《雲笈七籤》Vol. 67

Preface to the Golden Elixir

The Baopuzi says: I have examined and investigated books on nourishing life and collected various methods for seeking longevity. The volumes I have read number in the thousands, and nearly all regard Huandan (Returned Elixir) and Jinye (Golden Fluid) as the most important matters. From this it appears that these two elixir methods are probably the highest attainment on the path to becoming an immortal. If taking them still does not lead to immortality, then perhaps from ancient times there have been no true immortals at all.

In former times, when the realm was in turmoil, I hurried about in all directions. I once traveled through Xu, Yu, Jing, Xiang, Jiang, and Guang and saw several hundred Daoist priests who had wandered from place to place. Some had long been famous, and their reputations were said to reach as high as the clouds; yet their individual understanding, whether deep or shallow, substantial or empty, did not surpass one another. Each kept several dozen scrolls of Daoist books, but they had not necessarily read them all; most had merely copied and stored them.

At that time some understood Xingqi (breath circulation), Bigu (grain avoidance), and methods of taking various herbs and plant medicines. The recipe books they possessed were broadly similar, and their principles were not different. Someone obtained a copy of the Daoji Jing and considered it an extremely secret scripture, saying it was composed by Yin Xi. I told him that it was actually written by Wang Tu, military supervisor of the Wei dynasty, and was not the work of the ancients. Wang Tu did not understand the refining of the great medicine at all; he merely wished to seek immortality through Xingqi and retreat-room cultivation, so he wrote the Daoji and believed the entire path to immortality was contained in it. This is truly a matter very likely to mislead people.

I asked many Daoist priests about divine elixirs, Golden Fluid, and methods of summoning the gods of heaven and earth with the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns, but not one understood them. Of the Daoist priests who exaggerated, bragged, and deceived people, most claimed they had already attained longevity or said they had wandered with immortals. Some, in conversation and writings, touched slightly on mysterious matters; others said they had heard of the Golden Elixir, but that nowadays no one could refine it, and only the immortals who had attained the Dao in high antiquity understood it. Still others had only heard reports of elixir recipes but possessed no genuine scriptures; or they had obtained only scattered elixir recipes and thought the whole elixir method was contained in them.

Formerly, Zuo Yuanfang devoted himself to quiet contemplation on Mount Tianzhu, and a divine being transmitted to him the Golden Elixir Immortal Scripture. It happened that at the end of the Han, the realm was in disorder and famine, and he had no time to refine it. He crossed the river to Jiangdong to escape the chaos, and still intended to go to famous mountains…

The cultivation of this Daoist method was transmitted to me by my great-uncle, the Immortal Lord (an immortal among my forebears), who had in turn received it from Zuo Yuanfang. In all, three scrolls of the Taiqing Dan Jing and one scroll of the Jiuding Dan Jing were handed down. My teacher, Master Zheng, was a disciple of my great-uncle, the Immortal Lord, and had also received these scriptures from the Immortal Lord.

My family was poor and had no money to buy medicinal ingredients, so I personally served Master Zheng, sweeping and cleaning and doing chores. As time went on, he set up an altar in the Maji Mountains and made a sworn covenant, transmitted the scriptures to me, and together with them imparted various oral secrets. These secrets were not written down. Jiangdong originally did not have these books; they came from Zuo Yuanfang. Yuanfang transmitted them to my great-uncle, my great-uncle transmitted them to Master Zheng, and Master Zheng then transmitted them to me. Therefore, all the other Daoist priests knew nothing of these contents.

It has been more than twenty years since I received the transmission, but my family is so poor that we do not have even a single picul or bushel of property—how could I possibly accomplish the work of refining elixirs? I can only sigh deeply. Some people have chests full of gold and wealth piled up like mountains, yet they do not know that such a method of immortality exists. Even if they heard of it, they would never believe it. What can be done about that?

Having tasted the Jade Liquid, one finds coarse vegetable broth bland; having seen Mount Kunlun, one finds small mounds pitifully low. Once one has witnessed the way of the Golden Elixir, people will no longer prize those shallow and minor arts. Nevertheless, refining the great medicine cannot easily be accomplished at once, so one should still first use some of the lesser arts to sustain oneself. Taking other medicines, even in quantities of ten thousand hu, can bring only slight benefit and ultimately cannot make one immortal. Therefore, Laozi’s secret teaching says: “If one does not obtain the Huandan and the Golden Liquid, one merely suffers in vain.”

