white with fragrance showing through. If you understand the thrust of spring’s arising, every place is fine scenery.

Master Jingshan Gao said: At the winter solstice one yang is born; heaven and earth, qian and kun, meet in this single line. Pity that countless people do not recognize their “mother-born face”—they do not know their own original countenance, what they have always been.

(The text again cites Longmen Yuan’s “willow color gold-tender” lines—the meaning is the same: spring scenery is the Way-body appearing.)

Master Fojian Qin said: The iron tree blooms in ten thousand flowers; from stone, two or three bamboo shoots sprout; even the clay-and-gilt vajra opens its mouth and smiles—all speak of the winter-solstice message of one yang born: the impossible suddenly turns.

Master Haizhou Ci said: Late spring, red yi grows beside the small path; in the third month peach blossoms fill the small garden. Pity that in fine spring people do not recognize it; the hundred-tongued bird on the tree is better at “speaking”—nature proclaims, yet people are deaf.

Master Tianqi Rui said: If you have not gone through bone-deep cold, do not rejoice lightly; let the cold pierce to the marrow. Suddenly you wake from a dream—it is already warm third-month spring, ten thousand purples and reds before your eyes—without winter’s severity, there is no spring awakening.

Master Yunyan Yin said: Behind the curtain, spring wind at dawn still feels cold; song-house sounds choke off, dreams are startled broken. The golden wheel (Buddha) does not rule this human play—do not envy the wide days and months in the gourd—do not only crave illusory “long life” or comfort.

Master Tian’an Sheng said: How many take what is not their own thing for “this body of mine”; crossroads before the eyes are hard to clear. Coral gleams in the spring of the ten isles, yet face to face no one knows its depth—the realm is fine; those who see the moment are few.

Master Yefu Yuan said: Wind turns spring water, wave upon wave green; rain washes the autumn woods, leaf upon leaf red. At midnight on the stone bed, pillow in arms—who is let in on the mountain dweller’s joy? Self-enjoyment, not seeking outward.

Master Lingyan Chu said: Wild water sways with light, like a ten-thousand-acre wine cup; on coral branches, moonlight hangs low. Before and on the platform the pillar (Chan talk for ordinary things) has “nothing to grab,” yet it paints spring wind into distant brows—ordinary place is the painting.

Master Gaofeng Miao said: Green threads hang from willows by the brook; yellow orioles trill in the trees. How many play in scenery and do not know spring, letting fallen petals fly in ten thousand flakes—clinging to form and dust, missing the message of “spring.”

Master Xinwen Ben said: Point it out to you—deep red is the same as in old days; no other sky-bright bloom in the fragrant thicket. Nanzhao (Nanzquan Puyuan) with one brush moved spring away, leaving only scattered red, drunk bees collapsed—spring is not in outer appearance, but in that brush of grafting and shifting.

Master Zhengtang Ban said: The jade cave’s primal pass, the road is long; the flat peach is not a blossom that opens for just anyone. It is hidden so the human world may not see, only fearing spring wind will leak the fragrance—if the true pivot is exposed, it may be stained by worldly feeling.

The whole passage uses spring scenes and seasonal turning (especially one yang at the winter solstice) as figures for Chan insight: the Way cannot be held by “knowing”; koans must not be dead investigation in one place; the original face is in the everyday, in winter ending and spring arising, in fallen petals and oriole cries—the gap between recognizing and not is whether you mistake something else for “your own body.”

Chan Master Gui of Gushan said: “If you know that heaven and earth share one root, you ought not to come asking people again. Once you have Nanquan’s own verification and teaching, you see ordinary flowers open—as spring in a dream.”

Chan Master Xin of Tieji said: “Before the cliff the waterfall plunges down; behind the house jumbled peaks pile on peaks. Spring’s intent has nowhere to go—you only see fallen red everywhere.” He also put it in the same vein: “Having Nanquan’s own pointer, at ease flowers open—spring in a dream.”

Chan Master Kumu of Cheng said: “Having reached Peach Blossom Spring in person, the scene is deep and still; one jar of bright moon, clear as autumn. Turn back to the day spring waned at the cave mouth—countless petals drift away on the water.”

Chan Master Rong of Chanyan said: “You’ve crossed the three ranks of waves at Yu Gate, body in the clouds and still not knowing it; suddenly the spring breeze opens a slit—you soar ten thousand miles. Who can hold you?”

Chan Master Jian of Boji said: “In the upper grove the highest branches bloom first; in the third month a clear breeze brushes the face. Wind warm, fragrance thick, clear shadows in the courtyard, the sun moves slowly.” He also said: “One stream cuts through the green of the mountains; peach on both banks mirror each other in red. The fisherman asked for the crossing still finds no path—secretly they fall east and west with wind and rain.”

Chan Master Kan of Xiaoweng said: “A traveler asks the way on level fields; on the high terrace a white staff strikes the plow ox. Little spring light left before the eyes—a pair of mandarin ducks drift on the water.”

Chan Master Yin of Falin said: “One spot of red amid ten thousand greens—boundless spring color answers itself. Wandering bees and wild butterflies have nowhere to settle; they only swarm and blame the dawn wind.”

Chan Master Chu of Qingfeng said: “The great matter is already clear—why still mourn as after a bereavement? Without the spring wind, flowers do not open; when they open, the wind blows them down again.”

Chan Master Tai of Foxing said: “By the brook tender willows stripe green; on the paths peach trees flush red tree by tree. Do not say the Lord of Spring does not govern—there is warm sun too, and gentle wind.”

Chan Master Hui of Zide said: “Strip away layer after layer and you return to the ordinary—spring warm, breeze mild, days long. Outside, birds call in fine fragments; cliff flowers fall and fill the hills.”

Chan Master Zhengjue Yi said: “When spring turns warm, every peach tree flushes red; the Way that Lingyun (the Tang-dynasty Chan master who awakened upon seeing peach blossoms) realized has been the same for ages. Yuansha (Yuansha Shibei, a Tang Chan master) left these words in the monastic community: the roads north, south, east, and west—you can walk them and never reach the end.”

Chan Master Huanglong Huinan said: “In the second and third months the weather is mild; near and far, every peach tree is red. Even when a lineage master awakens, understanding may still not be thorough—and to this day they still ‘laugh at the spring breeze.’”

Chan Master Fayun Xiu said: “In the second month, in the spring courtyard, rain clears and the sky brightens; two or three branches of small peach open in red. Red and white vie in beauty—everyone can see it. So why was Lingyun alone ‘without doubt’ (not splitting reality on the flowers, but merging with the moment)?”

Chan Master Foguo Bai said: “How laughable—spring breeze leaks heaven’s secret; peach blossoms bloom again on fresh branches. On the Luojiang there is an angler who mocks Lingyun for saying ‘the Way is beyond doubt.’”

Chan Master Gushan Gui said: “Peach blossoms seek the sword adept (peach blossoms as a metaphor for the chance to awaken); silent, they laugh at the spring breeze. With white hair, he has not yet returned home; his dwelling lies east of Haimen.”

Chan Master Cihang Pu said: “Lingyun, with one smile, saw the peach blossoms; only after more than thirty years did he truly ‘arrive home.’ From then on, after spring breezes and spring rains, names scatter wildly to the ends of the earth.”

Chan Master Shaoshi Mu said: “At one glimpse of peach blossoms he clings and gives chase (unable to let go, caught in attachment); born into the iron enclosure (Tiewei Mountain, a metaphor for a trap), he sinks with no way out.” (The closing lines match Cihang Pu’s: “With one smile he saw the peach blossoms… names scatter wildly to the ends of the earth.”)

Plain-Language Reading of Excerpts from Tianle ji

Master Cuiyan Zhen said: “Coming to ask the patriarchs in sun and wind, red dust fills the wild and is hard to look upon; busily rushing, who knows how many affairs— in the deep of second-month spring, thunder shakes the earth.” This means: people hurry in the world, wanting liberation from great masters, yet are stirred by outer conditions; when second-month spring thunder arrives, it suggests life stirring and also warns us not to busy ourselves only outwardly—we should see the season and our own original mind.

Master Fushan Chu said: “In the thatched hall, spring is warm and the sun just reddens; upstairs, weary yet sleeping soundly. In the dream, one cry—as if heaven and earth had aged; fallen blossoms again ride the fifth-watch wind.” It paints the quiet of a spring thatched hall and a dream: on the surface laziness, but in truth “one sleep” in which heaven and earth change and flowers fall in urgent wind—hinting at the flow of birth and death and that waking and dreaming are one; one must not cling only to spring sleep.

Master Baiting Yong said: “Wind mild, sun warm, spring at its depth; willow green as gold, flower shadows heavy. Walking to the old Peach Blossom Spring haunt, yet peak locks peak after peak.” Using the spring outing to Peach Blossom Spring: seeming to reach fairyland, still layer upon layer of peaks—meaning that in seeking the Way or seeking joy, if one clings to appearances outwardly, the more one seeks the more blocked one is, with no true “beyond the world.”

Master Zhengtang Bian said: “Ask what humans rush about for? Better tell spring’s affairs to spring light. Even drunk daily before flowers, one season is barely ninety rounds.” And: “Painted, suchness seems alive; tried opening it among flowers— the oriole steals a glance and dares not leave the branch.” The first urges us not to be dragged to death by worldly tasks—spring is short, human life shorter; the second says suchness painted seems alive, so subtle that even the oriole dares not lightly alight—describing how true suchness is not to be slighted or casually “handled.”

Master Xue’an Jin said: “A boat lost in Dongting Lake; a barefoot Persian sleeps on the lake bed. All under heaven shout but cannot wake him—only spring wind enters Apricot Blossom Village.” With strange scenes for Chan: boat gone, man sleeping underwater, the crowd cannot rouse him—our original mind is complete and bright, not found outside; spring wind in Apricot Blossom Village is the season arriving and nature revealing itself—not something noise can call forth.

Master Yueting Zhong said: “Fallen leaves already follow flowing water; spring wind has not yet fully opened the hundred flowers. The green mountain’s face is still as before, all day stretched out in the setting sun.” Leaves and water are change; the green mountain remains—within change, see the unchanging; spring need not be fully in bloom; one can still dwell in the present without hurrying for the “full tree in blossom” appearance.

Master Tianzi Cui said: “In third month, enjoy the peace; the cuckoo calls in the slanting light. For a while uninspired, the rhapsody will not compose— treading the worn moon, singing loudly home.” Spring scenery at peace, cuckoo urging evening; failing to write a fu is no obstacle—walking home under the moon, singing long—studying the Way need not depend on literary flair; letting go in the moment and being at ease is also a path.

Master Danlu Chun said: “Bright spirit does not touch going, coming, or now; the three realms all return to one-thought mind. Beyond the rail, spring wind and spring butterflies dance; before the gate, willows and dawn orioles sing.” (Where the text repeats, the sense is the same.) The point: true awareness does not divide past, present, and future; outwardly spring wind and butterflies, willows and orioles— inwardly not apart from one mind; appearances are exactly what one mind displays.

Master Guyun Jian said: “One cry wakes the thousand-year great dream; boundless scenery—again, whose is it? Lifting the eyes, clearly nothing is external; the moon still shines on flower branches.” One cry (often staff or shout, or the moment of awakening) breaks the dream; scenery belongs neither to “me” nor “other”; externals were never outside; moon on flowers is still clarity in ordinary scenes.

Master Ji Zongche said: “Likened to passion, like bees lost from flowers, touching sandalwood-tree wind (sandalwood scents the breeze). Turning back to spring color before the court, one cry of the golden pheasant pecks through great emptiness.” By metaphor: deluded feeling like bees without flowers; sandalwood wind stands for the true Dharma; returning to garden spring, one golden pheasant’s cry—local scenery; one thought matching, and emptiness too is broken—not by running elsewhere to seek.

Master Cishou Shen said: “Eating, biting grit, shattering the third tooth. After spring wind passes, even the staff blossoms.” Daily grit and a broken tooth are bitter conditions; after spring wind, even the staff flowers—meaning in ordinary use, even in mishap, when the season comes the Way can show on “non-sentient things”; do not fix on sitting meditation alone.

Master Qianrengang said: “In peony fragrance, grace in the wind; in pear blossom shadow, the moon full and round. The host drunk on Fuxi’s pillow (like primal non-action, peaceful sleep), simply viewing the red curtain’s inverted reflection.” Spring scent and moon shadow are the scene; the host drunk like the age of Fuxi, undisturbed, only watching curtain shadows—in ease amid splendor, not lost in the scene, instead viewing mind through inverted images, savoring emptiness and form as one.

These passages are mostly Chan gongan and verse comments on old cases. They use spring scenes, dreams, Peach Blossom Spring, Persians, Apricot Blossom Village, and the like as figures of speech for seeing one’s nature, not seeking outwardly. They do not describe concrete Daoist ritual. Terms such as patriarch ( revered adepts in the Chan line), suchness (the real, unfabricated body of the Dharma), three realms (desire, form, and formless heavens), and great emptiness (a figure for vast non-clinging) are glossed in passing as the text requires.

Chan master Huimen Kai said: The wind is high and the moon cold; the blue sky stretches across the horizon. Suddenly the Milky Way pours down like jade liquor. In an instant heaven and earth turn one clear color, and a lake of pure water ripples with the fullness of spring.

Chan master Quanjian Xu said: People all look at the moon, yet some insist on drawing back the vermilion curtain and gazing at the moon in the shadow of the curtain—(meaning: there is no need to circle around in reflections; the moon is right before you.)

