Awakening to Reality (Wuzhen Pian)

1 Alas! The human body is hard to obtain, and our days swiftly pass. We cannot measure the length of our lives; how can we escape the recompense of our deeds? If we do not awaken in good time, we merely resign ourselves to waiting for the end. Should a single thought go astray at the parting of the ways and plunge us into the three evil paths, we may pass through countless eons without any prospect of release. What use would remorse be then? Thus the teachings of Laozi and the Buddha opened the gate of expedient means through the study of nature and life, instructing people in cultivation to escape birth and death. The Buddhists take emptiness and stillness as their principle: sudden, complete awakening brings one directly to the farther shore, but if habitual defilements remain, one is still bound to rebirth. The followers of Laozi take refinement and nurture as their truth: whoever grasps the essential key immediately ascends to the rank of sages, but whoever has not understood original nature remains entangled in the illusory body. Moreover, the Book of Changes speaks of “exhausting principle, fulfilling nature, and arriving at destiny”; the sayings of Lu speak of “no conjectures, no insistence, no obstinacy, no self.” Thus Confucius, too, reached the deepest mysteries of nature and life. Why, then, are his words generally brief rather than detailed? Because he sought to order human relations and teach humanity, righteousness, ritual, and music, he did not explicitly speak of the Way of nonaction. Instead, he concealed the arts of life within the images of the Changes and the methods of nature within subtle sayings. Zhuangzi's probing of the burdens of things and the nature of free wandering, and Mencius's skill in nurturing the vast, flowing breath, also come close to the essential point. Later, in the Han, Wei Boyang drew upon the interwoven patterns of the Way of the Changes and wrote the Cantongqi to illuminate the workings of the Great Elixir. The Tang dynasty National Preceptor Zhong first set forth the sayings of Laozi and Zhuangzi in his recorded discourse to reveal the beginning and end of the supreme Way. Is it not clear that, though the teachings are divided into three, their Way returns to one? Yet later generations of Daoists and Buddhists each clung to their own school and condemned the others. Thus the essential principles of all three traditions have been lost in errant paths, unable to merge and return together.Now people suppose that the Daoist school prizes the cultivation of life, without realizing that the methods for cultivating life fall into two kinds: those easy to encounter but hard to accomplish, and those hard to encounter but easy to accomplish. Refining the breath of the five sprouts, taking in the light of the seven luminaries, visualization and massage, breathing in the pure and breathing out the turbid, reciting scriptures and sustaining spells, spraying water and commanding talismans, clicking the teeth to gather spirits, abandoning one's wife and abstaining from grain, preserving the spirits and holding the breath, directing thought between the brows to replenish the brain and return the essence, practicing bedroom arts, and even ingesting and refining metals, minerals, herbs, and trees: all are easy to encounter but hard to accomplish. Most of these methods are inadequate for cultivating the body. Though much effort is spent on them, their results never prove reliable. If pursued with painstaking resolve, day and night, they can at best ward off illness and prevent untimely harm. Once the practice stops, its earlier gains gradually vanish. Years are drawn out in a task that must be hard to complete. How much harder to hope to obtain something once and possess it forever, return to infancy and reverse old age, transform oneself and fly upward! It is deeply lamentable. Practitioners in recent times cling to delusions; not understanding the truth of the wondrous method, they accuse the immortals of empty talk. They fail to realize that all who attained the Way did so by refining the golden elixir, but, fearing to disclose heaven's secret, gave other practices as a pretext. Among them, only holding the breath, if one can forget contrivance and put an end to thoughts, bears some resemblance to the meditation of the Two Vehicles; practiced diligently, it can lead one out of concentration and send forth the spirit. But spirit and essence belong to yin, and their dwelling is difficult to secure; one must continually resort to moving house. Without the way of returning gold and mercury, how could one restore yang, exchange one's bones, and ascend to heaven in broad daylight?Refining the golden liquor and returned elixir, by contrast, is hard to encounter but easy to accomplish. One must thoroughly understand yin and yang and deeply comprehend transformation; only then can one raise the two breaths above the yellow path, bring the three natures together in the primal