The five grains can still sustain people: eat them and one lives; cut them off and one dies. How much more, then, do the highest divine medicines benefit people far beyond the five grains? As for the Golden Elixir, the longer it is fired and refined, the more subtle its transformations become. Gold placed in fire will not be destroyed even after a hundred smeltings; buried for a long time, it will not decay. Taking these two medicines can refine and nourish the human body, and therefore can keep one from aging and death.

This is presumably a matter of borrowing external things to make the self firm, like carefully tending a fire so that it does not go out; or like coating the feet with verdigris so that they do not rot in water—this borrows the hardness of copper to protect the skin. After the Golden Elixir enters the body, it can regulate and nourish the Ying and Wei (the qi and blood that circulate within the body and sustain vital activity). Its effects are far beyond those of verdigris protecting the skin externally.

There are many people in the world who do not believe in the ultimate Dao; they are everywhere. Yet even if a person who loves the Dao appears now and then, he may fail to encounter this method; and without meeting an enlightened teacher, he has no way to hear of it…

There are matters in this world of which I shall now briefly transcribe an outline concerning the Golden Elixir (jindan—the Daoist elixir and the theory of its cultivation), leaving it for later generations of like-minded people who love this Dao. If those who come later truly devote themselves to its study, they should cultivate it with care and must not merely cling to shallow methods and suppose that these are enough to transcend the world. If in the end they never encounter the true gate, they should stop chasing endless hopes.

To understand these statements, one must have personal realization: it is like leaving stagnant low-lying water before one knows how vast the sea is; turning one’s back on fireflies and candlelight and facing the sun and moon before one understands the difference in brightness; hearing the sound of thunder and lightning before one perceives how faint a cloth-covered drum is; seeing a giant whale before one knows how tiny creatures like insects are. If one has no understanding of these principles yet hopes to achieve ascent to immortality by relying on inferior medicines, it is like whipping a lame donkey to chase the swift wind, or rowing a small boat in an attempt to cross a great river.

There are many simple elixir recipes, but in refining them there are differences of difficulty, and the effort and conditions required are also not the same. Though they have superior and inferior grades, they cannot be mentioned in the same breath, just as wine fermented once cannot be compared with mellow wine fermented nine times. Nevertheless, even one of the lesser elixirs is far superior to medicines made from plants and trees. Ordinary plants and trees burn away and decay; cinnabar (dansha), when refined by fire, can turn into mercury, and after repeated transformations can revert to cinnabar. It is very far removed from ordinary medicines. Therefore cinnabar can make people long-lived and enable them to become immortals—only those who truly understand this principle can see it; how distant indeed is their insight from that of ordinary people!

People of the world know little but find many things strange. Some do not know that mercury comes from cinnabar, and even when told, they still refuse to believe it. They say: “Cinnabar is originally red—how could it become a white substance?” They also say: “Cinnabar is nothing but stone. Nowadays when various stones are burned and refined they all turn to ash; how could cinnabar alone be an exception?” If even such matters, close at hand and easy to explain, cannot be made intelligible to them, then is it not natural that they laugh when they hear of the immortal Dao, a teaching far deeper and more remote?

The Zhenren (Perfected—one who has attained the Dao) of high antiquity pitied those of later ages who could still be taught, and so they left behind methods, explaining them repeatedly and in detail, hoping that people might escape the calamity of death. These words may be called supreme truth. Yet worldly people in the end refuse to believe them and regard them as empty talk. If they were truly empty talk, why should the number of days required for the nine cycles and nine transformations (jiuzhuan jiubian—the repeated refining and transformation of the elixir) all accord with the elixir recipes? The reason the Zhenren understood these principles is truly not something that can be sought through shallow, short-sighted thinking.

In my youth I loved the fangshu (technical arts), and I traveled on foot to visit masters of various schools, fearing neither hardship nor danger. Whenever I heard some unusual account, I rejoiced; even when slandered and mocked, I was not grieved. How could I have known that later generations…

…Yet it is not as it is now; therefore I write these words for people of discernment—is it merely to court novelty, affect eccentricity, pile up empty phrases, and wish to have my book circulate in the world and win credence among the vulgar?

