Liǎomíng piān 了明篇
Pages of Comprehension
teachings of 宋先生 (述, “Master Sòng”, late twelfth century, otherwise unknown), edited and prefaced by his disciple 毛日新 (編, of Sānqú 三衢; preface dated Qiándào 4 = 1168)
About the work
A short collection of alchemical poems in one juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 272 / CT 272 = TC 2:809), 洞真部 眾術類. The poems are ascribed to Sòng xiānshēng 宋先生, an otherwise unknown alchemical master who, according to the preface, claimed to have received instruction directly from the legendary Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權 in yǐyǒu 乙酉 (= Qiándào 1 = 1165) (preface 1a). Shortly afterwards Mào Rìxīn 毛日新 of Sānqú 三衢 (modern Qúzhōu 衢州 in Zhèjiāng) met Sòng in Jiāngsū, where he obtained the present collection (preface 1b). The collection comprises a preface by Mào Rìxīn followed by Master Sòng’s poems in various styles. The longest section consists of thirty seven-character regulated juéjù 絕句 entitled Hé Lǎngrán zǐ jìndào shī 和朗然子進道詩 (2a–9b) — written to match the thirty famous poems by Liú Xīyuè 劉希岳 ([[KR5a0283|Tàixuán Lǎngrán zǐ jìndào shī]], 988) — followed by cí-lyric poems on inner-alchemical themes (9b–14b), the latter inspired by the Qìnyuán chūn 沁園春 attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn (cf. [[KR5d0136|Lǚ Chúnyáng zhēnrén Qìnyuán chūn dāncí zhùjiě]]).
Prefaces
Máo Rìxīn’s preface (paraphrased, partly rendered): “Generally speaking, that man is born into this world of his — is this so easily attained? — bearing Heaven, treading Earth, the most numinous of the myriad creatures: I myself, in pursuit of fame and gain, chasing the false and forfeiting the true, have come to the very last of my teeth without hearing the Way: a life lived empty, with not the slightest awakening — most lamentable, indeed! And do I not consider that the Master of Xuān 宣 (Confucius) has said, ‘Heard in the morning, one may die in the evening’? If the sage Confucius was so urgent to hear the Way, how much more we lesser men? The Way of which I now speak is the Great Way: that which is public and not private, upright and not deviant, prior to the dispersal of the Great Plain (dàpǔ 大朴), prior to the springing of the Three Lights (sānguāng 三光) — silent without sound to be heard, dark without form to be seen — yet, if reverenced and longed for, it is not far from man, and is not to be likened to the heterodox little methods, world-deluding and sectarian arts… The Way being originally without name, men have variously imposed names on it: but truly speaking, the wonderful Way is single, hard to fathom and hard to encounter, not exhaustible in words. By Heaven’s grace I happened to meet Master Sòng among the clouds. He told me that he had received from Zhōng [Zhōnglí Quán] and Lǚ [Lǚ Dòngbīn] the oral formula, the discipline of returning to the root and recovering destiny, the way of replenishing the brain and reverting the jīng 精; the two ingredients smelted together to form the great medicine, and on tasting the dāoguī 刀圭 the yīn is exhausted and the yáng is whole; the qì of the three fields filling, one sees the body outside the body, the merit complete and conduct fulfilled, the husk shed and one ascends to immortality. And he said: ‘The Heavenly Mechanism is not far away — only before your eyes; if you can hold the heart firm and resolutely cut off doubt, there is no Way that does not succeed.’ He then brought out his own songs and cí, with thirty matching pieces in answer to Lǎngrán zǐ’s poems — the words plain, the import distant; the lines clean, the Way complete. I respectfully bowed to receive them, and have edited them into a single collection, naming it Liǎomíng piān 了明篇 (‘Pages of Comprehension’); I dare not keep it as a private treasure of my house, but desire it shared with the many. May only good-loving gentlemen not begrudge a careful reading. Qiándào 4 (1168), tenth month, first day. Sānqú Mào Rìxīn respectfully prefaced.”
Abstract
Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:809 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), describes the work as “a collection of poems ascribed to a Master Sòng, who is said to have received instruction directly from the legendary Zhōnglí Quán in 1165.” The 1168 preface securely dates the compilation. The thirty matching jìndào poems “to the rhymes of Lǎngrán zǐ” represent the formal type hé yùn 和韻 (“matching the rhymes”) well established in Sòng poetic culture; the Liǎomíng piān’s use of this form for an alchemical-pedagogical purpose is one of the principal early examples of the jìndào shī genre as a stable category. The pseudo-revelation framework (Master Sòng meeting Zhōnglí Quán in 1165) is a typical feature of mid-twelfth-century Daoist huánzài 還在 (“still extant”) literature. Frontmatter brackets composition between the 1165 yǐyǒu date of the originating revelation and the 1168 preface.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, “Liaoming pian,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 809. On Sòng jìndào and huándān poetry: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, “Daoist Poetry,” in Stephen Owen ed., The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010), 1:213–224; on the Qìnyuán chūn literary form in Daoist appropriation: Wáng Lì-míng, Bái Yùchán xuéshù sīxiǎng yánjiū (Chéngdū: Bā-Shǔ shūshè, 2010).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0284
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 809.