He also said: To see the moon is one thing; the depth of that seeing is unfathomable. Even all buddhas cannot exhaust its subtlety—who can truly grasp it? Peach blossoms blaze in the spring wind; separated by a thousand li, longing pulls at the traveler’s heart.

Chan master Zifu Guan said: Heaven is vast and blue, water is clear and pure; the hook-shaped moon suddenly shines on the one crossing the river. Turning against the current, he heads back to the village shore; once the way home is recognized, spring fills his face.

He also said: From the very beginning of the kalpa there has been a patch of idle field—it must be plowed by none other than the mud ox and the stone maiden. The grain has not yet grown sun-facing and splendid, so peach and plum are planted again, trading on fragrance to win favor.

(Chan master Boji Jian picks up:) He also said: Why are the plum blossoms on the ridge especially lush? Because they have weathered frost and snow. Pity the lame donkey standing alone—it does not know spring has already settled on the moss.

He also said: Without spring wind, flowers do not open; when they open, the wind blows them down. Broken red covers the ground, crushed into mud; fragrance lingers in vain.

Chan master Zifu Guan also said: In the spring garden waves of blossoms surge; butterflies dance in rivalry, fragrance assaults the nose. The sun sets beneath the thatched eaves; night has come, and a frosty moon shines on the pond.

Chan master Xuelun Qi said: A single hair can revolve like Mount Sumeru; picked up at will, laughing eyes open wide. Do not say there is nowhere to find one’s intimate kin at home—in ice flowers and in flames, spring runs deep.

Chan master Sanfeng Zang said: No need to split guest and host—they are intimate from the start. Having seized the divine pivot, one is already a peerless dharma person. Plum in the snow night first receives spring’s message; the whole garden’s fragrant grasses still do not know spring has arrived.

Note: This passage belongs to Chan recorded sayings and gatha-style verses. It uses images of moon, spring, flowers, frost and snow, mud ox and stone maiden, and phrases such as “intimates at home” and “amid ice flowers and flames” to point at Chan themes: seeing the moon without clinging to its shadow, the field at the kalpa’s beginning, how spring only shows after frost and snow, and related turning phrases. The text should not be pinned line by line; the point is to feel that one need not seek outward—this moment is it. In the original, the segment attributed to Sanfeng Zang appears to show copying repetition or missing words; here it is read as one continuous Chan line of thought in line with common Chan usage.

This section gathers gatha by several Chan masters on spring and awakening. Scenes carry the teaching; the lines need not be read as literal history. What matters is the point that “the spring you see is no ordinary spring.”

Master Guyue of Gu’an said: Whose peach and plum vie in bloom? The cuckoo’s call draws you back. If you once walked beside Wuling Stream and strayed into Peach Blossom Spring, you know the spring inside the grotto is not the same as the splendor ordinary people see—an image of how what the awakened see differs from worldly display.

Master Gucnanmen said: Each bout of wind and snow brings cold; when cold ends, spring warms and breath opens wide. Why keep raising the matter again and again? West of the post station lies Chang’an—the awakened state is right here; there is no need to seek elsewhere; turning around is the way home.

Master Lian Ding of Lian’an wrote of steadfast practice in lines like “iron staff, sharp-edged, grinding against the moon in the sky; through frost and snow the spirit shows more clearly”; then suddenly in the night corridor a laugh opens, and at dawn the whole earth holds spring within—likening deep inquiry to the moment when all the world becomes spring and dead wood bursts into flower.

Master Hongding Jiao (the middle of the original text has corrupt characters; the sense follows the passage below) said: Layer on layer of mist and rain, moss and weeds—how can you catch ten thousand miles of spring? When the partridge calls and the sun clears, staff in hand you climb the Terrace of Longing for Home—spring appears between rain and clear sky; “longing for home” is also longing for the home of the original mind.

Master Ren of Xianghu said: At ease, leaning on the rail to gaze afar, streams and mountains like a painting; in the spring breeze of the immortal park, strings and pipes surge, yet amid flute and song the sound of rain still falls thick—bustle and emptiness together, without obstructing seeing the Way.

Master Xing of Haihui said: Moving flowers, one loves a fine drizzle; planting willows, a cloudy day is best; look how early spring comes to the upper grove—flowers hold pearl dew, willows hold mist—spring is met in daily life, not only in perfect weather.

Master Xin of Deshi first said: Spring wind opens wild flowers; on the branches, light and shade differ; water and mountain colors never end; one bird’s cry answers the empty hills. He also said: Picking up and putting down wastes effort; circling in thought, the road does not open; suddenly turning the head, spring is already late—yet on the staff tip one gains a round red sun—exposing the folly of clinging to forced effort; the moment you turn, spring is present. Again: Hidden birds, tall trees, faded flowers, flowing water—unaware that spring is late; lotus opens, fragrance fills the nine provinces—within change, see what neither arises nor perishes.

Master Yin of Falin said: Spring reaches Peach Blossom’s overflowing source; the scenery holds another heaven and earth; the fisherman fears to tell others, lest idle sorrow pass to children and grandchildren—the awakened realm is like Peach Blossom Spring: do not lightly show it to the unawakened, lest attachment and trouble only increase.

Master Qi of Deqing said: All because of the moon over Huai, it shines the spring of Ying; one arrow pierces the heavy barrier—high attainment without claiming merit—moonlight on spring as image of mind-to-mind transmission; passing the barrier in one leap; true work does not dwell on merit.

Master Xiong of Miaoyun said: One piece of primal chaos, the ancient heart—who cleverly carved it away and lost true simplicity? Even with power to mend heaven and refine stone, you cannot prevail against the Lord of Spring teasing early spring—original nature is complete; every extra “doing” loses truth; spring arrives by heaven’s rhythm, not by force.

Master Zu of Quanyue said: Plum shadows sway, mirrored in river moon; the spring of the celestial garden has deep and subtle shades; a gust of gentle wind leaks the message; fragrance of flowers fills the sky toward the ferry—spring’s tidings in sparse shadows, scent, wind, and dew; the awakened receive them for themselves.

The whole passage strings many schools’ styles through spring scenes—Peach Blossom, Chang’an, iron staff, fisherman—all saying one thing: spring in the outer world is a pointer; within, “there is another heaven and earth.” Students of the Way should taste this in picking up and putting down, turning the head, and not claiming merit—not only admire the scenery on the surface of the poems.

Plain-language reading of selections from Tianle ji

Chan Master Cishou Shen said:

Ordinary people and sages were never on two different roads. Yet turn around and ask “What am I really thinking about?”—how many can truly answer? Spring wind may not reach Peach Blossom Cave; leaves fall and flowers open each in its own season—there is no need to force it.

Chan Master Tiantong Hua said:

The spring of one’s homeland is right on the branches, yet the spring wind keeps them from settling for long. At leisure one watches the river at dusk—here and there, small boats with fishing lines hanging.

Chan Master Lan’an Shu said:

Watching others ride horses and play ball, before you know it you have entered the monastery late today. On the official road the sun is nearly gone and spring is at its best; plum by the river seems to invite someone to pick up a brush and write verse.

Chan Master Zhe’an Fan said:

Honor and favor are like shackles; even in a traveler’s dream the road feels long. In the forbidden garden a yellow oriole cries and one longs for home. On the day one returns with tinkling horse ornaments and fine steeds, the spring mountains in the second month are all flowers.

(The passages attributed to Lan’an and Zhe’an repeat earlier lines in the source; the meaning is the same as above.)

Chan Master Wanshan Ning said:

The pool is not seen, the dragon does not appear—the whole person is already in the Hall of the Empty King. Waking from a dream, suddenly hearing dawn orioles; in the spring wind peach petals fall away.

Chan Master Touzi Qing said:

East cliff in cloud-dark, west ridge still bright; south of Tingzhou, the sound of a flute rises. Sky-light heavy and dim, sleeping in one’s clothes still feels moist; on the high branch an oriole trills, willow sashes carry spring color.

Chan Master Chufang An said:

When the trusted wind does not come, spring grows old; yet one remembers the donkey in the back garden eating grass. The full moon is given to the traveler; the wild guest by the stream— the homeward road is already early.

Chan Master Gushan Gui said:

Not treading the road one came by, spring passes another year. Fallen flowers red, covering the ground; fragrant grass green, joining sky.

Chan Master Qiaozi Yu said:

Flowers open filling the garden; before the wind, alone, embracing the qin. High Mountains and Flowing Water—through the ages, how many know the tone?

Chan Master Shangfang Yi said:

Ice melts on the north bank of the river, flowers bloom on the south side of the tree. Spring is everywhere; even at heaven’s edge one can return early.

Chan Master Zhenjing Wen said:

On the twenty-fifth of the twelfth month, riding a horse, holding the qin. High Mountains and Flowing Water—through the ages, how many know the tone?

Brief note

Most of the above are Chan records and gāthā, using images of mountains and water, flowers and moon, homeward paths, and “knowing the tone” to speak of themes such as “ordinary and sage share one road,” “do not cling to the road you came by,” and “spring is here and now.” Hall of the Empty King refers to the Buddha hall; mingke denotes ornaments on the horse that jingle—metaphor for a noble’s procession; High Mountains and Flowing Water alludes to Boya and Ziqi and means a true friend who understands one’s mind is hard to find.

This passage collects gāthā (verse) on the theme of “spring” by several Song-dynasty Chan masters. Chan teachers often use spring scenery as a metaphor for the state after awakening: all things are complete as they are—there is no need to seek outside—yet ordinary people often fail to see it.

Shangfang Yi Chan Master said: Ice melts on the north bank of the river, flowers bloom on the south branches of the trees—spring is everywhere; walk to the ends of the earth and it still feels like coming home. Meaning: awakening is not far away; the present moment everywhere is “spring.”

Zhenjing Wen Chan Master said: On the twenty-fifth of the twelfth month, riding a horse without beating the drum; in the spring breeze the hundred grasses sprout, and fresh earth is piled on the graves. With the contrast of late winter and early spring, life and death, he points out that in the turning of seasons birth and death are one, spring qi fills everything, and there is no need for display.

Shengke Yu Chan Master said: Tear down the Hall of the Empty King, overturn the lion throne—in peaceful times there are no taboos; everywhere the fragrance of a hundred flowers. The Hall of the Empty King and the lion throne stand for the Buddha hall and the dharma seat; tearing them down and overturning them means not clinging to solemn forms—in peace, everywhere is spring, everywhere is dharma.

Huiyin Jing Chan Master said: The question is clear, the answer fresh, half smile and half scowl; look at the second and third months on the road—which branch does not carry spring? He stresses that question and answer in the present moment are spring itself; scowl and smile are all spring; every branch is spring.

Baiyun Duan Chan Master said: The tune “Six Not Gathering” is freshest—why need an echo lingering around the rafters? Gentle wind fills the balustrade, a thousand trees in bloom; even without calling it spring, the present is spring. “Six Not Gathering” may refer to a melody or a stage of practice; there is no need to set up a separate name “spring”—what is before you is it.

Qingmen Lin Chan Master said: Warm spring, gentle breeze, willow buds green, orioles trill on peach branches; the great way before the eyes is straight as a bowstring—yet travelers refuse to walk it. The way is right in front of them, but most people linger and do not go.

Boji Jian Chan Master, first poem: Yellow birds fly into the spring woods, branches red in the clear evening; flowers fall, birds return, spring is still and silent—who knows who walks within it? At the still extreme of spring, the one who can “walk” within is the awakened person.

Boji Jian again: Spring reaches Yangzhou, ten thousand trees aligned; mist holds tender green, orioles sing; the traveler stands alone on the clear river, missing the slanting sun and green haze in the west. The traveler clings to the riverbank and misses the spring light all around—a metaphor for clinging to outer conditions and losing the present moment.

Boji Jian once more (close to Qingmen Lin’s lines): Yellow birds enter the woods, red fills the branches in the clear evening; flowers fall, birds return, spring is still and silent—who knows who walks this way within? Again he uses “walking” in the silence to awaken: after spring ends and flowers fall, someone still walks in the dharma.

The whole passage returns again and again to “spring”: not mere seasonal description, but the insight that after awakening one sees heaven and earth as spring; the unawakened “refuse to walk” and “miss” the spring light, passing the way by.

Chan Master Shangfang Yi (a Chan monk) said: The spring light of Jingu Garden (a famous garden of the Jin dynasty, used here as a byname for a place of splendor) always fills the eyes, and the tips of red peonies overflow with fragrance; last night a burst of west wind brought cold, and fallen flowers lie everywhere without end. Noble sons and young gentlemen lie drunk, not knowing to go home, still demanding golden cups by the railing. This uses the ease with which splendor scatters and the intoxication that forgets return to remind people not to cling to spring light and pleasure.