The bright sunlight of high summer cannot make withered and rotten things flourish again; even the wisest of people cannot change the foolish. Writing books is meant to enlighten those who understand the truth, and transmitting books is meant to lead those with discernment to treasure them. A farmer who receives a red-lacquered bow bestowed by the Son of Heaven may use it to drive away birds; a man from the southern borderlands who receives an imperial ceremonial robe may wear it while carrying firewood. If they do not know the value of such things, how could one force them to understand it?

People in the world eat and drink their fill all day, yet they are not necessarily willing to study diligently the teachings of the Confucians and Mohists, nor are they necessarily willing to cultivate themselves and advance in virtue; they merely indulge in pleasure and roam about, whiling away the years. What they seek is either fame and glory or profit: some ride and hunt in the central plains, some drown themselves in wine banquets, some are infatuated with music, some crave fine clothing, some draw bows and shoot arrows until their sinews and bones are exhausted, and some become addicted to games of chance and waste their time.

When they hear of the ultimate Dao (the Way), they seem as if drunk; when they see discussions of the Dao, they doze off in broad daylight. Though they clearly have a body, they do not cherish it, but let themselves go toward the land of death; they refuse to ask about the methods of nourishing life, and instead personally wear themselves down, torment themselves, and wither away until their vital essence is exhausted. A person who has the Dao naturally treasures what he knows and seeks nothing from others—how, then, would he be willing to force himself to explain the truth to them?

People in the world often say that if long life were truly attainable, the sages of antiquity, who held power and authority, should long ago have obtained it; yet few among them did, and so they conclude that the way of long life does not exist. They do not realize that the rich and noble of ancient times were like the rich and noble of today: they neither believed in nor sought this way, but regarded only what lay before their eyes as important—how could they possibly have obtained long life?

Even if one cannot obtain it for the time being, one should still firmly believe that lifespan can be extended and that becoming an immortal is possible; even if there were only slight results, so that one could live two or three hundred years, would that not still be better than dying early like ordinary people? The affairs of the world are countless and complex, and the Daoist arts are harder to understand than other matters—how can one, by the understanding of ordinary people, conclude that there is certainly no way of long life in the world?

If, because everyone in the world disbelieves, one were to conclude that this way does not exist, then why should there be so many intelligent people in the world? If today someone understood the meaning of the Dao and still practiced and sought this way, would he necessarily be extremely stupid and far inferior to others? Some also worry that if they seek long life and fail, they will be mocked as muddled and superstitious; if what they fear is…

If among the myriad things there is something that causes people to go astray, and if there truly exists in the world this Dao (the Way) of deathlessness, then would one who has obtained it still be mocked by the crowd? Even the light of the sun and moon cannot reach everywhere; how could the human mind suffice to determine by its own judgment that this Dao does not exist?

Preface to the Yellow Emperor’s Nine Cauldrons Divine Elixir

According to the Scripture of the Yellow Emperor’s Nine Cauldrons Divine Elixir, after the Yellow Emperor took the Nine Cauldrons Divine Elixir, he ascended as an immortal. The book also says: even if one practices breathing and exhalation-inhalation techniques, or Daoyin (guiding-and-stretching) techniques, or takes plant and herbal medicines, one can only prolong life and increase longevity; in the end one cannot escape death. Taking the Divine Elixir, however, can make a person live long without aging, share the lifespan of Heaven and Earth, ride clouds and drive dragons, and travel up and down in Taiqing (the high, distant, pure realm spoken of in Daoism).

When the Yellow Emperor transmitted this method to Xuanzi, he admonished him, saying: “This Dao is extremely precious and must be transmitted only to worthy and virtuous people. If someone is not a suitable person, even if he has piled up gold like a mountain, do not tell him this Dao. The recipient must throw a golden human figure and a golden fish into east-flowing water as a covenant, and smear blood to swear an oath. Those without the root and bone for becoming an immortal have no destiny to see this Dao.

“In refining the elixir, one should do so deep in famous mountains, in places seldom visited by human traces; the companions must not exceed three. First observe a hundred-day fast, then bathe and burn incense, and be sure to maintain purity, avoiding unclean things. Do not associate with worldly people, and still less let those who do not believe in the Dao know of it, lest they slander and defame the divine medicine and cause the elixir to fail to be refined. If the elixir is successfully refined, the whole family can become immortals, not just the one who refines it.