palace, gather the five phases, and unite the four images. Dragon sings, tiger roars; husband leads and wife follows. The jade cauldron boils; the golden furnace blazes. At last the dark pearl takes shape and the Supreme One returns to the true. All this takes only a moment's work, securing boundless joy forever. As for guarding against danger, carefully drawing off and adding in, nurturing what is right and preserving fullness, the crucial thing is to keep to the feminine and embrace the One. Naturally the breath of returning yang will arise and strip away the deadly form of yin. When the seasonal breaths have completed their cycle, one leaves the womb and undergoes divine transformation: one's name is entered on the rolls of immortals, and one's rank is that of a True Person. This is the moment when a great person has achieved both work and renown.Today's students take lead and mercury to be the two breaths, identify the organs as the five phases, divide heart and kidneys into Li and Kan, make liver and lungs dragon and tiger, take spirit and breath for mother and child, and insist that bodily fluids are lead and mercury. They do not recognize what floats and what sinks; how then could they distinguish host from guest? How is this different from claiming another's wealth as one's own, or calling a stranger's child one's son? How could they know the hidden intricacies of metal and wood overcoming each other, or the marvel of yin and yang working through each other? Their sun and moon have lost their courses, their lead and mercury lie in different furnaces. Is it not far-fetched to hope to make the returned elixir this way?From youth I was drawn to the Way and ranged through the scriptures of the three teachings, as well as law and punishment, writing and calculation, medicine and divination, military strategy, astronomy and geography, and the arts concerning good fortune, misfortune, life, and death; there was none I did not investigate closely. As for the golden elixir alone, I read all the scriptures and the various masters' songs, poems, treatises, and covenants. All spoke of the sun's soul and moon's spirit, the geng tiger and jia dragon, mercury and cinnabar, white gold and black tin, the Kan male and Li female, as able to make the golden liquor and returned elixir. Yet none ever said what true lead and true mercury actually are, or explained the rules of the fire's timing and the direction of gentle nurture. Later deluded followers indulged their own speculation and recklessly annotated the sacred teachings of the former sages. Their errors took ten thousand forms: they not only disordered the scriptures of immortality but also misled later students. Because I had not met an accomplished master and could not find the oral instructions, I lost all ease in sleeping and eating, and my spirit grew weary. Though I searched across seas and mountains and sought instruction from wise and foolish alike, none could explain the true teaching and illuminate my heart.Then in the jiyou year of Xining I followed Lord Lu of the Dragon Diagram to Chengdu. As my old resolve had never wavered and my first sincerity grew ever stronger, I moved a True Person to impart the instructions for the substances and fire's timing of the golden elixir. His words were very few, his essentials uncomplicated: one could follow the stream and know its source, hear one thing and understand a hundred. It was as if fog lifted and the sun shone clear, dust fell away and the mirror gleamed. Compared with the scriptures of immortality, his words matched like the two halves of a tally. I reflected that eight or nine in ten of the people of this world study immortality, but I had not heard of even one or two who reached its true essentials. Having found the true key, how could I dare keep silent? I poured out all I had gained in eighty-one regulated poems, nine times nine, entitled Chapters on Awakening to Truth. Among them are sixteen seven-character poems of four rhymes, representing the number two times eight; sixty-four quatrains corresponding to the hexagrams of the Book of Changes; and a single five-character poem symbolizing the Supreme One. I later added twelve songs to the tune “Moon over the Western River,” completing the year's cycle. All the matters of the cauldron and vessel, their higher and lower roles, the weights of the substances, the advance and retreat of the fire's timing, the order of host and guest, presence and absence, and good fortune, misfortune, regret, and shame are included. As for what remained unsaid about the true awakening of original nature, I also wrote songs, hymns, song lyrics, and pieces in varied meters, appended to the end of the book. I hope the way to reach the root and illuminate nature is thus fully expressed. I hope that kindred spirits, on reading it, will see the branches and awaken to the root, abandon illusion and follow truth. Prefaced by Zhang Boduan, Pingshu of Tiantai, on New Year's Day of the yimao year of Xining.