Chan Master Hansong Cao’s verse describes wandering pilgrimage: mist and rosy clouds fill his hat, the morning wind is cold, and he treads the green grass far away, bidding farewell to emerald peaks; along the way beneath pear blossoms he waters his horse in spring, and at night rides the bright moon to Chang’an (the capital, here a metaphor for the destination of awakening). Among these, the images of fallen flowers completely gone and noble sons drunk but still demanding golden goblets still remind people not to be intoxicated and forget to return. Chan Master Fachang Yu said: How is hemp bark to be distinguished? Use snow from the twelfth month to brew tea and sober you up; there is still a road the traveler has not yet walked, wildflowers smile on old branches, and the meaning of spring remains of itself. Chan Master Zhenjing Wen said: When the great function is present before you, things can be accomplished; when spring comes, where is it that flowers do not open? He teaches people to go to the Chan hall (the meditation hall for Chan study and practice) three times a day, so that all within the four seas should know they are one family. Chan Master Xuedou Xian said: Spring mountains lie in layered, scattered green; spring waters ripple with empty blue. In the vast emptiness of heaven and earth, one stands alone and gazes far into the boundless. Chan Master Wushi Dao said: Xuedou’s “family goods” (family property, referring to the Chan Dharma he enjoyed throughout his life) have already been thrown out completely to everyone; though the “livelihood” here of me, Wushi (daily practice, one’s original matter), is not much, I too want everyone to understand what Wushi’s livelihood is. Chan Master Zhuo Zhuzhang said: Swallows twitter and orioles sing in the warm spring day; in gardens everywhere a hundred flowers are fragrant. Chan Master Song Rumi said: With water’s light and mountain’s colors and no one around, who at clear dawn sees the first spring? The red sun gradually rises, strings and pipes sound, and the vitality of the spring morning spreads with the sound. These verses use such everyday scenes as spring scenery, wandering pilgrimage, brewing tea, and entering the Chan hall to reveal the Chan school’s spirit of realizing one’s original matter in the present, meeting spring everywhere, and seeing the four seas as one family.

Plain-Language Reading of Tianle Ji (Collection of Heavenly Joy)

Master Zhuo Zhuzhang said: Swallows murmur and orioles call; in spring warmth fills the air, and every corner of the garden carries the scent of a hundred flowers.

Master Song Rumí said: Water light and mountain colors—no one anywhere. At clear dawn, who sees the first touch of spring? As the red sun climbs, strings and pipes begin; half the lake’s mist is really dust raised by strolling visitors.

Master Tianyi Huai (Yi Huai of Tianyi, a renowned Linji master) went to Mount Shan to receive the Dharma. When he entered the hall and ascended the high seat, he said: For twenty years my heart has yearned for this mountain; today causes and conditions meet, and joy is complete. Before I had moved a step, my heart was already on this mountain; when I truly arrived, Mount Shan was already within this mountain monk’s body and mind.

Master Cishou Shen said: Shifting body and changing step, one carries on the Tianyi line; not sparing the eyebrows (speaking plainly face to face, direct recognition)—how many truly understand? If today you can clarify yesterday’s matter, it is the season of warm spring south of the Yangtze and the partridge’s call.

Master Luohan Nan said: Wind scatters jade fragments; a thousand peaks seem snow; rain dots cliff flowers—the ten thousand lands are spring. The sound of Yixi’s flowing water was worth hearing once, yet it gurgles all day—heard yet not heard (a play on “hearing” and “not hearing”).

Master Yuan’an Fu said: In the east wind flowers smile, bearing the spring sun; bees and butterflies on the branches chase only fragrance. One cry of the cuckoo, and deep green deepens; how long the road home—no one can say clearly.

Master Huai Qinghai said: Always “that shore” (awakened realm, original mind) is hard to trust; even if you trust it, you still stick in function and deliberate intent. If you will trust the place where “one line changes through transformation” (Yijing image of the moment insight turns), without budding branches you can still roll up the spring wind.

Master Nanjian Wen said: Once I washed my ears at Clear Stream (Xu You’s tale—disgust with the worldly); ten thousand ravines, a thousand cliffs—the path turns deep and hidden. Best of all, on a night of bright moon and still wind, one long cry at the sea gate and autumn fills the robe—the same message as rolling up spring wind on branchless twigs.

This passage collects several Chan masters’ responses in verse, often using spring scenery, mountains and water, and everyday objects to speak about Zen. The following follows the order of the masters named in the text.

Nanjian (questioning a master) said:

Once I washed my ears by the jade-green stream (the “washing the ears” story suggests turning away from the world or holding to one’s integrity)—ten thousand ravines and a thousand crags, the path turning ever deeper. Best on a night of bright moon and still wind: one long cry, as if autumn itself reached the sea gate.

Master Dahong Sui said:

If you come in person to ask the path of liberation, a master with real training will cut through confusion on the spot. Eyes and ears suddenly wake as from a spring dream—orioles singing and swallows calling, everywhere is perfect unobstructed awakening.

Master Baoyong Ning said:

The patriarch’s meaning transmitted from the West is not a matter of east versus west; in deep spring, apes and birds cling to trees and cry. How many travelers stare in vain—only lone green peaks and low-drifting white clouds.

Master Su’an Ding said:

In summer, red lotuses sway in jade pools; fish dart up and down, busy yet at ease. Fragrance from both banks drifts drunk on the warm breeze—in this water realm you rinse body and mind, as if steeped in the scent of the Dharma.

Master Meng’an said:

Cherishing flowers, I rise early and sit in the spring wind; others are already playing with red and green (admiring blossoms in sport). Hand in hand, drunk beneath the flowers, unaware that cloud, moon, and shadow have layered upon layer.

Master Hengchuan Gong said:

No need to insist that two people reach out one hand together (no need to cling to form); just call the novice. The iron pot has neither feet nor ears (everyday use, not seeking outside); below the wall, spring is deep and leaves have opened.

Master Donggu Guang said:

Three-three, two-two, each unlike the other—hand in hand, walking into the grass. Turn the foot and step through embroidered shoes (turn the body and awakening is there); why worry if in the twelfth month the heart still drums like spring wind (the inner season stays spring, not bound by the calendar)?

Master Yongjue Xian said:

Turn what faces you and another pivot opens; the side path few know. In the old hall, clouds lie deep with no footprint; spring grass has already grown past the stream in front.

Master Tudu Ce said:

Mind-nature was always one in substance; in being and non-being, in emptiness and form, you can see through to true emptiness. Through the ages those lost outside delusion at the source see only spring enter the garden—red everywhere (they see only the dust of form, not the original mind).

Master Yunzhang Han said:

The message of awakening stands forth, the whole device revealed; a thousand-foot lamp of Zen shines behind the head. I and others drop it all together—only the partridge calling in Jiangnan’s third month.

Master Kumu Cheng said:

Spring wind stirs green waves; countless boatmen chase the tide. They only see gulls over white breakers—how could they know the bright moon is really in the sky (lost in appearances, blind to inherent clarity)?

Master Zide Hui said:

The Tathagatas of the three times can be swallowed in one gulp (the dharma body is nondual); the old mountain deep and still, moon at dusk. The light behind the crown divides dawn at the noon gate; sitting, I watch spring return into the charred trace (new shoots where fire passed—withering and flourishing as one).

Note: In the original, lines such as “Master Meng’an □” and “Master Kumu Cheng … those lost at the source” appear to have missing characters or run-on text; the translation above follows common master names and readable sense. If you have a reliable edition, compare and emend the characters before relying on a final translation.

The Tianle ji (Collection of Heavenly Joy) preserves gathas and sayings of several Chan patriarchs. Their gist is as follows.

Master Weishan Min said: Spring travels through empty space as if it had no feet; year after year peaches and plums fruit in the valleys and gather living potency. Why does spring arrive sooner in the eastern garden? Because a single branch blooms in the snow and sends forth wave after wave of pure fragrance—a figure for awakening or the stirrings of the Way showing first where conditions seem harshest and coldest.

Master Foyuan Yuan first said: In spring, dwelling in spring mountains, everywhere is the business of spring; spring light shines on spring waters, and spring qi congeals into spring clouds. Those who wander in spring feel desire stir and compose poetry in spring light, and the poems too are made new. He also said: Only one who truly “knows spring” can, through ten thousand kalpas of turning, hold fast to that one undying “spring of the one”—namely, the Buddha-nature you already possess, this very thought-moment here and now.

Master Foyuan Yuan also said: Whether you can go out or cannot, at the start you never leave this one thought’s settled state. Sages too give rise to ordinary passions; ordinary people can in this instant be sages. Reversed and straight application, harsh pulling up—all serve to support what is right and expose what is skewed. Spring rain and spring wind; the bamboo gate grows cool; fallen blossoms and crying birds; a thousand peaks in silence—see the unmoving within movement, see the constant within speech and silence.

Master Zhenjing Wen said: Going against the stream and going with it are both “youthful spring” (living vigor, awakening); sage or ordinary person, the spirit of the root nature is not shaken by that. People often spin with sights and sounds, then turn back and forget the person they originally were—their original face.

He also said: When one qi is harmonized, the ten thousand things are all spring; no need to strain body or spirit. It does not depend on famous phrases or written words; ease and joy here and now—you yourself are master.

He also said: The lineages of Yunmen and Linji—sharp exchanges like a hundred flowers vying in spring; every turning phrase has “spirit,” a living path. In the end it has nothing to do with language and letters; mistaken transmission and mistaken reading only mislead people.

He also said: Once awakened, nothing is not spring; even in a bramble thicket you can nourish spirit. Constant and extraordinary, empty and full—view them in mutual contrast; one phrase at the critical moment always depends on you yourself raising it up.

Master Haihui Xing said: Cloud and mist lock the dark cliff; flowers fill stream and valley; travelers arrive and still feel the path is lost. One cry of a bird leaves the deep ravine—just when immortals sit down to their game of chess—a metaphor for hearing the turning phrase while still in confusion, like immortals at the board: victory or defeat hangs on the move of this moment.

He also said: In Peach Blossom Spring one chooses a hidden place to dwell; chickens, dogs, mulberry, hemp—more than enough joy; gathering yellow essence and atractylodes, for a time storing them in the medicine gourd—through images of reclusion and gathering herbs, speaking of cultivating body and mind together, guarding the center and refining nurture—all likewise in gathering this one thought-moment here and now.

Master Nantang Xing said: Wearing out the body and drying the bones, one still does not feel spring; once one forgets words in fulfillment, one steps beyond the dusty world. Not borrowed from a womb, not leaning on outer form—like the golden crow rising from the sea, the moon leaving the clouds—a figure for the original face not coming from the borrowed shell of flesh; its light was always self-present.

The gāthās (verse hymns) of the Zen patriarchs recorded above all celebrate the beauty of Yanghe—the harmonizing warmth of spring—and belong to the songgu genre (praise of ancient cases). Gathered here in one place, they stand like jade trees in a forest, splendid to behold. Though much is densely allusive and hard for beginners to penetrate at once, a single reading through can still fill one with the vastness of spring qi, the brightness of spring light, the gentleness of the spring breeze, and boundless spring feeling—an unexpected consonance with the spirit of Xuanxue (Dark Learning), or indeed with the cultural world of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. When the scholar’s heart and breath momentarily align and water and fire intermingle within, it is like entering a garden in full spring or answering the tune of Yanghe; one can then tacitly grasp the subtlety and dwell in self-enjoyed samādhi—more than words can exhaust.

Sixty-One: The Benefits of Emptiness and Stillness

The Dao is entered through emptiness and stillness, and realized through emptiness and stillness. Emptiness (xu) means an empty, receptive heart; stillness (jing) means still qi—these are essentials of dual cultivation of nature and life (xingming shuangxiu). If the heart is not empty, qi cannot be still; if qi is not still, the breath cannot harmonize; if the breath does not harmonize, shen (spirit) cannot concentrate. Only when both shen and qi are stilled to the point of great ding (fixed absorption) and one returns to emptiness does one touch the true meaning of “returning to the root and restoring life” (gui gen fu ming). Hence Laozi says: “Reach the utmost emptiness; guard stillness with firmness. The ten thousand things arise together; I thereby observe their return. Things flourish in multitude, each returning to its root. Return to the root is called stillness; stillness is called restoring life. Restoring life is called the constant.”

(What follows is a line from Qianxuweng’s Xuanlan ji…; the original text here appears incomplete—only fragments such as “guard stillness with firmness…” remain, repeating the Daodejing quotation above—so it is not translated separately.)

In Xuanlan (Mysterious Contemplation), Qianxu Weng says: “The Dao is originally formless, empty and still, and unified. When stillness reaches its utmost, movement arises; roaming qi scatters in disorder, and the myriad distinctions among things and human affairs appear—so the Dao comes to rest in the names and forms of the post-heaven world. Therefore those who embody the Dao take returning to the root and holding to emptiness and stillness as their foundation. If one constantly contemplates in clarity and purity and does not cling to anything in the mind, then emptiness and stillness are truly so. Once anything appears in the mind, emptiness turns into something solid and stillness is disturbed. Great emptiness is inherently vast and open—yet a single cloud passing across blocks the view; deep springs are inherently clear—yet a slight breeze stirs ripples. How can the original body be restored? The gentleman who embodies the Dao must constantly gather this heart-mind: inner thoughts do not run outward, outer entanglements do not enter inward, so that the chest is clear and bright and not a speck of dust clings—only then can one restore that original body, empty as the sky and still as the deep abyss. This is what is meant by bringing emptiness to the utmost. When emptiness reaches the utmost, unless stillness is guarded with utmost sincerity, who can achieve it?”

He also says: “What is meant by inner not going out and outer not coming in is making the chest clear and bright, with not a speck of dust clinging, so as to restore that original body of emptiness and stillness like sky and deep abyss—this is bringing emptiness to the utmost. When emptiness reaches the utmost, unless stillness is guarded to the utmost depth, who can achieve it?”

He also says: “What is meant by returning to the root is that when the Dao’s movement reaches its extreme it returns to stillness; things follow the qi mechanism as they enter, hence it is called ‘returning to the root is called stillness.’ In stillness one returns again to being without things, and thereby returns to creation and transformation—hence stillness is called ‘returning to destiny.’ Returning to destiny is the way of true constancy, and therefore it is called the constant.”