“People of the world are unwilling to refine the Divine Elixir, yet they believe in plant and herbal medicines. Plants and trees, when buried in earth, rot; when placed on fire, they burn to a char. If they cannot even preserve themselves for long, how much less can people? The Nine Elixirs are the key to long life and are not something ordinary people should hear or see. The people of the world are ignorant and only know to greedily seek wealth and honor; how can they avoid becoming walking corpses? When refining the elixir, one should also perform the Jijiao offering ritual (a Daoist sacrifice and prayer ceremony); the related diagrams and methods are in another scroll.”

Names of the Nine-Turn Elixirs

The first elixir is named “Danhua” (Elixir Flower). First make “Xuanwu” (Dark Warrior), using realgar, orpiment, alum, mercury, Rong salt, brine salt, arsenic stone, oyster shells, red halloysite, talc, lead white, and the like, several tens of jin of each, and make “Liuyi Mud” (Six-One Mud) to seal and secure it; then heat it for thirty-six days. The book says that taking it for seven days is enough to become an immortal.

There is another method: form “Xuanhuang Paste” into pills and place them over a fierce fire; in a short while they can be refined into gold. It also says that if one mixes two hundred and forty zhu of medicinal ingredients with one hundred jin of mercury and heats them, they can likewise be refined into gold. If gold is refined, this shows that the medicine has been successfully refined; if no gold is refined, the medicine has not been refined. One should reseal the medicinal ingredients and continue heating according to the number of days stated above; in this way there is no elixir that cannot be successfully refined.

The second elixir is called “Shenfu Dan” (Divine Talisman Elixir). Taken for a hundred days, it brings immortality; smeared on the soles of the feet, it also allows one to walk on water. Once taken, the Three Corpses (Sanshi) and Nine Worms (Jiuchong) will all be eliminated, and all manner of illnesses in the body will be cured.

The third elixir is called “Shendan” (Divine Elixir). Take one daogui (an ancient unit of measure denoting a small quantity of elixir), and after a hundred days one becomes immortal. If it is fed to the six domestic animals—cattle, horses, sheep, chickens, dogs, pigs, and other livestock—the animals will not die. It can also enable a person to avoid injury from weapons. After taking it for two hundred days, immortals, Jade Maidens (Yunü), and the gods and spirits of mountains and rivers will come to serve and manifest their forms.

The fourth elixir is called “Huandan” (Returning Elixir). Take one daogui, and after a hundred days one becomes immortal. The Vermilion Bird and the phoenix will fly and circle above, and Jade Maidens will come to one’s side. Mix one daogui with one jin of quicksilver and refine it with fire; it immediately turns into gold. If this elixir is applied to coins or objects, they can be restored the same day. If one writes with it on the eyes of ordinary people, a hundred ghosts will flee.

The fifth elixir is called “Erdan.” After taking it for thirty days one becomes immortal; ghosts and spirits will come to serve, and Jade Maidens will also appear before one.

The sixth elixir is called “Liandan.” After taking it for ten days one becomes immortal. It can also be refined together with quicksilver and immediately turns into gold.

The seventh elixir is called “Roudan.” Take one daogui, and after a hundred days one becomes immortal. If it is mixed with Quepen sweat (a type of sweat referred to in the original text) and taken, one becomes immortal in ninety days; even a ninety-year-old man can beget children by this means. Refined together with Jingong (Lord Metal), a term in Daoist alchemy for a certain refining material, it immediately turns into gold.

The eighth elixir is called “Fudan.” After taking it for a hundred days one becomes immortal. Carry a piece the size of a walnut with you, and a hundred ghosts will avoid you; write with it on a door, and ten thousand kinds of evil influences and spectral beings will not dare approach, and one can also avoid thieves, tigers, and wolves.

The ninth elixir is called “Handan.” Take one daogui, and one becomes immortal the same day. Jade Maidens will come to serve, and one can make the body light and fly without the aid of wings.

Of these nine elixirs, obtaining and taking even one is enough to become immortal; it is not necessary to refine them all. Whether or not to refine them may be decided according to one’s own preference. After taking the Nine Elixirs, if one wishes to ascend to heaven, one may ascend; if one wishes to remain in the human world for a time, that too is freely chosen. Wherever one may be, one can come and go freely, without obstruction and without harm.

The Taiqing Shendan Method

The Baopuzi says: “The method for refining the Taiqing Shendan comes from Yuanjun. Yuanjun was Laozi’s teacher. The Taiqing Guantian Jing has ten chapters in all; of these, the first seven may not be transmitted, and for the last three there is no one in the world worthy of receiving them, so they should be sunk and hidden beneath the Three Springs. The so-called last three chapters are the Zhengdan Jing, in three volumes: upper, middle, and lower.”