2 If you do not seek the great Way out of delusion, Though gifted with a sage's talents, how are you worthy?A hundred years flash like sparks from struck stone; A whole life floats like a bubble on water.You only crave profit and rank, seeking glory, Unheeding as your body secretly withers away.Tell me: with gold piled high as mountains, Could you buy off impermanence and keep it from coming?

3 Though human life might last a hundred years, None foreknows its length or fate, poverty or success.Yesterday a rider still galloped through the streets; This morning a corpse lies in the coffin.The wife and wealth you leave behind are no longer yours; You carry the burden of your deeds and cannot deceive yourself.Without seeking the great medicine, how will you find it? To find it and not refine it is sheer folly.

4 To study immortality, study celestial immortality: Only the golden elixir is the surest path.When the two substances meet, nature and feeling join; When the five phases are whole, tiger and dragon coil.Through Wu and Ji as matchmakers it begins, And husband and wife are joined in enduring joy.Wait only for the work's completion to attend the northern palace, Riding an auspicious phoenix through ninefold rosy clouds.

5 This method is truth more wondrous within the true; All because I alone differ from other people.I know reversal comes from Li and Kan; Who knows how floating and sinking determine host and guest?To keep vermilion-wrapped mercury in the golden cauldron, First set water-born silver in the jade pool.The divine work of tending fire takes less than a night: A round sun rises from the deep pool.

6 Tiger leaps and dragon soars amid rough winds and waves; In the central place of honor the dark pearl is born.Fruit growing on a branch is bound at last to ripen; How could a child in the womb be otherwise?North and south, source and root, reverse the hexagram images; Dawn and dusk, the fire's timing accords with heaven's pivot.Know that the great recluse lives in the marketplace: Why guard solitude in stillness deep among the mountains?

7 Every person possesses the medicine of long life; In foolish bewilderment they simply cast it away.When sweet dew falls, heaven and earth unite; Where the yellow sprout grows, Kan and Li meet.A well frog would say there is no dragon's cavern; How could a sparrow by the hedge know the phoenix's nest?When the elixir ripens, gold fills the house of itself: Why seek herbs and learn to burn thatch?

8 If you would know the river-source where the medicine rises, Its native place lies only in the southwest.When lead passes and gui is born, gather it at once; When gold meets the distant full moon, it cannot be tasted.Return it to the earthen vessel and seal it tight; Then introduce the flowing pearl to join its mate.The medicine weighs one pound: two eights are required; Regulate the fire's timing by yin and yang.

9 Do not refine the three yellows or the four spirits; If you seek a multitude of medicines, you have missed the true.Yin and yang meet their kind and enter union; The two eights match and naturally become kin.The sun glows red beneath the pool: yin phantoms vanish; The moon shines white above the mountain: new medicine sprouts.If people today would know true lead and mercury, They are not common cinnabar and quicksilver.

10 Do not take solitary yin to contain yang; Cultivating one thing alone only weakens you.Toiling at stretches and massage is not the Way; Refining breath and feasting on clouds is madness.Seek all your life in vain to subdue lead and mercury: When will you ever see tiger and dragon yield?I urge you: search out the place where your body was born; Returning to root and source is the sovereign medicine.

11 Set your heart on seeking true lead; Do not let the hours pass lightly by.With the earthly spirit capture vermilion mercury, And the heavenly soul will master water-born gold.Then the Way is exalted, and dragon and tiger submit; Virtue is weighty, and ghosts and spirits revere it.Knowing already that life will last as long as heaven and earth, How could vexation find its way back into the heart?

12 The yellow sprout and white snow are not hard to find; The adept must rely on the depth of virtuous conduct.The four images and five phases all depend on earth; How could three origins and eight trigrams depart from ren?Once its numinous substance is refined, none can recognize it; Yin demons dissolve, and no ghost can invade.I would leave the secret instructions in the human world, But have yet to hear a single kindred voice.

