Míngdào piān 明道篇
Pages to Clarify the Way
by 王惟一 (撰, hào Jǐngyáng zǐ 景陽子, of Sōngjiāng 淞江 in Jiāngsū, fl. 1304, d. 1326)
About the work
A short collection of eighty-one didactic nèidān 內丹 poems in one juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 273 / CT 273 = TC 2:835), 洞真部 眾術類. The work was composed by Wáng Wéiyī 王惟一 (hào Jǐngyáng zǐ 景陽子), a Yuán-period scholar-turned-dàoshì 道士 from Sōngjiāng 淞江 (Sūngjiāng, in modern Shànghǎi, then in Jiāngsū), with the explicit aim of “explaining the arcana of the art [of inner alchemy] to literati” (preface). The eighty-one poems are arranged according to the symbolic numbers of nèidān: sixteen seven-character regulated qīlǜ 七律 (= èrbā 二八, the balance of yīn and yáng); sixty-four five-character juéjù 絕句 (one for each hexagram of the Yìjīng); a single five-character regulated wǔlǜ 五律 (“imaging the qí 奇 of Tàiyī 太一”); and twelve Xījiāng yuè 西江月 cí-lyrics (corresponding to the twelve lǜlǚ 律呂 musical pitch-pipes). In addition to these eighty-one lyrics, the work includes a discussion of the artificial subtleties of nèidān literature (12b–15b) and a Dédào gē 得道歌 (“Song of Attaining the Way”, 15b–17a). Although the preface contains an apparent allusion to the Quánzhēn 全真 school, Wáng’s work belongs entirely to the Southern lineage (Nánzōng 南宗) tradition of Zhāng Zǐyáng 張紫陽 (張伯端 Zhāng Bóduān) and Bái Yùchán 白玉蟾.
Prefaces
Wáng Wéiyī’s autograph preface, dated Dàdé 大德 jiǎchén (= 1304), mid-autumn (paraphrased and partly rendered): “Originally the Dào is constantly bright; without men it cannot make plain itself. Men are able to make plain the Dào; without the Dào they cannot perfect themselves. Therefore the wise and clear-sighted set up words, that the Dào may be set forth and that by the Dào they may complete themselves. I myself in youth practised the Confucian learning, ran roughly through the Six Classics, and so came to know the Dào of rényì 仁義, lǐyuè 禮樂 and the transformations of teaching, and of the principle of the changes of Heaven, Earth, Man, and the things. But I privately marvelled — the Three Powers being thus established in the Dào, why should the revolution of Heaven and Earth be so long, and yet the count of man so brief? When I came to read Lǎozǐ’s words, I was amazed and said: ‘That whereby Heaven and Earth are able to be long-lasting is that they do not give themselves life; and so they are able to last long. That whereby man dies young and quickly is that he is heavy in seeking life; and so he treats death lightly.’ Looking far afield at the things — running, flying, walking, growing — they all are able to transform: the dung-worm becomes the cicada, rotted grass turns into fireflies, sparrows enter water and turn into clams, pheasants enter the sea and turn into giant clams, the field-mouse turns into a quail, the brocade-scaled fish turns into a dragon. How, then, since man is the most numinous of the myriad things, should he not be able to keep whole what is intrinsically his and become a long-living, deathless immortal? — but the six desires and seven passions plunder much in him; the cords of fame and locks of gain rob deep. Cutting and damaging being heavy, premature death is unavoidable: people, in vain, love life and have no art for prolonging it; they all hate death and have no method for warding it off. I, Wéiyī, having gained life in the human world, fortunate to dwell in the central efflorescence — could I not turn my thought to the great matter of life-and-death and seek the method that is transmitted once in ten thousand kalpas? And so I travelled widely beyond the [Confucian] precincts, in search of the jīndān 金丹 learning and the doctrine of the Supreme Vehicle. Whether the books of the Three Teachings, the practices of Thunder rites and prayer, medicine, divination, astrology, computation — there was none I did not investigate; whether wise or fool, master or friend — there was none I did not consult. Yet I could not in a single bound reach the heart of this Dào. Striving morning and evening, my heaped anxieties became disease — and reaching Heaven by sincerity, I came to meet a supreme adept, who personally transmitted to me the unsurpassed, supremely true and marvellous Dào: under one word he pointed straight at the True Pivot. Withdrawing and reflecting on it, the Dào of the Yì was originally without strangeness — what was needed lay in the zhìxīn chéngyì 至心誠意 (‘utmost-mindedness, sincerity-of-intent’), the géwù zhìzhī 格物致知 (‘investigation-of-things, extension-of-knowledge’), in casting off the privacy of human desire and preserving the publicness of the principle of Heaven — and naturally one would see, within the heart, limitless medicinal ingredients; within the body, limitless fire-talismans; medicine the more sought, the more inexhaustible; fire the more refined, the more unceasing. Having got the Dào, I dare not keep it private: with reverence I have set down what I have learned in eighty-one poems, in conformity with the nine-by-nine number of Chúnyáng 純陽 — sixteen seven-character poems in four-rhyme corresponding to the èrbā number; sixty-four juéjù corresponding to the sixty-four hexagrams; one five-character poem imaging the qí of Tàiyī; and twelve Xījiāng yuè corresponding to the twelve lǜlǚ. I have called the whole Míngdào piān 明道篇. Whatever the elixir-classics had not yet finished saying about ingredients, fire-phasing, weights and measures, methodical degrees — I have not failed to lay it open. … Dàdé jiǎchén (1304) year, mid-autumn; Sōngjiāng hòuxué 後學 Jǐngyáng zǐ Wáng Wéiyī.”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:835 (§3.A.4, Nèidān and Yǎngshēng), gives the standard scholarly entry. Schipper notes that “although the preface may seem to contain an allusion to the Quánzhēn school, Wáng’s work belongs entirely to the Southern tradition of Zhāng Zǐyáng and Bó Yùchán.” The preface is precisely datable to autumn 1304 (Dàdé 8 jiǎchén); Wáng died in 1326 per the standard sources (TC 2:835). The work is one of the more elegant late-Yuán syntheses of jìndào 進道 didactic poetry within the Southern-lineage nèidān tradition: the prosodic scheme (16 + 64 + 1 + 12 = 93 — but the title’s “eighty-one” yields by counting the four sets together of [16 + 64 + 1] = 81 and the Xījiāng yuè set as twelve supplementary cí) inscribes the alchemical numerology of the Yìjīng-Cāntóng qì tradition into the very form of the collection. Frontmatter sets composition to 1304.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Mingdao pian,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 835. On Yuán-period Southern-lineage nèidān: Lowell Skar, “Golden Elixir Alchemy: The Formation of the Southern Lineage and the Transformation of Medieval Daoism” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2003); Pierre Marsone, “Daoism under the Jurchen Jin Dynasty,” in John Lagerwey & Pierre Marsone eds., Modern Chinese Religion I: Song-Liao-Jin-Yuan (960–1368 AD) (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0285
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.4, 835.