Dàdān zhízhǐ 大丹直指
Direct Pointers on the Great Elixir
attributed (述) to 丘處機 (Qiū Chǔjī, 1148–1227, hào Chángchūn 長春)
About the work
A two-juàn early-Yuán nèidān 內丹 treatise, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0244 / CT 244 = TC 243), 洞真部 方法類. The work is attributed to Qiū Chǔjī 丘處機, the Quánzhēn 全真 patriarch and founder of the Lóngmén 龍門 branch (cf. [[KR5e0061|DZ 1149/61 Pánxī jí]]); the title page styles him “Chángchūn yǎndào zhǔjiào zhēnrén Qiū Chǔjī shù 長春演道主教真人丘處機述.” The text is opened by a prose preface or xù 序 framing the cosmogony of the Tàikōng yī qì 太空一氣 (“the One Pneuma of the Great Void”), which in extreme stillness gives rise to motion and so to yīn and yáng, xiāntiān 先天 and hòutiān 後天, and to the human embryo with its Yuányáng zhēnqì 元陽真氣. The body of the work consists of a sequence of clearly-numbered teachings, each accompanied by a diagram and an exegesis (juéyì 訣義) drawn from “Master Huáyáng zhēnrén Shī” 華陽真人施 (i.e., Shī Jiānwú 施肩吾): wǔxíng diāndào lónghǔ jiāogòu 五行顛倒龍虎交媾 (Dragon-and-Tiger Conjunction by the Reversal of the Five Phases); wǔxíng diāndào zhōutiān huǒhòu 五行顛倒周天火候 (the Round-Heaven Fire Phasing); sāntián fǎnfù zhǒuhòu fēi jīnjīng 三田返復肘後飛金精 (the Flying-of-Gold-Crystal-Behind-the-Elbow through the Three Cinnabar Fields); sāntián fǎnfù jīnyè huándān 三田返復金液還丹 (Returned Gold-Liquor Elixir through the Three Cinnabar Fields); wǔqì cháoyuán Tàiyáng liànxíng 五氣朝元太陽鍊形 (the Sun-Refinement of the Body, with the Five Pneumas Paying Court at the Origin); and shénqì jiāohé sāntián jìjì 神氣交合三田既濟 (the Jìjì of the Three Cinnabar Fields, where Spirit and Pneuma Meet).
Prefaces
The author’s own preface (1a–3a): “The Immortal Scripture says: ‘Observe the Way of Heaven; carry out the workings of Heaven, and you have it all.’ By embodying Heaven and modelling the cosmic image, taking it as one’s law and walking it — that suffices. Heaven and Earth were originally a single great void, a single qì; in the extremity of stillness it moved, transformed, and became Two: the light-and-pure went up to be yáng and so heaven, the heavy-and-turbid went down to be yīn and so earth. Once divided into Two, they could not remain still; the qì of heaven first moved and descended to combine with the qì of earth, then at the extremity ascended again; the qì of earth, originally not rising, was drawn up by the conjunction with the qì of heaven, then at the extremity descended again. Above and below thus need each other without cease, and the myriad creatures are produced…”
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1171–1172 (§3.B.9.d, Quánzhēn — Individual Practice), identifies the work as a nèidān treatise attributed to the Quánzhēn patriarch Qiū Chǔjī (1148–1227). The techniques described are based on the theory and methods of [[KR5c1191|DZ 1191 Bìchuán Zhèngyáng zhēnrén Língbǎo bìfǎ]] and [[KR5e0246|DZ 246 Xīshān qúnxiān huìzhēn jì]]. The former divides its procedure into ten steps, as does the present text, with some differences in the headings and order. The work quotes Shī Jiānwú 施肩吾 at length, but a comparison with the Xīshān qúnxiān huìzhēn jì shows that they are not the same text (cf., e.g., 1.11b, 4.4a, 9b, 1.12a, and 5.6a with 1.6a, 8a, and 12a of our text). The passage on the ten demonic manifestations (2.2a–6b) is an excerpt from [[KR5c0263|DZ 263.14 ZhōngLǚ chuándào jí]] (in Xiūzhēn shíshū 16.25a–26a). Qiū Chǔjī appends his own explanations to these techniques, illustrating them with diagrams. In his preface (1a–3a), Qiū explains the working of macrocosm and microcosm: the qì of the Great Void, having reached extreme stillness, gave rise to movement, separated into yīn and yáng, and formed Heaven and Earth; the qì, having once acquired motion, could not remain still, hence the qì of yīn and yáng began their cyclical rotation; the alternation of yīn and yáng, sun and moon, day and night, is made possible through a central axis (zhōngqì 中氣) which resides in the handle of the Dipper. The embryo develops similarly; after birth, the Primordial qì (yuánqì 元氣) is found in the centre — the navel. Through breathing exercises this centre is activated, leading to the unhampered natural circulation of the body fluids. By means of these exercises the adept acquires long life and eventually sainthood. The frontmatter brackets composition between Qiū Chǔjī’s death (1227) and the early-Yuán dissemination of his disciples’ literature, broadly through the thirteenth century.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Dadan zhizhi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.9.d, 1171–1172. On Qiū Chǔjī and Quánzhēn nèidān: Stephen Eskildsen, The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004); Louis Komjathy, Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self-Transformation in Early Quanzhen Daoism (Leiden: Brill, 2007). On the Shī Jiān-wú citation tradition: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, Procédés secrets du Joyau magique: Traité d’alchimie taoïste du XIe siècle (Paris: Les Deux Océans, 1984).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0245
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.9.d, 1171–1172.