He also says: “One who can know the constant is constantly empty and constantly still. In emptiness one can receive; in stillness one can bear and contain.”

I consider: emptiness corresponds to the image of the Qian hexagram, stillness to the image of the Kun hexagram; only by being able to be empty and still can one embody the virtue of Qian and Kun. When body and mind merge into the great creation and transformation of Qian and Kun, only then can one take part in nurturing and transforming. Shao Yong said that “the sage shares one body with the Great Void and shares one function with Heaven and Earth”—this is that meaning. The great person harmonizes virtue with Heaven and Earth; if body and mind are not empty and still, how can virtue harmonize?

Zhuangzi, in the chapter “Heaven’s Way” (Tiandao), says: The reason sages are still is not that stillness is good in itself, but because nothing in the outer world can disturb their hearts, so they are naturally still. When water is still, it can mirror the brows and beard; level water can serve as a plumb line, and great craftsmen take it as their model. If still water is this clear, how much more so the human spirit! When the sage’s heart can settle in stillness, it can serve as a mirror of Heaven and Earth and a bright mirror of the ten thousand things.

Emptiness and stillness (xujing), plainness and calm (tiandan), solitude (jimo), and non-action (wuwei) are the natural balance of Heaven and Earth and the utmost of virtue (de); therefore emperors and sages take them as their resting place. In resting one is empty; in emptiness one is full, and fullness accords with the constant way. In emptiness one is still; in stillness one moves, and in moving one gains. In stillness one practices wuwei; in wuwei, those who bear affairs each fulfill their role. In wuwei one is at ease, free from worry and harm, and life can be long. Emptiness, stillness, plainness, calm, solitude, and wuwei are the root of the ten thousand things. Whoever understands this and faces south embodies the way of Yao as ruler; whoever understands this and faces north embodies the way of Shun as minister. In the high position, this is the virtue of the Son of Heaven; in the low position, it is the method of the “mysterious sage and plain king” (one who possesses sage virtue without ascending the throne). With this one withdraws to wander—hermits in rivers, seas, and mountains will defer; with this one enters the world to assist all under Heaven, then achievement is great, fame clear, and the realm is unified.

It also says: With a heart of emptiness and stillness to commingle with Heaven and Earth and connect with the ten thousand things—this is called “celestial joy” (Tianle).

The chapter “Constrained Will” (Keyi) says: Emptiness and plain calm accord with heavenly virtue (tiande).

Single-mindedness without change is the utmost of stillness; not clashing with outer things is the utmost of emptiness; not contending with outer things is the utmost of plainness; never going against the way is the utmost of purity. Therefore it is said: Pure without mixture, still and one without change, plain and wuwei—when acting, following Heaven: this is the way of nourishing spirit (yangshen).

The chapter “In the Human World” (Renjian shi) also says: Only the Dao gathers in emptiness. Emptiness is “fasting of the mind” (xinzhi)—making the heart empty and clear, not stuck on things.

Liezi says: Nothing is better than stillness, nothing is better than emptiness; stillness and emptiness are truly where one should dwell.

According to Zhuangzi and Liezi, fully inheriting Laozi’s emphasis on “attaining emptiness and guarding stillness” is precisely the orthodox line of the Daoist tradition and the path of returning to the root and restoring life—the crux of the practice of return. Liezi says: “Nothing surpasses stillness, nothing surpasses emptiness; in stillness and emptiness one finds one’s dwelling.”

As for actual practice, it is simply letting heart-mind and breath rest together beyond the body until one reaches great stillness (deep samadhi). The meaning of emptiness and stillness was already spelled out in Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi; later true immortals reiterated it again and again.

Zhang Boduan (Master Ziyang) wrote in Four Hundred Characters: “From emptiness and nothingness comes white snow; from silence and stillness sprouts the yellow bud.” Li Da Chun’s Song of Refining Emptiness says: “In learning immortality, take emptiness and stillness as the core of the elixir.” He also said: “When emptiness reaches the utmost and emptiness again, primordial Qi (yuanqi) condenses of itself; in stillness within stillness, yang Qi returns.” And again: “Gathering lead must take non-action in emptiness and stillness as the method; advancing the fire takes emptiness as the bellows (fengxiang, the wind-box metaphor); withdrawal and addition, increase and decrease—all begin from the place of emptiness; only when the empty void is shattered does one attain great awakening.”

This passage cites Wei Boyang’s Cantong qi (“Internally, cultivate yourself; be quiet and empty”), and the Ces shu (Commentary on the Cantong qi) by Master Qianxu explains that these four characters are the essential method for cultivating oneself—a single aim shared by sages and perfected immortals through the ages.

The Laozi says, “Attain the utmost emptiness; hold firmly to stillness. While the ten thousand things rise together, I watch their return.” Master Sima’s Zuowang lun (Discourse on Sitting and Forgetting) says, “When the heart is at peace and empty, the Dao comes to dwell of itself.” Humans are born in stillness—that is our nature; contact with outer things gives rise to desire. Once desire stirs, the ears cling to sound, the eyes are seized by color, the mouth craves flavor. When true nature is lost, Jing and Qi drain away, and nature and life (xing and ming) suffer. Therefore, to cultivate oneself one must take “quiet and emptiness” as the root. “Quiet and emptiness” means: do not weary the body, do not disturb the refined Qi; let no thought arise and let every bond fall away; let the heart be like great emptiness, with not one thing hanging upon it.

The Celestial Master of Empty Tranquility said, “If you would keep the spirit within from leaving, do not leave a single thing on the spirit terrace. When things remain in the heart, the spirit is not clear; true Jing scatters and sinews and bones are harmed.” If students can probe their original source and turn the light inward to illuminate within, they will know that in pure stillness there is nothing at all— “quiet and emptiness” is realized right there. Patriarch Fuqiu said, “Learn to return primordial Jing to the beginning of Qi; in empty stillness you gain the cloud ladder.” Patriarch Lü said, “The pre-heaven single Qi is true mystery; the mystery within mystery requires focused stillness.” He also said, “Each turn of the hidden mechanism is weighed in stillness; in stillness alone, the subtle yields the wonder of mystery.”

Verse on Practice (Explanation of the Cultivation Formula): In the early stages of study within the Mystic Gate (Daoist inner cultivation), one must gather the spirit and settle it in “emptiness”—this is the essential meaning of xuxin (emptying the heart). When breath and mind-thought work together and stay in sync, that is the true secret for bringing qi to stillness. Only when the breath is well regulated and the mind is gathered can one enter dading (deep samadhi). At that point body and mind are clear, deep, and utterly still, unmoving as such, blended with the Great Void (the primordial expanse of heaven and earth)—only then has one truly grasped what Laozi meant by “attaining emptiness and guarding stillness.”

Patriarch Fuqiu (a venerated ancestor in the Daoist tradition) said: “Wisdom arises from concentration; concentration depends on stillness to be achieved. The profound meaning of true stillness is not easy to explain in words.” He also pointed out: one must work in emptiness and take emptiness as one’s task; ordinary quiet or silence is not the same as zhanji (profound stillness) in which body and mind are both silent. Only when one reaches unmoving suchness and unity with the Great Void has one truly put into practice the aim of “attaining emptiness and guarding stillness.”

Master Fuqiu said: Wisdom arises from ding—steady, undistracted focus of mind—and ding can only be attained through jing (stillness). The true depth of stillness is hard to put into words.

You must work in xu (inner emptiness, free of clinging), and must not take dead silence alone to be ding. When there is movement, one should still catch lingji (the living, responsive spark); stubbornly holding to “not moving” is not yet insight into xuan (the Way’s subtle depth). The genuine meaning of stillness within xuan is extremely fine—it is not easy to explain.

You may understand it like this—

Like a mirror: when something is before it, a form appears in the glass. Know that the mirror itself has no such form. Where does the form come from? Seek the form apart from the mirror and you will not find it; turn the mirror to shine elsewhere and the form appears again. This mirror, that mirror—could there be two forms? This form, that form—they were never stored in the mirror to begin with. Stillness within xuan should be contemplated in this way.

Like a river: the pool is clear and reflects the moon. Before the moon has risen, the pool is full of clear water—there is no moon in it. When the moon hangs in the sky, water and sky share one color, as if there were only one moon. Could the moon in the water and the moon in the sky be two? Scoop water to “take” the moon—where is the moon? Shift the whole river aside to look for the moon—it is still that one moon. Understand: the river is the river; it never contained a moon. Stillness within xuan should also be contemplated in this way.

Plum at a valley mouth, facing the sun, spreads its blossoms. While buds are still closed, the breath of yang is already nurtured within. Without bitter cold, that speck of living qi cannot condense; even when the first yang returns, without this foundation nothing can stand. Whether waning or resting, all must keep pace with creation. Jing is the path into the Way; xuan is the gate of mystery.

Lotus rising from the water stands upright, bearing dew. Dew gathers into one round pearl on the calyx; break it and it becomes countless tiny pearls. When dew first falls it is drop by drop—who would think that once split, each drop becomes a pearl? The lotus just opening holds its bloom and does not release it; the leaves spread yet do not soak up water—they hold dew only on the fine hairs. Because they do not absorb it, spirit-nature (shen) condenses into pearls. The wondrous aspect of stillness is the pivot of xuan.

Words cannot say it all; here only a slight hint of tianji (heaven’s secret) is offered.

This chapter explains the essential point of empty stillness in the profound teaching (Xuanzong)—the mysterious root honored in Daoism—and its subtlety reaches the utmost limit. One must understand: the “stillness” spoken of in the profound teaching is stillness in both body and mind—mind-consciousness open and empty, not fixed on appearances, with complete illumination (yuanzhao) and penetrating clarity (dongche) like mirror-light or the moon in water: when both are silent, not a speck of dust stands; when both illuminate, one can yet enter layer upon layer of realms. It is also like a lotus leaf holding dew, each drop forming a pearl, parting and joining without obstruction—precisely because one does not attach and does not dwell does such a wondrous aspect arise. The profound teaching was never apart from empty stillness; even the subtlety of “not dwelling in empty stillness” is so—this is what is called supreme mystery (Taixuan).

The meaning of empty stillness, in Buddhism, corresponds to śamatha (calming the mind and stilling thought in meditation). The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment says: when bodhisattvas awaken to pure complete enlightenment, they take stillness as practice with a still awakened mind; by clarifying and purifying all thoughts, awakened consciousness no longer stirs in affliction, still wisdom arises, and the adventitious dust of body and mind is forever extinguished; then inner quiet and light ease arise; because of stillness, the mind of the Tathāgatas of the ten directions manifests within, like images in a mirror. This skillful means is called śamatha. It also says: bodhisattvas take only utmost stillness; by the power of stillness they forever cut off afflictions, reach ultimate accomplishment, and without rising from their seat enter nirvāṇa—such bodhisattvas are called “those who practice śamatha alone.” The Avatamsaka Sutra, Chapter on the Ten Absorptions says: abiding in śamatha, utmost silence, constantly abiding in one characteristic, namely characteristiclessness (no-form).

The stillness of the profound teaching is precisely entry through śamatha, transcending in a single gate. The Avatamsaka Sutra, Chapter on the Ten Absorptions again says: abiding in śamatha, utmost silence, constantly abiding in one characteristic, namely no-form.

Stillness in the Profound Teaching

The “stillness” realized in the Profound Teaching (Xuanzong) is entered through the Buddhist śamatha (the “stopping” in stopping-and-contemplation—fixing the mind so it does not scatter). This method can transcend ordinary stages of solemn practice and share the liberating function with Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Layman Pang said: “In stillness one can see the suchness of mind.” The Yinfu Jing says: “The way of nature lies in stillness.” It also says: “Ultimate stillness makes innate nature clear and bright.” Zhuangzi says: “When the mind is upright, there is stillness; stillness arises from clear awakening; in clarity, wuwei yet nothing is left undone.” From this we know that what immortals and Buddhists cultivate first returns to empty stillness, then recovers original purity, in accord with zhenchang (the unchanging real Way).

The Purity of the Infant

Laozi said: “Can you embrace the One and keep spirit and body from parting? Can you concentrate qi until you are soft, like an infant?” This teaches xixi xiangyi—heart and breath in mutual reliance, breath harmonized; in sleep the breath is fine and silent, like an infant. He also said: “Others are bustling, as at a feast or on a spring terrace; I alone am plain and still, with no sign yet, like an infant not yet grown.” And: “Thick virtue can be compared to a newborn: poisonous insects do not sting, fierce beasts do not seize, birds of prey do not strike; bones weak, sinews soft, yet the grip is firm; not knowing male and female union yet the yang essence is full—this is the utmost of full essence; crying all day yet the throat is not hoarse—this is the utmost of harmonious qi.” Laozi uses the infant to show: essence and qi full, yin and yang harmonized, outer things cannot harm—precisely the state cultivators seek in “returning to the infant.”

Laozi repeatedly urges people to learn from infants, and there is deep meaning in this. First, an infant has no mind of cunning or calculation and does not get caught in distinctions such as right and wrong, high and low, big and small. Second, an infant’s body is soft and pliable, which matches what Laozi says: “When a person is first born, he is soft and weak; when he dies, he is stiff and hard. What is soft and weak belongs to the category of life; what is hard and strong belongs to the category of death.” Third, an infant does not contend. Laozi says: “The way of the sage is to act yet not contend with others.” He also says: “Because he does not contend, no one in the world can contend with him.” The virtue of “non-contention” is emphasized again and again throughout the five thousand words. Fourth, an infant has no lust; seeing form without stirring form-desire, clear and tranquil. Fifth, the infant “holds to the One”—only guarding spirit (Shen) and qi (vital energy), with heart-mind and breath in harmony; at night sleep comes without heavy snoring, able to resonate with the true yang of Heaven and Earth. Those who study the Dao should be the same. Sixth, the infant has no oppositional sense of “self” versus “other,” no clinging—muddled and undifferentiated, unknowing and unrecognizing, forgetting things and forgetting the self: hungry then eat, tired then sleep, and nothing more. One who embodies the Dao should likewise be so. Therefore we use these virtues of the infant to encourage one another.