13 Plants and trees, too, have yin and yang in equal measure; If one is lacking, they cannot flower.First green leaves open, with yang taking the lead; Then red blossoms unfold, with yin following after.In the ordinary Way this serves our daily lives; Who knows the true source that reverses its course?I tell you, gentlemen studying the Way: Do not act blindly if you do not know yin and yang.

14 If you do not know reversal within the reversed mystery, How can you know to plant a lotus within fire?Lead the white tiger home and nurture it; Bring forth a bright pearl round as the moon.Do not merely tend the medicine furnace, watching the fire's timing; Still your spirit and breath and let nature take its course.When the hosts of yin are stripped away, the elixir ripens; Leap from the cage and live ten thousand years.

15 Three, five, one: only three written signs; Few indeed in any age have understood them.Eastern three and southern two together make five; Northern one and western four make five as well.Wu and Ji themselves return to the generative number five; When the three families meet, the infant is conceived.Thus the Supreme One holds the true breath within; In ten months the womb is full, and the foundation of sagehood is laid.

16 Without knowing true lead, the rightful ancestor, Ten thousand practices only waste your effort.Dismiss your wife, and you vainly sever yin from yang; Abstain from grain, and merely empty your stomach.Herbs and trees, gold and silver are drossy matter; Clouds, mists, sun, and moon belong to hazy illusion.Even if you add breathing exercises and visualization, None of it is the work of the golden elixir.

17 Ten thousand volumes of immortal scriptures speak alike: Only this golden elixir is root and source.Following its form born at Kun's station, Plant it in Qian's palace of mutual union.Do not marvel that heaven's secrets are wholly disclosed: Students themselves are foolish and blind.If anyone understands the meaning within these verses, He will see at once the Most High Lord of the Three Pure Ones.

18 First make Qian and Kun the cauldron and vessel; Next cook the crow and hare as the medicine.When you have driven both back to the yellow path, How could the golden elixir fail to form?

19 Set furnace and cauldron according to Qian and Kun; Temper their essence and govern spirit and soul.Gathering and scattering, mingling, they transform; Dare one speak lightly of such mystery?

20 Do not cling to an alchemy stove and waste your toil; To refine the medicine seek the crescent-moon furnace.Its natural, true fire nourishes all by itself; What need of charcoal, firewood, and bellows?

21 In the crescent-moon furnace the jade blossom grows; In the cinnabar cauldron the quicksilver settles.Once the force of fire is brought into harmony, The yellow sprout you planted slowly grows to fullness.

22 Swallowing saliva and drawing breath are human deeds; Only with the medicine can creation come to birth.If there is no true seed within the cauldron, You might as well boil an empty pan with water and fire.

23 To make the elixir, harmonize lead and mercury; Neither great nor small is harmed: both realms remain whole.If you ask what substance true lead is, The toad's light shines all day over the western river.

24 Until you refine the returned elixir, do not hide in mountains; Within and without the mountains, nothing there is lead.Every home possesses this supreme treasure; People today simply fail to know it fully.

25 A split bamboo is best repaired with bamboo; To hatch a chick, one must use an egg.A thousand mismatched things only waste your strength: What can compare with true lead joined to the sacred key?

26 To use lead, you must not use ordinary lead; Once true lead has served its purpose, cast it away as well.This is the true and wondrous secret of using lead: “To use lead is not to use it”—these words are true.

27 “Empty the heart, fill the belly”: both meanings run deep; To empty the heart, first you must know the heart.Better to refine lead and fill the belly first, And keep the gold that fills the hall secure.

28 In a dream I visited Western Splendor in the ninth heaven; A True Person gave me a chapter pointing to mystery.Its message was simple, its words were few: It only taught people to refine mercury and lead.

29 The Way gives birth to one breath out of empty nothingness; From that one breath arise yin and yang.Yin and yang unite again to form the three bodies; The three bodies give rise anew to all things flourishing.

30 In Kan, lightning boils and roars in the realm of metal and water; Fire erupts from Kunlun: yin and yang.If these two substances are brought into union, The elixir ripens of itself, scenting the entire body.

31 If Li and Kan lack Wu and Ji, Though holding the four images, they cannot form the elixir.Because each of them contains the true earth, The golden elixir can return once more.

