《靈寶無量度人上經大法》Vol. 57

The Mysterious Master, a Daoist teacher who transmits the teachings, said: In ancient times, the Supreme Lord took pity on the departed souls in the lower realm who were held captive in the northern Sea of Darkness. Trapped in the Netherworld’s Springs Palace and the hells of the Ninefold Darkness, they could not be delivered. So the Supreme Lord expounded the scriptures and teachings to save living beings, and appointed Perfected Jiuhua to oversee the Upper Palace of Nanchang and manage matters below the Ninefold Darkness, where the dead were bound to their past-life ties and former karma.

The Lord Who Delivers Lives of Nanchang was responsible for refining and delivering the souls of the dead. Within the palace stood a “Court of Flowing Fire,” where flying flames illuminated the eight directions. Refining the body with the ointment of flowing fire caused it to take on a jade-like sheen, bright as an eyeball. Perfected Nanji also oversaw this work in the palace. All those who practiced the Dao and had reached a certain rank, but had not yet attained completion, had to go to the Court of Flowing Fire. Perfected Nanji washed and refined them with fire ointment and the Yellow Qi of the moon, sweeping away their impurities so they could join the company of the Perfected.

When a living person underwent refinement and deliverance, their soul and spirit rose directly to the Southern Palace to be refined in the Court of Flowing Fire. The time required depended on the depth of their genuine practice and the extent of their accumulated merit. Once the term was complete, they could be reborn. Even after many years, the process felt to those undergoing refinement like a single sleep; they did not feel that the time had been long. From then on, they could hope to become immortals.

The spirit child of the Fire Pool was named Po Wei. Whenever a cosmic cycle turned, the child would assess the numbers according to the circumstances of the people of Tuoqiu, then promote them in order to the Palace of Zhu Ling, where they received blessings and became immortal officials. Could such aid be a small matter?

When the era of Crimson Light began, the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning invested the King of Brahma Heaven with his title. Perfected Taiwu then took up residence in the King’s palace, delivering the dead from the Long Night. He also dispatched officials and attendants from the Upper Palace of Nanchang and the Fire Court of Zhu Ling, carrying various seal methods into the human world. There they transmitted them to those who had attained the Dao, enabling them to carry out the transformation on Heaven’s behalf and save souls in the netherworld. Those who received this method could be appointed as Refinement and Deliverance Perfected Officials in the Upper Palace of Nanchang and also oversee the Yellow Register Institute.

This is how spirit is refined by spirit and the soul by Qi. Practitioners should make a vow to establish an altar and perform the refinement and deliverance rite on the Three Yuan days—the Upper, Middle, and Lower Yuan, important Daoist purification days. They should deliver the lingering souls and stagnant spirits of the Five Paths and Four Births throughout the world, freeing them from the Three Paths of Suffering—hell, the hungry ghosts, and the animals—so that they may be reborn in the human or heavenly realms and accumulate enduring merit.

Souls that have not yet undergone refinement and deliverance are often less than three feet tall, misshapen, lame, or missing limbs. Their bodies are not yet fully formed; stained by the filth of sinful karma, they often appear unclean and ugly.

Only after the rite of refinement and deliverance—a Daoist ritual that purifies and saves the souls of the dead—can the deceased regain a complete form and be freed from sins, defilements, and grievances.

This means that signs of light appearing on the deceased show that the rite of refinement and deliverance is complete. After scriptures, treasures, registers, talismans, and imperial proclamations used in the ritual have been burned, the Celestial Bureaucrats of Merit, divine officials dispatched by Heaven to carry documents, receive the official papers and escort the soul to the Yellow Register Court for the formal handover. The deceased’s records of sins across three lifetimes are then examined and their transgressions verified. If they have committed no offenses such as deceiving Heaven or slandering Earth, disloyalty as a subject, lack of filial piety as a child, secretly harming living beings, or persecuting the good, then, in accordance with the karmic results of their merits and deeds, the soul is promptly delivered through the saving power of the presiding ritual master, sparing it a prolonged descent into suffering. In this way, the rite accords with the Supreme One’s intent to cherish life and save beings with compassion.