Yuanjun is a great divine being, able to harmonize Yin-Yang and command wind and rain, riding nine dragons and twelve white tigers. All the immortals under Heaven are under his authority. Yet Yuanjun still said that he too had originally reached this state through studying the Dao and consuming elixir medicines; he was not born that way, much less ordinary people.

The scriptures say: “The upper adept who attains the Dao ascends to become a heavenly official; the middling adept who attains the Dao dwells at Kunlun; the lower adept who attains the Dao gains long life in the world.” Ignorant people do not believe these words and regard them as mere empty talk. From morning to night they do only what invites death and nothing that seeks life; how then can Heaven forcibly make them long-lived?

Ordinary people know only to crave fine food, fine clothing, sensuous pleasures, and wealth and rank; they give free rein to desire, exhaust their allotted lifespan, and finally die. By no means should the divine elixir be revealed to such people, lest they mock the Daoist teachings and slight True Persons, only adding to their own guilt. In transmitting elixir scriptures, if you do not meet a suitable person, do not tell him; if someone has firm faith in the Daoist teachings, you may share with him the medicine you have refined, but you must not transmit it casually.

Those who understand this Dao are sometimes kings and nobles. Once the divine elixir is refined, it can not only confer long life but also be used to refine gold. After the gold is refined, take one hundred jin and first perform a great sacrifice. The sacrificial method is separate and differs from the Nine Cauldrons Sacrifice. During the sacrifice one must invoke each deity by name and itemize and prepare the amounts of gold to be used: twenty jin for Heaven, five jin for the Sun and Moon, eight jin for the Northern Dipper, eight jin for Taiyi, five jin for the Well God, five jin for the Stove God, twelve jin for the River Lord (Hebo), five jin for the Earth God, and five jin each for the Door God, Household God, Hegui, and Qingjun, totaling eighty-eight jin. The remaining twelve jin should be put into a fine leather bag; on an auspicious day, quietly drop it in a crowded marketplace in the city, then go straight away without looking back. Only after setting aside one hundred jin of gold in this way may you freely use the rest. If you do not first honor the spirits with gold, disaster will come.

However, the way of long life does not lie in sacrificing to ghosts and spirits but in physical cultivation such as Daoyin and bending and stretching. The key to becoming an immortal lies in the divine elixir. Knowing this principle is not difficult; what is difficult is actually doing it. If you can refine the divine elixir, you may long endure in the world.

In recent times, at the end of the Han, Lord Yin of Xinye refined the Taiqing Elixir and thereby became an immortal. He had originally been a Confucian scholar, quick-witted and talented, skilled at writing poetry and also at composing elixir scriptures, writing encomia, and drafting prefaces and accounts. At first he studied the Dao under the master of his own lineage; later he came to know many people who had attained immortality, more than forty in all.

This passage says: the principle therein is perfectly clear. The Taiqing minor method (Taiqing xiaofa) is harder than the refining method in the Nine Cauldrons Jing; the latter is a superior method for ascending to heaven in broad daylight. When refining, one should first prepare Huachi (Flower Pool, the medicinal liquid used in alchemy), then have ready red salt, Gengxue, Xuanbai, Feifu (flying talismans), Sanwu divine water, and other materials; only then may one start the fire and begin refining.

For the Nine-Cycle Elixir (Jiuzhuan Dan), the speed of efficacy after ingestion is as follows: for the first-cycle elixir, one becomes an immortal after three years of taking it; for the second-cycle elixir, after two years; for the third-cycle elixir, after one year; for the fourth-cycle elixir, after half a year; for the fifth-cycle elixir, after one hundred days; for the sixth-cycle elixir, after forty days; for the seventh-cycle elixir, after thirty days; for the eighth-cycle elixir, after ten days; and for the ninth-cycle elixir, after three days.

If one takes the nine-cycle elixir and places it in a spirit cauldron, then after the summer solstice exposes it to the fierce sun and places one jin of Zhu’er beneath the cauldron lid to wait, when the essence of the sun shines upon the elixir, in a short while the elixir will rise together, emit a bright five-colored divine light, and transform into Huandan (returned elixir). Take one daogui (a tiny ancient measure for elixirs) and ingest it, and one can ascend to heaven in broad daylight.