Qianxu Weng writes in Laozi Xuanlan Shu (Overview Commentary on the Laozi): In ancient self-cultivation, people kept De (Virtue) hidden in the heart—deep and not displayed outward—so Laozi often compared them to the chizi (“red infant,” one as pure as a newborn). The Daodejing says “carry the soul and embrace the One”—uniting spirit and body in one hold. Gain and loss cannot disturb such a person, so venomous insects do not sting, fierce beasts do not seize, and birds of prey do not strike. With no crafty scheming in the heart, the outer world does not answer with craft either. Bones soft and sinews tender, yet the grip on things is firm; De not yet fully thick is not lightly shown—hence the frequent likeness to the chizi.

Laozi also asks: Not yet knowing male–female union, yet the generative mechanism often works—why? Because Jing (essence) has reached its utmost. When Jing is full, Qi (vital energy) naturally stays unified—hence the firm grip, and the “mechanism” moves on schedule without orders, of itself. Again: crying all day yet the throat not hoarse—why? Because harmony has reached its utmost. When Qi is harmonious, the voice is naturally rounded. Know that Qi can be thus harmonious because Shen (spirit) is not injured. Great joy, great fear, great grief, great anger and wailing often cannot last a day before Qi and Shen are both harmed. Jing and harmony together in place—that is the chizi’s De; one whose De is deeply stored is the same.

Therefore one should constantly embrace the origin and guard the One (bao yuan shou yi), concentrate Qi to achieve softness (zhuan qi zhi rou), so that one’s own harmonious Qi communicates with Heaven and Earth—then the root of nature is preserved, the foundation of life is firm, and the unchanging way of true constancy rests in one’s own body.

In Dongzong Baojing Sanmei (Treasure Mirror Samadhi of the Cave School) it is said: “Like a newborn in the world, the five aspects of body and mind are already complete. Not coming, not going; not arising, not abiding. Harmonious and at ease—sometimes speaking, sometimes silent.”

Chan master Yuanwu also said: “Whether color or fragrance, penetrate them all in the present moment—only then can it be called the realm of no-mind (wuxin). Cultivate yourself like an infant: pure and soft, empty and without contrivance (wuwei). Though amid worldly toil, you are not stained by it; though in stillness and subtlety, stillness and subtlety cannot bind you. In every movement and every act, you are ordinary and unimpeded. Root and dust, birth and death, circumstance and wisdom, emptiness and wonder—all melt away like boiling water poured on snow. You always know yourself, with not a scrap of excess—only then are you a no-mind Daoist (wuxin daoren).”

In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, after the “Chapter on Holy Conduct” and the “Chapter on Brahma Conduct” comes the “Chapter on Infant Conduct.” The sūtra says: “Good man, what is infant conduct? Good man, an infant cannot rise, abide, come, go, or speak on its own—this is called infant conduct. The Tathāgata is likewise: ‘cannot rise’ means the Tathāgata ultimately does not give rise to any mark of dharmas; ‘cannot abide’ means the Tathāgata does not cling to any and all dharmas; ‘cannot come’ means the place where the Tathāgata’s dharmakāya moves is without wavering; ‘cannot go’ means the Tathāgata has entered great parinirvāṇa; ‘cannot speak’ means that though the Tathāgata expounds dharmas for all beings, in reality there is nothing spoken.”

It also says: “An infant does not know pleasure or pain and does not distinguish day from night; it relies entirely on its parents. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva is the same—for the sake of beings, pleasure and pain are not seen, and there is no division of day and night; toward all beings the mind is equal, so there is no distinction of parents, close or distant, and by this simile the Tathāgata’s practice is shown.”

Again it says: “An infant cannot perform great or small affairs. A bodhisattva-mahāsattva is likewise—no longer creating karmas of birth and death; this is called non-doing.” The sūtra extensively cites the infant’s various modes of conduct to illustrate the Tathāgata’s practice, which aligns deeply with Laozi’s aim of “returning to the state of an infant.”

Xuánzōng’s “Return to the Child Body” and Infant Practice

What Xuánzōng calls “returning to the child body” is the actual cultivation of returning to the infant: after seven days (meaning one full cycle in inner refinement), the Great Circulation is complete; the root, heart, and mechanism of lust (the basis, mind, and impulse of desire) are uprooted entirely, and body and mind become childlike innocence again—so attaining the Dao comes to seem easier. The Infant Abode among the Ten Stages in the Surangama Sutra, and Manjushri as teacher of the seven Buddhas yet uniquely styled Youth Bodhisattva, point to the same meaning in practice.

The Great Meaning of the Mahayana describes two kinds of infant practice: for self-benefit, the name is metaphorical—practice that stays far from discrimination, like an infant who “cannot manage anything,” is called infant practice; for benefiting others, the name comes from those taught—in scripture, ordinary people, Hinayana adepts, and bodhisattvas at first arousal sometimes appear as infants to guide infants, also called infant practice.

Both immortal and Buddhist paths use the infant as a figure for the adept’s cultivation. Only the Nirvana Sutra mostly shows outward signs and says little about concrete methods. Laozi both speaks of returning to the infant and shows the gist of concentrating Qi to utmost softness and holding the One without leaving it—faith, understanding, practice, and realization complete—truly the aim of mysterious cultivation and the raft for crossing birth and death.

63. The Virtue of Hundun (Chaos)

Hundun is the state before Yin-Yang are split and black and white stand apart—mixed without trace, wonder exhausted and effort forgotten. On the Dao side it is called Great Mystery, Wuji (Limitless), Obscure Darkness, and before the Lord of Images; in Buddhism it corresponds to the other shore of Bhishma-gati; in Confucian terms one might say Great Change. In Dongshan’s Five Positions of Merit and Function, it matches the position of function within function; in the Five Positions of Correct and Biased, it is close to both central and arriving—principle and phenomena blended with no trace to hide or reveal: the utmost of the Dao.

Hence Dongshan said: “Where chaos leaves nothing to conceal, beyond this there is nothing to seek.” Caoshan said: “Chaos without inner or outer, harmony leveling above and below.” That too is both central and arriving: principle and phenomena fused, no trace to hide—the very ultimate of the Dao.

In the Five Ranks established by Chan Master Dongshan Liangjia, this rank is the highest and deepest. There is no trace to seek and no image to compare it to: it is neither bright nor dark; neither form nor emptiness; neither upright nor slanted. Merit and position both remain hidden; phenomena and principle are extinguished together. This is just the state Zhuangzi described as “returning to the One, with not even a trace left.”

The monk Jiufeng Yu once said: “In the red dust of the world, even if one has arts for hiding body and concealing tracks, how could that compare with the whole person wholly entering the ‘realm of the sovereign’—that thorough homecoming, that state without stain or clinging?”

Laozi also said: “I alone am tranquil, as if I had not yet shown any sign; vast and empty, as if I had no end.”—That describes precisely this rank of “hundun” (undifferentiated chaos). Both the Chan gate and the gate of mystery (Daoist teaching, internal alchemy, and the like) take this rank as the ultimate of cultivation and awakening.

Vernacular Reading of Tianle Ji (Collection of Heavenly Joy)

Classical alchemical texts confirm the same point. Ziyang Zhenren’s Four Hundred Characters says: “Hundun wraps the void; the void in turn embraces the three realms.” Qianxu Weng explains: the three realms are the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm—all contained within the void, while Hundun wraps the void again. Hundun is pre-heaven Wuji (limitless). The method of refining the elixir is to return spirit and qi to the root and open the aperture in emptiness; to generate a spiritual substance from what has no substance is “the void embracing the three realms.” After emerging from the shell, one must first return to emptiness and revert to Hundun before the work counts as complete—that is “Hundun wrapping the void.”

Li Hao’s Great Elixir Poems says: “Before Hundun was divided I alone existed, containing the four images and establishing heaven and earth. Seeking the returned elixir must happen here; obtaining this is truly the gate of utmost wonder.” (The passage repeats earlier lines on completion and “Hundun wrapping the void.”)

Lü Zu said: “Who can know the true secret? It is hidden in Hundun.” He also said: “‘Rare’ and ‘subtle’ are the foundation of the Dao; ‘dark’ and ‘wondrous’ are its aperture. I point it out to you: within Hundun lies utmost wonder.” Again: “Brightness and darkness rest on the crown of the rare and subtle; majesty rises at the edge of Hundun.” And: “Essence enters qi, qi enters spirit; after seven days in Hundun the soul returns.”

Ma Zhenjun said: “When the nine mysterious attainments are complete, one yang arises; Taiji (Supreme Ultimate) is originally the root of all qi. Holding virtue like an infant and returning to Hundun, the flower opens toward profound clarity and is gradually drawn inward.” He also said: “Once the elixir is formed, why seek the pre-heaven again? Empty and hollow, void and silent—wonder lies in spontaneity. To the end of old age the clear principle endures; the true mechanism is before Hundun was divided.”

Xue Zixian’s Fu Ming Pian (Restoring Life) says: “When the one qi first turns back at the new moon day, the divine water in the cauldron is warm and mild. Firm and yielding meet and the qi is even—the subtle point is not going beyond Hundun.”

Chen Xubai said: “Before Hundun was born, Hundun was originally whole; the message within cannot be put into words.”

Bai Yuchan’s portrait verse says: “Enter the aperture of Hundun, turn the pass of mysterious origin. Seize the talisman of creation—heaven and earth all return to me. Alas! Since he rode the crane and ascended, this Way for ten thousand ages has had no one who knows it.”

Sanfeng Zhenren’s Yisao Guang Daoqing says: “Nature returns to life, life returns to heaven; restoring life and returning to the root is before Hundun.” His Golden Elixir Poems add: “In the place where the vast heaven-and-earth was about to divide, in the time before father and mother were born—taking it is like a dream in Hundun; transformation is like an infant with ten thousand years of life.”

Note: The source text contains repeated lines and misplaced passages (e.g., in Li Hao’s stanza and Ma Zhenjun’s “elixir formed” line), likely from the original book or copyist error. The vernacular rendering above follows the text as given, without arbitrary cuts or additions.

Excerpt from “Heaven and Earth” (Zhuangzi)

In the “Heaven and Earth” chapter of the Zhuangzi, it is written: Zigong traveled south to Chu; on his way back to Jin, he crossed the south bank of the Han River and saw an old man straightening a vegetable garden and digging furrows. Zigong asked what he was doing. The old man said: Are you a disciple of Kong Qiu? The gardener went on: You are not one of those who rely on broad learning to rival the sage, on clever argument to overwhelm the crowd, and who pluck a string and sing mournfully until your name is known everywhere—are you? You ought to forget your spirit and let go of your bodily form—then you might be getting somewhere! When one cannot even put oneself in order, how can one spare effort to govern the world? Zigong flushed with shame, his mind unsettled; only after thirty li did he recover. Back in Lu he told Confucius. Confucius said: That man cultivates the way of the “Hundun clan.” He understands one part but not the other; he tends the inner but not the outer. Someone so penetratingly clear, returning to simplicity, guarding nature and embracing spirit, roaming in the mundane world—you were bound to be startled, weren’t you? As for the learning of the Hundun clan, how could you and I speak of it clearly?

Excerpt from “Letting Be, Having Sovereignty”

The “Letting Be, Having Sovereignty” chapter says: Unfasten the knotted heart, loosen the spirit, and be utterly without soul. The ten thousand things stir in confusion, each returning to its own root. Each returns to its root without knowing it—muddled and dim, never leaving the Dao for a lifetime. If someone thinks “I know,” that is precisely when he departs from this root.

(Note: The passage “if they knew that…” in the original appears somewhat repetitive; the gist is: not knowing yet keeping to hundun does not leave the root; thinking one knows, on the contrary, turns the heart away and leaves the root.)

Excerpt from “Responsive Sovereignty”

The famous parable in “Responsive Sovereignty”: The emperor of the southern sea was called Shu (Sudden), the emperor of the northern sea was called Hu (Sudden), and the emperor of the central region was called Hundun (Chaos). Shu and Hu often visited Hundun, and Hundun treated them well. Shu and Hu wished to repay Hundun’s kindness and said: People all have seven openings for seeing, hearing, eating, drinking, and breathing—only Hundun lacks them; let us try to open them for him. So they carved one opening each day; on the seventh day, Hundun died.

Brief background (as the Tianle ji draws on this meaning): These passages use stories of the garden elder, guarding hundun, and carving the seven openings to show that Zhuangzi rejects binding people with the names of broad learning, disputation, and governing the world, and instead advocates returning to simplicity, embracing spirit, and accord with nature. To “cleverly” reshape “hundun” by human artifice is to destroy what is genuinely original. Daoist writings often cite such texts to stress that cultivation should be wuwei (non-action) and preserving the simplicity of hundun—not chasing outward after the fame of sages and the tricks of power.