32 The sun dwelling in Li becomes the woman instead; Kan joined to the moon palace is the man.If you cannot grasp this reversal within them, Do not pronounce grand judgments from a narrow view.

33 Take the solid heart from Kan's station And transmute the yin within Li's belly.It changes then into Qian's vigorous body: Its hiding and soaring both follow the heart.

34 Zhen dragon, mercury, emerges from Li's domain; Dui tiger, metal, is born in Kan's realm.Both substances show the child giving birth to its mother; All five phases must enter the center.

35 The moon's half-wheel has only just shone at heaven's edge, Yet already dragon sings and tiger roars.This is the moment to work upon the two eights: Within a single two-hour watch the elixir will form.

36 On Mount Hua's summit the male tiger roars; Beneath Fusang's sea the female dragon sings.The Yellow Matron each day knows how to join them, Making husband and wife of one heart.

37 The white tiger of the western mountain rages wildly; The azure dragon of the eastern sea is irresistible.Seize them with both hands and make them fight to the death; They change into a single mass of purple-gold frost.

38 Red dragon and black tiger stand each to west and east; Four images meet within Wu and Ji.If you can now put Fu and Gou to work, How could the golden elixir fail to succeed?

39 First observe heaven and discern the five thieves; Then survey the earth and bring peace to the people.Only when the people are safe and the state rich, seek battle; Only after battle will you see the sage.

40 When deploying generals, distinguish the left and right armies; Let the other be host and myself the guest.I urge you, do not slight your foe upon the field, Or our family's priceless jewel may be lost.

41 Fire is born from wood, where its blade lies hidden; If you cannot drill and probe, do not attack by force.Disaster will flare and bring harm upon yourself; You must master it and seek Lord Metal.

42 Lord Metal was originally a child of the eastern house, Sent to dwell and grow embodied with the western neighbor.Recognize him, call him home and nurture him; Wed him to the lovely maiden in affection.

43 The lovely maiden wanders by her appointed course; The journey forward must be short, the journey back long.On returning she enters the Yellow Matron's house, To marry old Lord Metal as her husband.

44 Though you know cinnabar and black lead, Without the fire's timing your knowledge is idle.All chiefly depends upon the strength of cultivation; A hair's breadth of error will prevent the elixir's birth.

45 Treatises, scriptures, and songs expound the highest truth, But do not set down the fire's timing in writing.To know where oral teaching reaches the mystery, You must examine it closely with divine intelligence.

46 On the fifteenth of the eighth month, delight in the toad's glow: This is the hour when metal's essence is fullest.When one yang rises and the Return begins, Feed the fire at once; do not delay.

47 The instant one yang stirs is the hour to make the elixir; The leaden cauldron glows warmly upon curtains and drapes.Receiving the breath at the beginning is easily done; Beware the dangers of drawing off, adding in, and working the fire.

48 The dark pearl takes form and grows with the yang; As yang reaches its height, yin wanes and loses form.When frost falls in the tenth month the elixir ripens; Even spirits and ghosts must tremble then.

49 After the first half-moon, before the second half-moon, The medicine's flavor is balanced, its vital signs complete.Gather it and bring it home for firing within the furnace; Once refined, nurture it gently as it cooks of itself.

50 The eldest son has just drunk western wine; The youngest daughter first opens a flower in the northern garden.Once the blue maiden brings the two together, Lock them at once within the yellow house.

51 In the months of hare and rooster, when their time arrives, Punishment and virtue come to the gate, and the medicine shows its sign.At this point the golden elixir should be bathed; Add fire now, and disaster will follow.

52 Sun and moon meet once in three ten-day periods; The method of divine work substitutes hours for days.Know the ill and good of guarding a city and fighting in the field; The numinous cinnabar grows until the whole cauldron glows red.

53 When Obstruction and Peace first meet, ten thousand things abound; Difficulty and Youthful Folly receive their hexagrams and take life.Once you grasp their meaning, cease searching the images; To scrutinize every line would only weary the heart.