The Secret Method of Yin Refinement for Deliverance through the Primordial Beginning, Numinous Treasure, and Natural Generation of the Nine Heavens

Burn incense, face east, and bow nine times as you state the purpose of the purification ritual. Bow another nine times, then sit upright and calm your mind and breath. Recite the Precious Writ of Generating the Spirits nine times. With each recitation, draw in one breath and guide it straight to the Dantian (energy center). Then visualize the nine kinds of primordial Qi (vital energy) filling your whole body. They gather in the Water Palace within you as nine-colored radiance and coalesce into an infant whose appearance resembles your own.

Visualize the infant sitting upright with clenched fists, its radiance spreading out to illuminate Heaven and Earth. Your own body and spirit, too, become luminous. Before long, the five-colored Qi of the five organs rises from below like clouds, carrying the infant upward through the paired passes along the spine and into the Muddy Pellet, the upper Dantian in the head. There it transforms into a precious pearl the size of a millet grain. The infant becomes the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning; the clouds of Qi from the five organs become lions. The Celestial Worthy sits within the pearl, atop the five-colored lions, sending forth millions upon millions of rays of light that illuminate all the heavens and lands, within and without.

Next, visualize the myriad sages and thousands of perfected beings from the thirty-two heavens descending through the air and entering the pearl together. They kneel before the Celestial Worthy as if listening to the teaching. Once the perfected beings have gathered, the Celestial Worthy emits an auspicious white-hair light from between the brows. It shines down upon the prisons of Fengdu and the Nine Dark Hells below, extending from the Muddy Pellet to below the navel.

Within every ray of light, a precious pearl appears. Within each pearl appear the thirty-two heavens and their myriad sages and thousands of perfected beings, attending the Celestial Worthy just as they did in the pearl visualized earlier. In every ray of light, the Heavenly Worthy Who Saves from Suffering also appears, following the light into the various hells. The prisons of Fengdu receive the Celestial Worthy’s Dao-power. Wherever the heavenly light reaches, layer upon layer of darkness vanishes at once and turns into pure land.

Next, visualize your two kidneys transforming into the palace gates of Fengdu, until the gates of all the prisons in the various hells have opened…

The areas below the two kidneys—the small and large intestines, the stomach, and so on—are places of darkness and gloom, where things gather and congeal. Any place the true Yang Qi cannot reach is also called a hell.

As the gates of hell swing open, the Northern Emperor, who governs the underworld, together with the underworld officials and prison wardens, lines up outside the capital gate to pay homage. The place of homage lies behind the Fengdu Water Palace, the underworld’s water palace, and in front of the lumbar vertebrae. After the homage, the Flying Kings of the Ten Directions arrive in chariots, attended by golden youths. Holding talismanic commands from the Primordial Beginning, they have received the orders in person from the Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning. Riding beams of light, they descend and enter each of Fengdu’s prisons. All the condemned souls who are eligible are pardoned at once, released from prison, and gathered before the Palace of Fengdu.

Next, visualize the Flower Pond transformed into a vast, pure body of water. Then visualize the thousand perfected beings and ten thousand sages within the precious pearl chanting together the “Incantation for Pouring the Celestial River into the Eastern Well.” Visualize the Primordial Lord commanding the Red Dragon to churn the pond’s waves with all its might, sending a waterfall of water pouring into the Eastern Well. Visualize your tongue transforming into a Red Dragon, stirring the Flower Pond. When the divine water overflows, turn your head to the left and swallow it, sending it straight into the Palace Forecourt. Here, the Palace Forecourt refers to the Celestial River.

Next, visualize the sea before the Water Palace stretching without end, with all the condemned souls entering it to bathe. A warm, auspicious breeze blows; the air is mild and springlike, enveloping the whole body so that everyone feels joyful. Greed and anger immediately fade, and the mind returns to the right path. Once the bathing is complete, the Primordial Lord orders golden youths and jade maidens to bring countless clean garments and bestow them on the condemned souls. Visualize all the souls putting on their garments, then imagine the thousand perfected beings and ten thousand sages within the precious pearl chanting in unison the scriptures for rescuing those in distress and the Great Brahmā language.