The seven inner chapters of the Zhuangzi end with the story of Hundun (Chaos) in “Response of the Emperor”—a deliberate and weighty choice. In that tale, Hundun dies seven days after his seven openings are carved out. “Hundun” here means the primordial state of Wuji (limitless): before mind, intent, and consciousness have begun to discriminate. Once the six senses reach outward and the six consciousnesses churn into activity, one falls into postnatal seeing, hearing, knowing, and awaking—and that is no longer the image in the Book of Changes, Qian hexagram: “Use the nines: behold a group of dragons without a head”—without head, without a master.

“Shu” and “Hu” in the story can be read as heart-mind and breath: only when heart and breath unite can one enter great samadhi (ding). When samadhi deepens over time, inner and outer are both forgotten, root and dust both extinguished—that is “Hundun.” Concealing and guarding heart and breath in such chaos is exactly what the profound teaching of internal alchemy (Neidan) calls the learning of returning to the root and restoring life (gui gen fu ming). Master Dongshan has a verse: “Horns have barely sprouted and already it is unbearable; to seek Buddha with contrived mind is sheer shame. Across empty eons, vast and alone, no one knows—would you still go south to ask the fifty-three?” “Horns have barely sprouted” is like the group of dragons having gained a head and a master, root and dust stirring again—the opposite of the primordial image of “a group of dragons without a head.” “Across empty eons, vast and alone” describes the realm of primordial Wuji: chaos and primordial mist, without beginning or end, without ancient or modern. The image of “a group of dragons without a head” in the Great Change (Da Yi) and Laozi’s return to Wuji can illuminate each other.

The alchemical methods of the Daoist esoteric tradition are all gathered in the Cantong qi (Kinship of the Three). The Cantong qi says: “Chaos interweaves and binds; the embryo takes root and plants the foundation.” This means Yin and Yang unite and enter into Hundun (Primordial Chaos). Hundun is precisely the root from which Heaven, Earth, and humanity arise; the foundation of the elixir is also laid here. What Patriarch Lü meant by “who knows the true secret is hidden in chaos” is exactly this.

The Cantong qi also says: “The sage measures and aligns, arranging the primordial foundation; the fourfold [elements] in chaos, straightway enter emptiness.” Here “the four” are Qian and Kun, Kan and Li—that is, the dual Heaven-and-Earth and the fourfold Yin-Yang—blended into one within chaos, entering directly into emptiness (xu). This describes the merging of pre-heaven and post-heaven, return to the realm of chaos, and condensation in the valley of emptiness. Such chaos and emptiness are the “primordial foundation.” That foundation is the pivot of the Mysterious Female (Xuanpin)—the dark gate of generation.

The Cantong qi further says: “Between dark and new moon, accord with the middle course. Chaos vast and undifferentiated, female and male follow each other. Moisture and fluid nourish and moisten; transformation spreads and flows. Heaven, Earth, and the numinous cannot be measured. Use it to settle the body; hide form and conceal.” This describes the state of vast, undifferentiated chaos—the very season of the union of sun and moon (Yin-Yang conjunction). The sage at this time settles body and life, washes the heart and retreats into secrecy, like an antelope’s horns on a branch—no trace to be found. All Heaven, Earth, and numinous powers are beyond measure; it is supremely subtle. Here is the hub of elixir-making, the great furnace of immortal transformation and nurture.

The above briefly cites Daoist alchemical and Chan-related elixir texts and commentaries that unfold the depth of Hundun. From forming the elixir to shedding the shell, there is not a moment outside chaos. If students can practice this in person, the path of return can be said to be more than halfway traversed.

Laozi says in the Daodejing: “The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth; the named is the mother of the ten thousand things. Therefore, by constantly dwelling in desirelessness, one can observe its subtlety; by constantly dwelling in desire, one can observe its boundaries. Nonbeing and being issue from the same source but differ in name—both may be called ‘mystery’ (xuan). Mystery upon mystery is the gateway of all subtleties.”

Here, “nonbeing” (wu) may be understood as the dharma realm of principle (the aspect of ultimate reality and underlying pattern), and “being” (you) as the dharma realm of phenomena (concrete things and appearances). Viewing being from nonbeing reveals “marvelous being” (miaoyou); viewing nonbeing from being reveals “true emptiness” (zhenkong). When nonbeing and being interpenetrate, that is the dharma realm of non-obstruction between principle and phenomena—aligned with the Huayan (Flower Garland) school’s four dharmadhatus and with the Heart Sutra’s “form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” already entering the gate of Mahayana prajna. “Mystery upon mystery” (xuan zhi you xuan) points to a still deeper level of the Twofold Mystery (chongxuan)—like a thousand lamps in one room, light and shadow layered through one another, mutually entering and pervading in fusion, corresponding to the Huayan image of Indra’s net (the pearls of Śakra’s net, each pearl reflecting all pearls): the dharma realm of non-obstruction among all phenomena.

This Twofold Mystery approach is one containing the measureless, and the measureless returning to one. Laozi names only “mystery,” yet its meaning already fully includes and assimilates—on the same line as Huayan’s Indra’s net and the dharma realm of non-obstruction among all phenomena.

This passage explains the correspondence between the Chongxuan (Double Mystery) approach and the Huayan school’s “Ten Mysterious Principles” (Shixuan yi).

The core of Chongxuan can be summed up in two lines: one contains the immeasurable, and the immeasurable returns to one. Laozi in the Daodejing only names such notions as “mystery upon mystery” (xuan zhi you xuan) without unfolding their full meaning. If one uses the Huayan Ten Mysterious Principles—ten gates for penetrating and revealing the Dharma-realm in depth—as a mirror, this subtle principle becomes easier to see.

The Ten Mysteries mentioned here are, in order: (1) Simultaneous completeness and mutual correspondence; (2) Broad and narrow without obstruction and self-so freedom; (3) One and many compatible yet distinct; (4) All dharmas mutually interpenetrating and self-so freedom; (5) Secret and manifest both accomplished; (6) Subtle mutual containment in ease and joy; (7) Indra’s net as realm-gate; (8) Relying on events to reveal the Dharma and give rise to understanding; (9) Ten times separated by dharmas yet mutually accomplished; (10) Lord and attendants perfectly bright and complete in virtue. For full definitions, see Huayan Xuantan; here only the seventh—Indra’s net as realm-gate—is expanded briefly.

A verse in the Avatamsaka (Huazang) says: “All the motes of dust in the Avatamsaka world—in each mote of dust the Dharma-realm appears.” Qingliang Chengguan explains in his commentary: within each mote of dust appears boundless seas of Buddha-lands (chahai); within those lands are again motes of dust; within those motes appear lands again. Thus they interpenetrate layer upon layer without end—a realm beyond what ordinary mind and consciousness can measure.

It is like the jeweled net hung in Indra’s palace: in each jewel all phenomena appear together; each jewel is the same. The jewels’ light is clear and complete, and each reflects the others’ forms; within each reflection appears another reflection, without end. Or like lamps and mirrors facing one another, light upon light reflecting, layer upon layer without end—like the Buddha-bodies and pure lands mutually containing one another without limit.

Using Indra’s net as a metaphor is precisely to show that Chongxuan’s “one contains the immeasurable, the immeasurable enters into one” can be aligned in reasoning with Huayan’s view of the Dharma-realm—“one mote, one land, layers without end.”

On this reading, what Laozi calls the “Gate of Double Mystery” (zhongxuan zhi men) is a subtle principle that holds within it a critical juncture, and within that juncture another subtle principle; within this interplay of juncture and subtlety, each layer in turn contains fresh subtlety and juncture, layer upon layer without end—mystery upon mystery, beyond full reckoning. “One embraces all, all embraces one, one and many mutually embrace one another”—all simultaneously complete and fulfilled—hence the name “gate of all mysteries.” The Book of Documents speaks of “double radiance” and “double splendor,” ideas close to Laozi’s “double mystery”; Confucian and Daoist writers mostly touch only the name. The Buddhist Avatamsaka Sutra (Huayan jing), by contrast, treats such realms in detail—one cannot say there is no difference between sketch and fullness.

Over two thousand years, more than a hundred schools have annotated the Daodejing, yet those who could unfold the wonder of “double mystery” and use it to illumine the Huayan realm of Samantabhadra’s “Indra’s net, layer upon layer” are as rare as stars at dawn—showing how hard it is to speak clearly.

Heshanggong’s Commentary on the Laozi in Chapter-and-Verse Form, though pseudepigraphic, still gives a hint at the “Gate of Double Mystery.” The commentary says: “Xuan is Heaven; xuan upon xuan means Heaven within Heaven.” In the Song, Chan master Yongming Yanshou, in his Record of the Mirror of the School (Zongjing Lu), quoted this passage to reveal the depth of the Daodejing. Regrettably, when National Teacher Qingliang Chengguan wrote Suspended Discussion of the Huayan, he strongly belittled Laozi, treating him as an ordinary outsider—yet failed to lift up the saying “Heaven within Heaven again” to corroborate the Huayan teaching of Indra’s net in its layered fullness. Does that accord with Third Patriarch Sengcan’s intent—“When mind is attuned, all is equal; the ten thousand dharmas viewed as one; non-duality all the same, nothing not embraced”?

The Daodejing opens the gate of Chongxuan (double profundity); the Nanhuajing (Zhuangzi) reveals the depth of Chongkong (double emptiness). Chongxuan corresponds to the doctrinal emphasis of the Huayan school; Chongkong corresponds to the emphasis of Prajna (wisdom).

Zhuangzi, “Gengsang Chu,” says: “Going out has no root; entering has no opening. There is substance yet no fixed abode; there is length yet no sudden severance; there is going out yet no opening to be seen.” Here “there is substance” marks the meaning of “true emptiness.” The text continues: “There is birth, there is death, there is going out, there is entering; in entering and going out the form is never seen—this is called the Gate of Heaven. The Gate of Heaven is ‘there is not’; the ten thousand things emerge from ‘there is not.’ ‘There is’ cannot take ‘there is’ as ‘there is’; it must emerge from ‘there is not,’ and in ‘there is not’ there is no ‘there is’—the sage hides in this.” On this reading, the Gate of Heaven is the meaning of emptiness: when practice reaches the point where thoughts and concepts are both extinguished, self and dharmas both dissolved, and inner and outer are all empty, one enters the Gate of Heaven. Yet if one still clings to the mark of “emptiness,” then “emptiness” too becomes a kind of “something.” One must therefore empty that mark as well—not even settling on “no-no”—and only then does one reach the stage of Chongkong.

The Shurangama Sutra says: “Emptiness, awareness, stillness, and perfection—emptiness empties what emptiness would fix.” It also says: “When this faculty is first released, one first attains the emptiness of self; nature’s emptiness is perfectly bright, and one achieves liberation through dharmas. When liberation through dharmas is complete, both [self and dharmas] empty and non-arising—this is called the bodhisattva’s samadhi, attaining the patience toward non-arising.” This aligns deeply with Zhuangzi’s aim of Chongkong.

From Laozi’s Chongxuan one may enter the inexhaustible gates of the Huayan teaching; from Zhuangzi’s Chongkong, the stages described in the sutras—nature’s emptiness perfectly bright, liberation through dharmas, both empty and non-arising, attaining the patience toward non-arising—form a continuous path.

Plain-Language Interpretation

When you read Laozi’s idea of “profound mystery upon mystery” (chong xuan, the “double mystery”), you can enter deeply into the Avatamsaka Sutra’s teaching of inexhaustible, layer upon layer disclosure of the Dharma. When you read Zhuangzi’s “profound emptiness” (chong kong, the “double emptiness”), you can align closely with the prajna scriptures’ point that all dharmas have no fixed marks. Seen this way, the subtle words of Laozi and Zhuangzi and the “mind-Dharma” transmitted in Buddhist classics fit together like water blended with milk, or like a box and its lid—mutually confirming, with no need for doubt.

In the past I often found it strange: in the Tang, National Teacher Chengguan of Qingliang wrote Xuantan on the Avatamsaka and treated Laozi and Zhuangzi as “external paths,” yet did not use the layer of “profound emptiness” and “profound mystery” to mutually illuminate the Huayan teaching. Later, Zhao Yuandu’s Immortals and Buddhas Share One Source in the Yuan and Wu Chongxu’s Union of Immortal and Buddhist Paths in the Ming also failed to carry this meaning through to a full fusion—so the true import of Laozi and Zhuangzi has remained unclear in the world for more than two thousand years.

“Profound mystery” and “profound emptiness” speak to the subtle place where quiescence (ji—the unmoving root) and illumination (zhao—clear knowing and responsive function) interpenetrate: “profound mystery” mainly stands on the side of illumination, of responsive function, of manifestation; “profound emptiness” mainly stands on the side of quiescence, of the root, of empty stillness. A passage in Xuantan on the Avatamsaka says: since mind and objects are equally suchness and unobstructed, “mind is the Buddha within the object-realm, and the object-realm is the Tathagata seen as mind-only”; mind and Buddha layer upon layer, yet the nature of original awakening is one; neither side can be grasped—mind and object, both extremes, are forgotten; illuminate yet illumination never exhausts—principle and wisdom mutually penetrate. When both extremes are forgotten, one realizes true emptiness; when principle and wisdom interpenetrate, subtle being manifests. Laozi’s “mystery upon mystery, the gate of all wonders,” Zhuangzi, and the Buddhist classics speak from this same level of meaning.