54 The methods laid down in hexagrams originally use forms as models; Once the image is grasped, forget the words and meaning shines clear.Deluded people throughout the world cling solely to images; They practice the hexagrams' breaths, hoping to ascend in flight.

55 Heaven and earth have their times of fullness and emptiness; Only by discerning growth and decline will you know the key.From the beginning geng and jia proclaim the command: Slay all three corpses, and the Way may be attained.

56 If you would keep the valley spirit alive forever, Set its foundation in the mysterious female.When the true essence returns to the house of gold, One luminous pearl will never depart.

57 Few in the world know the mysterious female's gate; Do not rashly practice with mouth and nose.Breathe in and out for a thousand years if you like: How will the golden crow ever seize the hare?

58 Different names spring from one source; few people know it; Both are mystery upon mystery, the essential key.To preserve life and keep the body whole, discern loss and gain; The purple-gold elixir is most wondrous and numinous.

59 At the outset, active work is apparent to everyone; Only at the end do they recognize nonaction.They see that nonaction is the marvel of the Way, Not knowing that active work is its foundation.

60 White within black is the mother of the elixir; Female hidden within male is the sacred embryo.Guard the Supreme One carefully within the furnace; Treasures gathered in the three fields answer the three terraces.

61 Seek form within the dimly shimmering; Search for true essence in the dark and obscure.Being and nonbeing enter each other through this: How could imagination produce what you have not seen?

62 When the four images meet, the mysterious body is formed; When five phases are whole, purple light shines forth.Leaving the womb, entering the mouth, it communes with the sacred; Countless dragons and spirits recoil in astonishment.

63 After drinking at the Flowery Pool, the moon shines clear; Ride a golden dragon to visit the Purple Tenuity.Once you have come to know the assembled immortals, Let seas turn to fields and hills to valleys.

64 If you would know how to refine and nurture the returned elixir, Plant its seed within your own garden.Without blowing or straining to exert your strength, The fruit ripens of itself and the numinous embryo is born.

65 Do not expend cunning and pretense as effort; Recognize the deathless formula from the other house.Within the flask add the wine that lengthens life; Within the cauldron collect the soul-restoring draught.

66 One flavor from Snow Mountain, exquisite clarified butter: Pour it into the transforming furnace of eastern yang.If it crosses Kunlun toward the northwest, Only then does Zhang Qian encounter Magu.

67 Not knowing yin and yang, nor host and guest, How could you tell which is stranger and which is kin?Vainly sealing the coccygeal gate in bedroom practice Has brought mistaken death to how many in Jambudvipa!

68 All teeming things return each to its root; Returning to the root and restoring life is to endure.Few understand knowing constancy and returning to the source; That reckless action invites ill fortune is known to all.

69 Ou Ye himself transmitted the art of casting swords; Moye's metal and water join supple and strong.Once forged, it understands the human will And strikes down demons ten thousand miles away in a flash of lightning.

70 Tap bamboo to call the tortoise to eat jade fungus; Play the zither to summon the phoenix to drink the elixir dose.Of late a golden radiance has shone through my body; I will not tell ordinary people this rule.

71 The medicine forms only when it meets a breath of its own kind; The Way resides in empty nothingness and accords with nature.Swallow a single grain of golden elixir, And only then know that my life is not decreed by heaven.

72 “In one day the radiant golden elixir is made”: The words bequeathed by ancient immortals deserve to be heard.Those who speak of nine years or three years Are merely drawing out the appointed days.

73 In cultivating the great Way there are easy and difficult paths; I know it depends on me, and also on heaven.Unless you build up good deeds and practice hidden virtue, At every turn hosts of demons will obstruct your way.

74 The three powers steal from one another, feeding at the proper time; This is the immortal's secret of the Way and its virtue.When all transformations are at peace, all cares cease; When the hundred limbs are ordered, nonaction is realized.

75 The precious words of the Yinfu exceed three hundred; The sacred text of the Daode amounts to only five thousand.Countless supreme immortals, ancient and modern, Have found the true teaching through these very words.