One may also seal the elixir and smear it inside an earthen cauldron, then heat and refine it with a chaff fire, first using gentle fire and then vigorous fire. For the elixir from the first cycle to the ninth cycle, the required times differ, and one can judge by this. With few cycles, the medicinal power is still insufficient, so a longer period of ingestion is needed to become an immortal; with many cycles, the power has already been refined, so one becomes an immortal more quickly after ingestion.

The Nine Radiance Elixir (Jiuguang Dan) method is broadly similar to that of the Nine-Cycle Elixir: combine the various medicinal substances and refine them with fire so that the Five Minerals (Wushi) transform. The Five Minerals are cinnabar, realgar, white alum, Luqing, and magnetite. Each mineral is refined for one round and cycled five times, ultimately producing five colors, twenty-five colors in total. For each color, one liang of elixir is placed separately in a different vessel.

If one wishes to revive a person who has been dead for less than three days, take one daogui of Green Elixir, pry open the dead person’s mouth, and place it inside; the dead person will immediately revive.

If one wishes to summon food and cooking utensils for travel, mix Black Elixir with water and smear it on the left hand. Whatever one wants in mind, one need only speak it aloud, and the desired thing will arrive; it is said that by this means one can also summon all things under heaven.

If one wishes to hide one’s form, foreknow future events, or attain long life and never grow old, ingest one daogui of Yellow Elixir. After taking it, one can attain long life and, while seated, see scenes ten thousand li away.

For auspicious and inauspicious matters beyond this world, they too can be seen as if with one’s own eyes. A person’s destiny from previous lives, as well as prosperity and decline, length of life, high and low status, poverty and wealth, can all be known; the relevant methods are all recorded in the Taiqing Jing (a Daoist scripture).

The Wuling Dan Method

The Wuling Dan, in one scroll, contains five methods in all. In refining it, minerals such as cinnabar, realgar, orpiment, sulfur, luqing, alum, magnetite, rock salt, and Taiyi yuliang are used, along with Liuyi mud (a clay material used to seal the elixir furnace); one must also establish a spirit chamber and perform sacrificial Zhaijiao rites. Refining them together for thirty-six days completes the elixir.

One must also use the talismans of the Five Emperors, written in five colors. According to the book, taking it can also make one deathless, but its efficacy is inferior to that of the Taiqing Dan and Jiuding Dan.

The Minshan Dan Method

The recipe for the Minshan Dan method is said to have been obtained by the Daoist Zhang Gai while he was meditating in a stone chamber on Mount Min. The method is to make brass into a Fangzhu (a vessel for catching dew), use it to collect moon water, then cover it with quicksilver and place sun-essence fire within. Taken over the long term, it is said to make one deathless.

There is another procedure: put this elixir into a realgar copper burning-mirror (a copper vessel), cover it with quicksilver, expose it to the sun for twenty days, then take it out and administer it mixed with well-flower water (water drawn from a well at dawn), in a dose the size of a small bean. The book claims that after taking it for one hundred days, the blind recover their sight, all kinds of illnesses are healed, white hair turns black, and lost teeth grow again.

The Wucheng Dan Method

The Wucheng Dan also has nine kinds; their forms are similar to the Jiuding Dan, but their efficacy is inferior. The essential point is to burn and refine realgar, take the copper from it and cast it into vessels, then seal and cover the vessels and steep them in full-bodied bitter wine for three years. The book also says that if the vessel is placed above bitter wine for a hundred days, a red milky substance several fen long will grow on the vessel, sometimes displaying five colors like langgan (a precious stone resembling jade). If this is removed, ground, and taken, it is said to also confer long life.

This elixir can also be mixed with Tujue (a drug whose exact identity is unclear in the original); take its blood and blend it with the elixir, and after taking it one is said to be able to transform at will. Then, blended with vermilion grass, take one daogui (an ancient minute measure); one is said to be able to travel through the void.

The leaves of vermilion grass resemble wild-rice leaves; it grows alone, unmixed with other plants, and its branches and stem are red, with a stalk like coral. It mostly grows beneath rocks on famous mountains. When cut open, the sap that flows out resembles blood. If jade and the Eight Stones (a collective term for metallic and mineral alchemical materials) are put into the sap, they immediately congeal into mud pills; left for a long time, they turn into water. If gold is put in, the gold transforms into gold liquor; if jade is put in, the jade becomes a jade body. The book says that taking these substances can all confer long life.

The Jinye Method (with the Appended Weixi and Jusheng Methods)

The Baopuzi says: “Jinye is what Taiyi took and used to become immortal; it is by no means inferior to the nine...” The original text breaks off here.