Turn next to “perfect interfusion”: since Laozi already pointed out that “wonder” and “mystery” return to one opening, “being” can also be called mystery, and “non-being” can also be called mystery; even a formulation like “non-being and being, neither being nor non-being” belongs to the gate of profound mystery—here speaking from the angle of the “empty tathagatagarbha” (all dharmas are originally empty, yet within emptiness full possibility is present). The Huayan “Ten Mysterious Gates” disclose from the angle of the “non-empty tathagatagarbha” (the perfect Dharma-realm appearing within dependent arising). Practitioners who accord with the one mind and see through to the bottom of the source of dharmas will manifest both the empty and non-empty tathagatagarbha at once. This is what National Teacher Chengguan meant by using a mind in which “knowing and quiescence are non-dual” to accord with the middle way in which “emptiness and being doubly fuse.”

On Chongxuan and Chongkong

Someone asked: Do “Chongxuan” (double mystery) and “Chongkong” (double emptiness) have a fixed order?

The answer: Master Qingliang said: “When both sides are forgotten and one enters into that state, wondrous awakening becomes perfectly clear.” So one must first align with “Chongkong”; only then does the gate of Chongxuan open. After that come “the great appearing within the small, the small appearing within the great”—layer upon layer of inexhaustible function—until one can go deep into what the Avatamsaka Sutra calls “inexhaustible dharmas.”

Sixty-six · The Bird Path

When a bird flies through the air and leaves no trace, that is called the “bird path.” Zhuangzi calls it “bird flight.”

When mind and breath rely on each other in emptiness, settle in emptiness, and forget each other in emptiness—without clinging to the physical body—is that not the wondrous practice of the bird path?

So Li Qing’an says in the Refining Emptiness Song: “Settle the spirit in emptiness, act in emptiness; hidden within emptiness, heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things all return here.”

Chan Master Zu’an Jian also said: “On the bird path of empty mystery, not a thread of dust; the jade hall is silent, green moss alone locks the depth. The shuttle on the wall flies off like autumn bones stripped bare; in the vast sea the old clam carries a pearl even by day.”

Chan Master Tiantong Jue said: “At night sand birds roost in trees on the dark isle; stone bamboo shoots newly pierce moss on the ancient road. Do not say the leviathan and whale lack wings—today one has personally returned by the bird path.”

Plain-Language Reading of a Passage from Tian Le Ji

A monk asked Chan Master Dongshan Liangjie: “Master, you often tell people to walk the ‘bird path.’ What is the bird path?”

The master replied: “On the road you do not meet a single person.”

The monk asked: “Then how can one proceed?”

The master replied: “Underfoot, just go forward without selfishness.”

The monk asked: “If one only walks the bird path, is that not the original face?”

The master replied: “Venerable acarya, why do you speak so upside down?”

The monk asked: “Where am I upside down?”

The master replied: “If you were not upside down, why would you call a servant a young master?”

The monk asked: “What is the original face?”

The master replied: “Not walking the bird path.”

Chan Master Li An’guang said: Not walking the bird path is precisely the original face. So why does one ordinarily teach people to walk the bird path? What did Dongshan really mean? After a long silence he said: “To cross a river you need a raft; only after reaching the shore do you set aside the boat.”

Chan Master Fengshan Qi said: And as for not walking the bird path—what face is that? After a long silence he said: “It is not that I am unwilling to tell you; it is just that when one phrase follows another in succession, it is truly too hard.”

Chan Master Danxia Chun said: “The ancient road is desolate, leaning on the great void; to walk it is still to tread rugged ground. Not to take the bird path may be subtle, but examined closely, one is still on the path.” (In gist: the old way is empty and still as if resting on the great void, yet to travel it still feels like crossing rough terrain; though not taking the bird path is finer, on inspection one is still caught in “being on the way.”)

Chan Master Mo Lizhi said: When one does not walk the bird path, then the imperial wind blows vast and serene—the image of all under heaven at peace and governed by wuwei (non-action). Those who ride on the back of a draft horse do not understand this; they only collapse drunk on the heavenly street—“What has the emperor’s power to do with me!” (Borrowing an old line: sage virtue reaches people who do not know they receive it.)

Chan Master Tiantong Zhengjue composed a verse: “The six gates empty and open—on the road, no confusion; in the shadow of the sun, do not grasp at appearances. Even if you can subtly unfold selfless intent, that is exactly returning from the bird path.” (When the six gates—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—are empty and unobstructed, one is not lost; in “the sun’s shadow” one must not fix on forms; even if one can selflessly unfold, that is precisely coming back from the side of the bird path—mutually illuminating with “not walking the bird path.”)

Brief background

“Bird path” is a familiar metaphor in the Dongshan line: high, perilous, almost untraveled, going straight ahead without selfishness—standing for a path of practice that leaves worldly clinging and does not grasp at connections. “Original face” means the awakening-nature everyone already has, unstained. To ask whether walking the bird path is the original face is to confuse “method” with “ essence,” hence the master’s rebuke about speaking “upside down,” and his answer “not walking the bird path” to break through: the true face is not found on some graspable “road,” but in letting go of attachment even to the bird path. Later masters, whether through “reach the shore and abandon the raft,” through “examined closely, still on the path,” or through the verse line “exactly returning from walking the bird path,” all show that to speak of practice and to speak of non-practice are both skillful means—one must not cling to only one side.

In my own experience, following the “bird path” means borrowing a route to get home; not following the bird path is what it means to sit securely at home. While you are on the bird path, you are still in the “position of effort”—you still need to apply yourself in cultivation. When you no longer follow the bird path, you enter the “position beyond effort”—the layer above deliberate exertion, where effort itself is transcended.

When you first begin to apply yourself, you place mind and breath together in the empty void outside the body, mutually relying on each other, subtle and continuous as if barely there. Spirit and breath naturally settle; when they occasionally harmonize, that is the position of effort. When practice reaches full ripeness and strength is exhausted to its limit, suddenly spirit and breath are both forgotten, and great stillness settles in. Mind and environment both fall silent; person and method both empty; inner and outer both dissolve—and only then do you enter the “fundamental position.”

What is called “the six doors open and empty” means the six sense faculties are in great stillness and the six consciousnesses do not operate. That is precisely the pivot where you turn from effort into position and take your seat. If, at the depth of stillness, movement stirs and “one yang returns,” and in dim obscurity you meet a shift, you must promptly turn the mysterious pass (the qi channels need to surge). Mind and breath again rely on each other outwardly—and once more you turn from position back into effort. Relying and settling again, neither going out nor coming in, forgetting form and forgetting image, here you enter the samadhi of no-mind, the body released with nothing to depend on—and again you turn from effort into position.

Within this, whether you move or stop, you do not miss the right moment. In each turn, what continues without break is the hidden mechanism of walking the bird path. Only when you reach the state Zhuangzi calls “ground without walking” is there an exit; only when void is utterly shattered is there complete transcendence.

Neidan Verification as Cited in the Tianle Ji

Longmeizi writes in his Poems of Golden Elixir Verification: The inner landscape appears in clusters about the size of sparrows’ eggs, or like li pearls—those said to come from a black steed, round emblems of pure inner Qi condensed into form. The verse “The dragon’s child sheds its shell and is taken into the mouth; this body has already verified an earth-treading immortal” means that once the medicine enters the body and true fire warms and nurtures it—as when a dragon young leaves its shell and is swallowed inward—one has already attained, in this life, the signs of a terrestrial immortal (dixian).

Shangyangzi adds in detail: When the daogui—the inner elixir’s true medicine, as small as a knife-tip and as weighty as a jade token—enters the mouth, one’s own true fire nurtures it. When firing reaches a certain phase, true Qi at the Jiaji (mid-spine) suddenly surges upward and penetrates the Niwan (Mud-Pill Palace, near Baihui at the crown, the seat of spirit and awareness). As it strikes the crown, there is a dripping, trickling sound, as if something bumps inside the head; soon after, it is again like sparrow eggs, one by one, falling to the “Multistoried Tower” beneath the palate (a vital node on the throat channel). The mouth feels a cool, crisp sweetness, incomparably fine. Sensations of this kind are verification of Jinye huandan (Golden Liquid returning to the Elixir). Thereafter such awareness does not break off; with eyes closed in inner sight, the viscera stand out clearly, as if a candle shone on them; gradually a golden light also wraps the body.

Ziyang Zhenren’s Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir has the line: “The Cha Maiden (Crimson Woman of inner alchemy) passes the Southern Garden, holding jade olives in her hand.” Zhuo Huyun explains in his Direct Commentary: “Jade” stands for whiteness of color; “olive” for a shape neither square nor round. These are real forms in the inner landscape; the patriarch’s images are all deliberate. Niwan Weng says, “The three-yang Cha Maiden plays with bright ear-pendants”; Zixian Weng says, “Again like golden silkworms, like jade shoots”—all one idiom of inner scenery.

By the meaning of the classics, jade shoots, jade olives, bright pendants, sparrows’ eggs, and the like are typical inner sights after “obtaining the elixir.” Where mountains hold jade, peaks grow elegant and waters alluring, and grass and trees do not wither for it; when the elixir forms within a person, the body gains luster, bones seem fine jade, form and substance can shift—turbid becomes clear, coarse becomes refined—and thus attaining the Dao and becoming true is not far to seek.

On “Sparrow Egg and Jade Shoot”

The “sparrow egg and jade shoot” seen in practice is not a physical object. It is an image that forms in the state of deep concentration after primordial Qi (the root breath from before heaven and earth were divided and before the human form took shape) has been refined for a long time by samadhi fire (inner refining in fixed concentration, like divine fire smelting). In outline it resembles a sparrow’s egg or a jade shoot, yet it has form without substance; in essence it is only a mass of primordial Yang light-qi (pure Yang, luminous, true Qi not yet fallen into post-heaven condition). Even if you opened the physical body, you would find no such thing—because primordial Qi is subtle and hard to fathom. In deep concentration the practitioner must use the wisdom eye (inner clarity of insight in meditative stillness, not the physical eye) to perceive it; ordinary eyes cannot see it.

Section 68: The Auspice of the Red Sun

When the Great Elixir (the elixir nearing completion in Neidan) first coalesces, the practitioner often sees the image of a red sun suspended in the void: as the elixir condenses within the body, the signs (omens that correspond to the inner landscape) appear outwardly as well, but only the cultivator can see them in concentration; others cannot.

Master Ke Baozhen once said: it is neither green nor white, like a single bright pearl—of the same kind as “the auspice of the red sun.” Both are verifying signs when the Great Elixir first coalesces and the inner landscape shows outwardly. They must not be taken as a real sun in the sky; they are manifestations in spirit and intent when Neidan firing has reached the right point and Yang Qi is full.

Ke Baozhen Shanren said: It is neither green nor white, but like a perfectly round pearl glowing red.

Chunyang Weng (Lu Dongbin) said: In a state of dim vagueness, half asleep and half awake, you may sense something appear, shaped like a sun, bright and prominent. He also said: Rosy light shines on winding water; the red sun rises from Mount Kunlun.

Sanfeng Weng (Zhang Sanfeng) said: True lead (zhenqian) naturally appears in the body—a mass of red light like the bright moon. He also said: None of the various visions resemble ordinary things; that single red glow is what is most true. This red mass is spring intent (shengji—the pulse of true yang); within it is something like dust on a bright windowpane, with a point of pre-heaven medicine suspended in the middle—seen from afar like a grape, up close like gold.

Wugen Shu (Rootless Tree) also says: The rootless tree, its flowers bright red; when every red flower is picked, the whole tree is empty. It also says: Like a red orange, like a pellet—guard and hold fast, do not slacken.

Hanxu Zu (commentator in the Zhang Sanfeng lineage) notes: Red is the emblem of the great medicine (dayao—the core of neidan); the immortal master writes of it as “like gold” in the Daoqing Ge (Song of the Dao).

Wugen Shu mentions again: The rootless tree, its flowers bright red; when every red flower is picked, the tree is empty. Again: Like a red orange, like a pellet—guard and hold fast, do not grow idle.

Hanxu Zu comments further: Red is the symbolic form (faxiang) of the great medicine. The immortal master’s Daoqing Ge and Wugen Shu are both essential works; what is said there illuminates what is said here. When red light appears, that flower is truly red; once the red flower is in hand, the true medicine is obtained. Apart from this red flower, there is no other medicine to gather. When the great elixir (dadan) matures, this red flower turns again to purple and becomes purple light and purple qi. Zhang Zu (Zhang Boduan, styled Ziyang) took the style “Ziyang” (Purple Yang) precisely to point to this symbolic image.

Brief note for reading: In these passages “red,” “red flower,” and “red light” usually refer to signs seen in inner practice—qi and intent in meditation—not ordinary color. “True lead,” “great medicine,” “pre-heaven medicine,” and “great elixir” are neidan (internal alchemy) terms for what can be refined in the body and for the achievement itself. The “rootless tree” stands for the body-mind or elixir foundation that lives without an ordinary root; “pick every red flower and the tree is empty” suggests the change of form and spirit after gathering the medicine and forming the elixir. Each master’s lines say the same in essence: in stillness see the red, keep the red, gather the red, until red turns purple—in line with the imagery associated with Ziyang the Real Person.

When Laozi was about to leave Hangu Pass, Yin Xi had someone observe the heavens at night. From afar they saw purple qi (ziqi) approaching from the east and knew that before long a great sage would pass through; Laozi indeed arrived as expected. When Lü Dongbin traveled to Huanglong Mountain, he saw purple clouds forming a canopy and knew a sage was dwelling there. Going inside to meet him, he found Chan master Huanglong Huaiji ascending the hall to expound the Dharma; Lü awakened under his words and cleared the “final move” (mohou yizhuo)—that last barrier. On this reading, red light is simply the stage before purple qi; purple qi is what happens when one pushes to the limit within the seven-colored lights, and among those seven, purple is the utmost. When a sage’s cultivation reaches the completion of the great elixir (da dan yuancheng), purple qi also appears at the crown—one level higher than the red light when the great medicine first congeals. Hence the Four Hundred Words says: “Lead and mercury form cinnabar elixir, bright and steadfast in purple-gold hue.” The Cantong Qi says: “As color shifts further into purple, it boldly becomes the returned elixir.” Patriarch Zhang Sanfeng’s line that “the two qi mutually attune and transform into purple light” means exactly this.

