Chén Xūbái guīzhōng zhǐnán 陳虛白規中指南
Master Chén Xūbái’s Compass for the Centred Norm
by 陳沖素 (Chén Chōngsù, hào Xūbái zǐ 虛白子)
About the work
A two-juàn Yuán-era nèidān 內丹 treatise, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0243 / CT 243 = TC 242), 洞真部 方法類. The work characteristically blends elements from the Southern-Lineage (Nánzōng 南宗) tradition with those of the Quánzhēn 全真 school — a synthesis typical of Yuán-period Wǔyí 武夷 nèidān. The first juàn presents the alchemical process in nine numbered chapters: (i) zhǐniàn 止念 (“stopping thoughts”); (ii) cǎiyào 採藥 (“gathering the substance”); (iii) shí lúdǐng 識爐鼎 (“recognising the furnace and cauldron”); (iv) rùyào qǐhuǒ 入藥起火 (“introducing the substance and starting the fire”); (v) KǎnLí jiāogòu 坎離交姤 (“the conjunction of Kǎn and Lí”); (vi) QiánKūn jiāogòu 乾坤交姤 (“the conjunction of Qián and Kūn”); (vii) cuáncù huǒhòu 攢簇火候 (“the cluster of fire-phasings”); (viii) yángshén tuōtāi 陽神脱胎 (“the Yáng-Spirit-Body sloughs the womb”); and (ix) wàngshén héxū 忘神合虛 (“forgetting the spirit, merging into Empty”). The chapters are richly illustrated with traditional cosmological-alchemical diagrams. The expression guīzhōng in the title is borrowed from the Zhōuyì cāntóng qì 周易參同契 and means “correctly focused centre” (cf. 2.3a).
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the first chapter’s verse and gloss: “Ear-and-eye sharp-and-bright is the man’s body, given by the great wheel of the Potter; never poor. Through the cǎi yuèkū 採月窟 (“gathering at the moon’s grotto”) at last we know the substance; on stepping the heaven-roots we begin to know the man. Where Qián meets Xùn, then we observe the moon’s grotto; where the earth meets thunder, we see the heaven-root. Heaven-roots and moon-grottos at leisure come and go; the thirty-six palaces are all one Spring.”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:837 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), identifies the author by his own postface (hòuxù 後序) as Chén Chōngsù 陳沖素, Zhēnfāng dàorén 真方道人 of the Shèngzhēn xuánhuà dòngtiān 聖真玄化洞天 of the Wǔyí Mountains. Chén must have been a contemporary of the Yuán scholar Wú Chéng 吳澂 (1249–1333), who composed three poems in dedication of another work by Chén, the Nèidān xiànmì 內丹顯密 (cf. Wú Wénzhèng jí 92.29b–30a); in the preface to those poems, Wú states that Chén bestowed his instructions on his disciple Yáng Qīngyuán 楊清源, “a student of the Cān[tóng qì].” Among the authorities quoted in the Guīzhōng zhǐnán, writings from the Southern Lineage tradition predominate, but Quánzhēn masters such as Dàn Chǔduān 譚處端 and Lǐ Jiǎnyī 李簡易 (hào Yùqī zǐ 玉谿子) are also mentioned. The frontmatter brackets composition within Chén’s lifetime, c. 1279–1333.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Chen Xubo guizhong zhinan,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 837. On the Wǔyí nèidān tradition: Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage of Taoism and the Transformation of Medieval China” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003); Catherine Despeux, Taoïsme et corps humain: Le Xiuzhen tu (Paris: Guy Trédaniel, 1994). On the conceptual programme of guī-zhōng: Isabelle Robinet, Introduction à l’alchimie intérieure taoïste (Paris: Cerf, 1995).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0244
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 837.