After the elixir is prepared, during combined refining one must weigh out one jin of gold on an ancient scale and at the same time use Xuanming Longgao, along with Taiyi, Xunshou, Zhongshi, Bingshi, Ziyounu, Xuanshuiye, Jinhuashi, and other ingredients. After sealing them with cinnabar, the ingredients will transform into liquid. The scripture says: “When the gold liquid enters the mouth, the whole body will take on a golden color.”

Laozi received this formula from Yuanjun (a Daoist deity). Yuanjun said: “This Daoist method is extremely precious and appears only once in a hundred years. The formula should be stored in a stone chamber. During refining one must fast and purify for a hundred days and have no dealings with worldly people; near a famous mountain, by east-flowing water, one should build a separate quiet chamber. After a hundred days of refining, taking one liang will make one an immortal. If for the time being one does not wish to leave the human world and only wants to be an earth immortal (an immortal who remains in the human realm to cultivate), one need only fast for a hundred days; if one wishes to ascend to heaven, one must first cut off grain food for a year and then take the medicine. Taking half a liang grants long life without death. All disasters and poisons cannot harm the one who takes it; he may still marry, have children, hold office, and do as he wishes, with no prohibitions or limits. If later he wishes to ascend to heaven, he need only fast and then take one liang, and he will become a flying immortal.”

Weixi Jusheng Method: Take gold liquid and mercury, add Zuowei, and boil them together for thirty days. After removing them, place the mixture in a yellow jade bowl, seal it well with Liuyi mud (a sealing material used in Daoist alchemy), and then heat and boil it with fierce fire. At the appointed time, the ingredients will all transform into elixir. Take one grain the size of a small bean, and one will become an immortal.

Take one daogui (an ancient measure, a very small amount) of this elixir, grind it to powder, and add one jin of mercury; then take one jin of this elixir, place it on the fire, and refine it by fanning, whereupon it will transform into red gold and flow, and is called “dan.” Smearing it on swords can ward off the harm of weapons and allow one to travel ten thousand li without obstruction. Plates and bowls made from this elixir-gold, when used to hold food, can all make people long-lived. After the vessels receive the light of the sun and moon, they can obtain divine liquid (Shenzhuo), just as Fangzhu (an ancient dew-collecting vessel) collects water. Those who drink it will not die.

Then take gold liquid (Jinzhuo) and yellow earth, place them in a bowl containing Liuyi mud, and heat and boil with fierce fire until all transforms into yellow gold; then heat it again with fire, and all will transform into elixir. Take one grain the size of a small bean, and one can enter famous mountains and great rivers and become an earth immortal.

When transmitting and receiving the Jinye Jing (Gold Liquid Scripture), one must throw eight liang of gold figures (possibly gold statuettes or a specific alchemical material) into east-flowing water, smear blood and swear an oath, and only then tell the other person the scripture and oral instructions.

The oral instructions say: “One who does not understand this method but merely steals the formula and goes off to refine it will ultimately not succeed. If among ordinary people there is someone who truly and sincerely believes in this path, one may give him the medicine, but one must not lightly transmit this book to him. If the rules are violated, both parties will suffer disaster. The heavenly deities inspect human conduct very closely; this is something one must not fail to know.”

The Baopuzi says: “When the nine elixirs are completed, they are the highest grade among immortal medicines. Yet what is used to refine them…” The original text breaks off here.

Compounding this medicine requires many miscellaneous ingredients. If the roads in all four directions are open, all the medicinal materials can be purchased in the markets; if the various regions are cut off from one another, it is difficult to gather everything needed.

Moreover, this method also requires lighting a fire and refining, burning continuously day and night for dozens of days, with constant attention to the heat control (huohou) so that the fire’s intensity does not deviate. The whole process is both arduous and difficult, so it is not as easy as compounding the Golden Liquid (Jinye).

The only difficulty in compounding the Golden Liquid lies in obtaining the gold material. One jin in ancient times is equivalent to two jin today; calculated at the usual price, the gold material required is worth no more than over three hundred thousand. The other miscellaneous ingredients are relatively easy to prepare, and there is no need to light a fire; one simply places the ingredients in the “Huachi” (Flower Pond) and waits until the required number of days has passed, and it can be refined. The total expense is less than four hundred thousand, and a single dose obtained is enough for eight immortals to take.