The Buddhist esoteric scripture Yizi Jinlun Shichu Gui says: “That Bhagavan, by the light of self-nature wisdom, becomes the majestic sun disc, illuminating all realms without remainder.” It also says: “Contemplate again the golden-light disc, adorning the heart-sun disc.” In the profound teaching of inner alchemy (neidan), when the great elixir first congeals there is the auspicious sign of a red sun suspended in empty space—is this not the purport of “adorning the heart-sun disc”? Otherwise, from where would one derive the meaning of the “great golden sun disc”? Know that the golden disc of the Buddhist path and the golden elixir (jindan) of the Daoist path are both dharma-images manifested through inner verification; on this point there can be no doubt.

Sweet Dew (Ganlu) in Various Masters — Plain-Language Reading

Laozi says: “When heaven and earth unite, sweet dew falls.” This compares the mutual response of heaven and earth and the harmony of yin and yang to a “heavenly dew” that nourishes all things; in internal alchemy (neidan), it often describes the clear, moist, sweet “spirit fluid” produced after true qi (zhenqi) within the body has joined.

Master Ziyang (Zhang Boduan) said: “When sweet dew descends, heaven and earth unite; where yellow sprout (huangya) arises, Kan and Li intersect.” Meaning: when yin and yang within the body unite like heaven and earth, it is as if sweet dew has fallen; and where the “yellow sprout” (the image of the golden elixir first stirring) appears is precisely the pass where the Kan trigram (water) and Li trigram (fire) meet—the point of “fire and water in balance” (shuihuo jiji).

Patriarch Lü (Lü Dongbin) said: “White clouds rise toward the upper gate; sweet dew sprinkles Mount Sumeru.” Using rising cloud-qi and dew falling everywhere as a metaphor for spirit and qi ascending and spirit fluid moistening the whole being. He also said: “Drive the green dragon, capture the white tiger; raise auspicious wind and let sweet dew descend.” Green dragon and white tiger in neidan often stand for liver-wood and lung-metal (or left dragon and right tiger among other pairings); first regulate dragon and tiger, move wind and qi, then sweet dew descends—describing how inner fluid forms after the firing process (huohou) has turned.

Master Yuchan (Bai Yuchan) said: “When spirit fungus first appears, sweet dew falls; turtle and serpent remain joined through the ages.” Spirit fungus (lingzhi) stands for the spiritual root first showing; sweet dew follows; turtle and serpent often stand for northern Kan water and southern Li fire (or jing and shen); they must stay long joined before sweet dew can continue.

Longmeizi in Verse on the Verification of the Golden Elixir said: “Sweet dew fills the void and nourishes the ten thousand gatherings; one stream of spirit spring flows the long river.” Sweet dew fills empty space and nourishes all things, like one vein of spirit spring flowing on and on—describing how, after inner cultivation succeeds, true qi circulates and moistens the whole body.

True Person Sanfeng (Zhang Sanfeng) said: he does not envy the “beautiful flowers” of the outer world, but waits until “sweet dew and spirit spring” arise within. He also said: “Sweet dew’s fragrance is sweet as honey; entering the jade pool it becomes golden fluid; freely one drinks as sweet dew drips of itself.” Sweet dew is fragrant and sweet as honey; entering the “jade pool” (a name for the mouth or dantian) it becomes golden fluid, and one can enjoy it at ease. He also said: “From the mud pill palace descends fine cream, like brewing from red tangerine into ghee; ghee on the tongue is like sweet dew.” From the mud pill palace (upper dantian, crown region) descends essence like fine cream, as if red tangerine were brewed into ghee (tihu); in the mouth it is like sweet dew. He also said: “Primordial qi, primordial smoke—one pour of ghee sustains the countenance.” Primordial qi, primordial smoke—using the image of ghee poured on the crown to describe one qi filling the crown and nourishing form and spirit. He also said: “Daily ghee as wine of long life; swallowing in time return-to-soul decoction.” Daily as if drinking wine of long life, in time as if swallowing decoction that recalls the soul—both are the “liquids” of inner refinement, not outer things. He also said: “Ghee filling the crown is the true bellows and key; gather the one true primordial qi.” Ghee filling the crown is the crucial “bellows and key” (tuoyue)—the hinge and secret—in taking the one primordial qi. He also said: “It becomes jade nectar swallowed into the belly; a mute eating honey cannot tell it apart.” Jade nectar enters the belly; the wonder cannot be put in words, like a mute eating honey—only self-verification. He also said: “Drink immortal wine of extended years; eat jade decoction of continued life.” Again the “wine” and “decoction” of extended and continued life that inner alchemy transforms—not external objects.

True Person of the Mud Pill in the Classic of the Purple Court said: “After gathering and taking it, not long after, a streak of white pulse strikes the mud pill. It turns to jade fluid flowing into the mouth, sweet, fresh, and cool over the whole tongue.” What is gathered and taken—in a short while one feels a streak of white qi strike the mud pill, turn to jade fluid in the mouth, sweet, fresh, and cool over the tongue—concretely describing the bodily sense of sweet dew (jade fluid) from mud pill to mouth and tongue.

Brief overview: What the masters call “sweet dew,” “ghee,” “jade nectar,” and “jade fluid” in Daoist canon and neidan context mostly mean the sweet spirit fluid felt at the mouth, mud pill, jade pool, and similar places after fire and water join, dragon and tiger harmonize, and primordial qi condenses; outwardly they cite the classic of heaven and earth “descending sweet dew,” inwardly they metaphor spirit and qi united, golden elixir first stirring (yellow sprout) as verification, and stress an experience hard to put in words and known only through practice.

This passage mainly cites classical discussions of the elixir to explain the various signs and designations that appear in the body when Qi circulates through the microcosmic orbit.

The Cantong qi (Token for Joining) says: first “metal” stirs (the golden flower leads the way); before long it “turns into water,” taking a form like “horse-teeth streaks” (the mottled pattern on a horse’s teeth). It also says the “three substances” mutually embrace and transform as if by spirit; below, solar qi steams upward in an instant, first becoming liquid then congealing, called “Huangyu” (Yellow Carriage); elsewhere it is said to turn into white fluid and, on congealing, grow firm.

Qianxu weng, in his Kouyi (Oral Explications), explains: the so-called pre-heaven “water” and “metal” are the single breath of Qi at the moment the hexagram lines stir and one Yang returns. In a brief interval, passing through the Magpie Bridge and turning at Kunlun, it dissolves into water—hence names like ghee and sweet dew; descending again through the Multi-storied Tower (Chonglou) into the Yellow Palace, it congeals into the elixir, and there is the image of horse-teeth streaks. In his commentary on Lu Dongbin’s Baizi Bei (Hundred-Character Stele), he also says: pre-heaven Qi is born at the time of movement in the lines; then, by guiding Qi with intention (“wielding the sword”) to pursue and gather it, one crosses the Magpie Bridge, pierces Weilu, and ascends along the Governing vessel to Niwan (mud pill). One feels it swell and surge softly, like white clouds paying homage at the court; before long it becomes jade nectar, sweet as sweet dew, sprinkling over Sumeru, descending the Multi-storied Tower, entering the central palace—such is the image of “Qi returning and the elixir congealing.” He also says: Qi turns into water, utmost sweet and fine, so it is sometimes called jade fluid or jade broth; names vary as occasion requires.

The foregoing only samples verses and commentaries of ancient masters to show the signs of Qi circulating through the microcosmic orbit in the arcane teaching of the inner elixir (Xuanzong). Ghee, sweet dew, jade fluid, and jade broth are all transformations of the pre-heaven harmonious Qi; they are also bodily confirmation of “Heaven first generates water,” a kind of “Chan flavor” in the course of orbital circulation, termed “ingesting supreme harmony (Taihe).” From this the hundred vessels grow warm and smooth, the three fields (dantians) are moistened, essence and Qi fill inward and spirit-light radiates outward, until Qi is full, fire ceases, and the returned elixir (huandan) is formed.

Tianle Ji (Collection of Heavenly Joy) — Vernacular Commentary

Xuanzong Return Circulation Practice, Section 70: The Marvel of White Blood

After the Xuanzong return practice has passed the “seven days” and the great heavenly circuit is complete, the blood throughout the body gradually turns to a consistency like white milk. This is one sign of “replacing the old and establishing the new”—shedding the old body and gaining a new one.

Patriarch Lü said: “Red blood is exchanged; white milk flows.” He also said: “Blood becomes white paste; the body is hard to destroy.” Chen Cuixu said: “All the hardship lies in these ten months—gradually gathering, gradually condensing. Now the whole body is like white blood; one already feels the four limbs no longer alternate between chills and fever.” Another poem says: “Golden light pierces the body, fragrance rises from the marrow; golden sinews and jade bones, the constitution purely yang. Refined until red blood turns white, yin qi is exhausted and the body naturally finds peace.” The True Person of Correct Yang said: “Sometimes blood turns to milk, and one gradually shuns fishy and rank foods.” Poem on Breaking Through Delusion and the Correct Path also says: “Blood turns to paste, the body like silver; truly for a hundred days without loss, jade paste flows moist and bright light is born.” True Person Sanfeng wrote in Discourse on Signs of Return: at six months of refinement, the body is like silver paste, blood becomes white fluid, the whole body fragrant, and breath from the mouth like mist and clouds. This is the inner elixir ripening—a piece of “dry mercury”; one who takes it never dies.

Note: In modern times science has advanced; under the microscope human blood indeed contains both red and white corpuscles. White corpuscles are fewer in number but their role is great.

After modern science advanced, microscopic observation showed that human blood indeed contains two kinds of cells: red and white. White blood cells are fewer in number yet play a major role: they destroy pathogens, ward off cold and wind, nourish the five viscera, and strengthen the body. Practitioners of the Xuanzong lineage of Daoist internal cultivation, when stillness reaches its depth, may connect with the innate Qi of True Unity (xiantian zhenyi zhi qi) entering the body. That can alter the composition of the blood and increase white blood cells; at the extreme, red cells are wholly transformed into white, and the blood then turns into milk.

This belongs to the way of nurturing life through the innate (xiantian); those who speak only of post-heaven hygiene cannot reach it. When blood becomes milk, that is change within the physical form alone. At that point the four limbs no longer feel cold or heat, and the seventh consciousness (the Yogacara faculty that clings to “I”) is transformed along with it. The dense, successive turning of body and mind are all verified effects of Qi transformation and spirit transformation in the Xuanzong line—an ease like water finding its channel, what is called the way of transforming the outer form.

Someone asked: I understand blood turning into milk in Xuanzong practice. What does Buddhism say? Answer: If one enters the great stillness samadhi without breathing, in that samadhi the innate Qi of True Unity steams through the hundred vessels and irrigates the whole body; in dim, unfixed fusion one becomes one with the great natural order. When the qi of supreme harmony fills and renews the old, the blood changes of itself until yin is exhausted and yang is pure. In Chan tradition, the patriarch known as the Son among the twenty-four patriarchs of the Western Heaven, when killed by a king, had white milk surge upward several feet. Again, when Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou suppressed Buddhism, Dharma Master Jing’ai remonstrated in vain, withdrew to the Zhongnan range, wept for seven days, sat on a flat rock, took a knife and cut his own flesh, hung his entrails on a pine branch, and died holding his heart; white milk flowed beside him and congealed on the stone. Such records in the classics are clear and can be checked. These are plain proof of blood turning into milk. When the physical signs match, the dharma-body’s states of samadhi and wisdom are of the same order—there is no room for doubt.

The Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu) once said something similar to Emperor Wu of Han; that can be read alongside this for comparison. These are clear proofs of effects in the class of “blood transforming into milk”: once the signs on the physical body match, the dharma body’s attainment in samadhi and prajna should be on the same level—there is no need to doubt it.

71 The Marvel of Square Pupils

The Queen Mother of the West once told Emperor Wu of Han: “What is called ‘practicing the easy transformation’ means constantly recalling Lingbao—‘ling’ refers to spirit (shen), ‘bao’ to essence (jing). You need only cherish essence and hold it firmly, harmonize the mind and nourish qi (vital energy); then qi transforms into blood, blood into essence, essence into spirit. Practice without weariness until spirit and vitality overflow: in one year the qi is transformed, in two the blood, in three the essence, in four the meridians, in five the marrow, in six the bones, in seven the sinews, in eight the hair, in nine the bodily form. When the form is transformed, the way of change is accomplished.”

The path of transforming the outer body’s form is what profound cultivation honors; yet the signs must arise step by step—first the qi is transformed, and only at the end the form. The mark of transforming the form lies in transforming the pupils (the change of the pupil’s core). When the pupils transform, qi, blood, marrow, and bone are all transformed alike. The Liushu says: “Human beings receive qi to live, and the eyes come first among the faculties. Where spirit gathers, it is nowhere but in the eyes.” Now, on the path of practicing this easy transformation, one reverses the flow and gives birth to the pupil of life and death; when the pupil transforms, qi, blood, marrow, and bone are all transformed alike.