76 Though your wisdom surpass Yan Hui and Min Ziqian, Without a master's transmission do not guess by force.The elixir scriptures lack oral instructions: How, then, will you conceive the numinous embryo?

77 Understand fully the mind-monkey's workings in the heart; Let three thousand meritorious deeds equal heaven.Then naturally set the cauldron to cook dragon and tiger— But what of carrying a household and clinging to wife and children?

78 If you have not refined the returned elixir, refine it quickly; Once it is refined, you must know when to rest content.If your mind still tries to hold on to fullness, One day you cannot escape calamity and disgrace.

79 Take the gate of death for the gate of life; Do not insist that life's gate is the gate of death.When you grasp the moment and understand reversal, Only then know how blessing rises from harm.

80 Misfortune and good fortune have always lain concealed in each other, Following each other as shadow follows form, echo follows sound.If you can turn the pivot of birth and destruction, Disaster becomes blessing in a turn of the hand.

81 Cultivate amid the crowd, blending your radiance with theirs; Be round where things are round, square where they are square.Appear or withdraw as occasion leads, beyond anyone's reckoning: How could people discern your action or repose?

82 The woman wears blue robes; the young man is dressed in white silk. When seen, it cannot be used; when used, it cannot be seen.They meet in the shimmering haze; in the utter dark a change takes place. Flames fly up in an instant; a True Person appears of himself.

83 The inner medicine is like the outer medicine; master the inner, but master the outer too. The elixir seed joins with others of its kind; each kind requires its own gentle nurture.Within is the natural, true fire, blazing red forever in the furnace. Work diligently to increase and lessen the outer furnace; no marvel surpasses the true seed.

84 This medicine is most divine, most sacred; I fear your share of fortune is too slight to receive it. Blend lead and mercury in less than a morning, and soon behold the dark pearl's first sign.If people of resolve can practice and refine it, why should they not dwell in the market or at court? The work is easy, the medicine not distant; when told outright, people cannot help laughing.

85 The white tiger's first flow is the supreme treasure; the divine water of the Flowery Pool is true gold. Thus know how deep the source of the highest good's benefits runs; this is no ordinary medicine.If you would achieve the ninefold turning, first refine yourself and keep watch over your heart. Gather it at the right time, determine what floats and sinks; feed the fire but beware of grave danger.

86 If you wish true lead to hold mercury fast, the household servant must not leave its kin. Wood and metal, kept apart, have no cause to meet; a matchmaker must draw them together.Wood by nature loves metal and follows righteousness; metal's feeling loves wood in merciful kindness. They swallow and devour one another, yet become intimate; now one sees a man conceive.

87 From whose house comes the maiden of two eights? Where is the young man of nine and three? They call themselves wood's liquor and metal's essence; only when they meet seven can the three natures form.Borrow Master Ding to forge and refine them; only then do husband and wife unite in joy. The river cart dares not pause for a moment, but carries them to the summit of Kunlun.

88 Seven reversions restore cinnabar to its root; nine returns bring golden liquor back to truth. Do not count yin and zi or kun and shen; simply take the five phases as your measure.Originally there is just one substance, quicksilver, circulating through all the celestial stations. When the numbers of yin and yang are complete it communes with spirits; its coming and going never leaves the mysterious female.

89 The male contains a female substance within; true yin, in turn, embraces yang essence. When both are joined, the medicine forms, transmuting soul to numinousness and spirit to holiness.Trust that a single grain of golden elixir, swallowed by a snake, at once transforms it into a dragon. A chicken fed it turns into phoenix or roc and flies into the sacred realm of true yang.

90 When heaven and earth pass through Obstruction and Peace, learn to know Difficulty and Youthful Folly at dawn and dusk. Spokes converge upon the hub; waters flow toward their source. The wonder lies in the use of drawing off and adding in.Attain the One and ten thousand tasks are done; make no distinctions of north and south, west and east. Diminish and diminish again; guard the work already done. Do not treat the treasure of life lightly.