Next, visualize the Celestial Worthy Taiyi, Savior from Suffering, and the Celestial Worthies of the Ten Directions, Savior from Suffering, descending on auspicious clouds as they chant scriptures, sprinkling all the souls with the sweet-dew Dharma water. At once, the souls’ bodies and minds grow cool and clear, and their throats feel open and at ease. Each of the Celestial Worthies of the Ten Directions draws sweet-dew jade nectar from a golden bowl with a jade spoon and distributes it for the souls to enjoy. Once every soul has eaten its fill, the rite continues.

Next, visualize the spine transforming into a great Dharma bridge that reaches the heavens, connecting above to the Palace of Vermilion Mounds—that is, the Crimson Palace—and below to the Water Palace. Jade youths and maidens hold banners, spread fragrance, and scatter flowers as they guide the departed souls across the Dharma bridge toward the Fire Palace of Vermilion Mounds. Within the palace are the Great Lord of Long Life, dressed as an emperor; the Great God Sima, dressed as a celestial official; and Lord Han the Elder, dressed in white jade…

The exalted deities who extend life, increase one’s allotted years, and dispel calamities, such as the Lords of Destiny and Record, wear blue robes edged in black.

They oversee the souls of the dead as they enter the great pool of fire, where they are refined and delivered through fierce flames. After undergoing this fiery refinement, the souls don celestial robes. Hundreds and thousands of fire dragons rise from the pool, bearing the dead as they leap forth through the flames. They pass through the twelve-storied tower and ascend through the air to the Realm of Jade Purity, the highest heaven in Daoist teaching. There, the dead pay homage to the Lord of Primordial Beginning and enter the radiance of the treasure light.

At this time, the ritual practitioner should focus the mind and quiet the heart, becoming clear and settled, forgetting both the self and external things, still and unmoving. Do not ask where the dead will go. Even the slightest lingering concern in the heart prevents the work from reaching its ultimate end and makes deliverance impossible.

Masters and Officials of Refinement and Deliverance

The Most High One, Taiyi, Who Responds to Cries and Rescues from Suffering, a deity who rescues and delivers the dead; the Great Emperor of Longevity of the Southern Pole in Taiwei; Lord Han, the Elder of the Nine Heavens, a deity who presides over the virtue of cherishing life; the Perfected One of the Southern Pole, who presides over refining the immortal souls; the Perfected One of Jiuhua, who presides over refining the souls of the dead; the Deputy Perfected Lord, Envoy of the Yellow Register Court of Shangqing; the commander of the immortal troops of the Yellow Register Court of Shangqing; and the Refinement and Deliverance Spirit Officials, Jade Maidens, and youths of the Upper Palace of Nanchang; the Youths of Ninefold Radiance and of the Fire Mound; the Great Gods of Cinnabar Spirit, Bright Splendor, Dark Essence, Transformation of Form, Restoration of Aspect, True Essence, the Fire Bureau, Return to Form, Release from the Womb, Severing the Placenta, Dispersal of Stagnation, Untying Knots, Return of the Soul, Deliverance of the Soul, Transcendent Transformation, and Cherishing Life; the Soul-Summoning Great God; the Heavenly Physician’s Divine Clerk; the Refinement and Deliverance Talisman Clerk; the immortal troops; the envoys of the Pool of Fire and Marsh of Water; the Spirit Officials who present memorials to Heaven; the Soul-Summoning Youths; the Spirit Officials who oversee the Heavenly Seal of Refinement and Deliverance; the Jade Maidens who receive it; the Divine Lords of the Merit Officers of the Six Paths; and the spirit officials who attend the altar and earthen pool.

Pray that the Patriarch of Nanchang and the officials of utmost perfection will all gather in the purified chamber and wait in quiet concentration.

In the evening, burn incense, recite and uphold the middle section, and perform the rites of bowing and offering. Then continue reciting the honored titles of the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning in the Sacred Realm of Jade Clarity and the Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering, each three hundred times; recite the Jade Emperor’s treasured title one hundred times. Pray that the departed souls may soon undergo refinement and deliverance and ascend to Heaven. Practice diligently from beginning to end, without slackening or taking the rites lightly.

Here, “bowing and offering” means bowing to the deities and presenting offerings. “Refining secluded souls” means performing a Daoist ritual of refinement and deliverance for the departed, enabling them to leave the realm of darkness and ascend to Heaven.

Great Method of the Upper Scripture of the Numinous Treasure on Delivering People Without Measure, juan 57.