91 At winter solstice one yang comes back in Return; every thirty days a yang line is added. In the month's cycle the Return hexagram rises at the new moon's dawn; after the full moon Qian ends and Gou appears.The day likewise divides into cold and heat; yang rises anew at midnight. At noon Gou's image ushers in one yin; to refine the medicine, know dusk from dawn.

92 You cannot distinguish five phases and four images; how then can you tell cinnabar from mercury or lead from silver? You have never heard of the fire's timing for refining the elixir, yet hasten to call yourself a great recluse.You refuse to reflect on your own error and even teach others the errant road, condemning them to lose their way for endless eons. How can your heart bear such deceit?

93 Cultivate virtue beyond eight hundred deeds; accumulate three thousand works of hidden merit. Hold things and self, kin and enemies, in equal balance; only then do you fulfill an immortal's original vow.Tigers, wild beasts, blades, and weapons will not harm you; impermanence and the burning house cannot ensnare you. When the precious talisman descends, go to court in heaven, riding safely in a jade carriage and phoenix chariot.

94 The love of Cowherd and Weaver Girl takes the Way as its root; tortoise and snake take their natures from heaven. Toad and crow meet at the new moon and unite in beauty; the two breaths sustain and turn each other.All is the wondrous working of Qian and Kun; who understands this true teaching? When yin and yang are severed by obstruction, fault follows: how could they endure as long as heaven and earth?

95 The elixir is the body's supreme treasure; refined, it brings transformations without end. Search further into nature for the true teaching, and resolve the mystery of death and life.Without awaiting a later body or a future age, obtain the Buddha's divine powers here and now. Since the Dragon Girl undertook this work, who has been able to follow in her footsteps?

96 Though you understand the nature of true suchness, You must still shed one body and enter another.But if you can also refine the great medicine, You leap at once beyond all defilements and become a True Person.

97 Entering a womb, seizing a body, moving house, Or staying in the old abode marks the disciple of four fruits.If you know how to subdue dragon and tiger, When could a house built of true gold ever decay?

98 Mirror-gazing, holding breath, and contemplating the spirits: Hard for the beginner, afterward a level path.Though in a flash you can travel ten thousand miles, When your house falls apart, you must move elsewhere.

99 The Buddha teaches people to cultivate the Pure Land Because the Pure Land is the realm of gold.Among all forms and appearances, this alone is real; The other two are not true, whatever your idle speculation.

100 Common sayings often agree with the highest Way; Look within them carefully and seek it out.If you can seek reversal in daily life, All the earth's dust and sand will turn to treasure.

101 The Great Elixir's wondrous workings follow Qian and Kun. Qian and Kun revolve, and the five phases divide. With the five phases moving in their natural order, the ordinary way knows birth and death; with the five phases reversed, the elixir body stays forever numinous and enduring. From the One, emerging out of empty nothingness, the two principles first take form; when the One first opens its root, the four images remain joined to it. The two bodies and eight trigrams become one another's ancestors and descendants. The ten thousand forms arise from change and motion; fortune, misfortune, regret, and shame divide from here. Ordinary people use it every day without knowing; the sage can probe its original source. Looking upon the marvels of the Way of the Changes, which comprehends all the principles of Qian and Kun, the sage entrusted its images to this text. When Obstruction and Peace alternate, yin and yang now rise, now fall; when Difficulty and Youthful Folly arise, motion and stillness belong to dawn and dusk. Kan and Li are man and woman, water and fire; Zhen and Dui are dragon and tiger, spirit and soul. Holding to the center brings the yellow robe and primal good fortune; passing beyond the limit brings eminence with no proper place. Already and Not Yet Completed mark the beginning and ending of all things; Return and Encounter reveal the running together of the two breaths. The moon's waning and waxing answer the decline and flourishing of spirit and essence; the sun's rising and setting govern the cold and warmth of nourishment and protection. Words were first established to clarify images; once you grasp the images, forget the words. Images, too, are set up to point to meaning; when you understand that meaning, put the images aside. For the adept, all is simple and easy; for the lost, ever more bewildering and intricate. Thus one knows that the highest students who cultivate truth read the Cantongqi without clinging to images or fastening upon its words.