Tàishàng língbǎo jìngmíng mìfǎ piān 太上靈寶淨明祕法篇
Most-High Língbǎo Jìng-míng Chapter of Secret Methods
About the work
A two-juǎn liturgical compendium of Jìngmíng 淨明 daily devotional practice, providing the practitioner with the zhúrì shāoxiāng xíngchí fǎ 逐日燒香行持法 (daily incense-burning and maintenance method), the catalogue of fú 符 (talismans) for various ritual purposes, and the fúliàn shēnxíng 服煉身形 (ingestion-and-refining of the bodily form) procedures.
Abstract
The opening zhúrì shāoxiāng method specifies that, at the hour of zǐ 子 each day, the officiant rises and burns incense in the Dàoyuàn 道院 (Daoist hall), faces west with the master facing east, performs thirty-six tooth-clackings (kòuchǐ sānshíliù tōng 叩齒三十六通), holds both hands in yín 寅 mudra, and recites the formula: “Dàoxiāng déxiāng wúwéi qīngjìng zìrán xiāng língbǎo jìngmíng zhēnxiāng gòngyǎng…” 道香德香無為清淨自然香靈寶淨明真香供養 (“Way-Incense, Virtue-Incense, the spontaneous incense of clear and quiet non-action, the true incense of Língbǎo Jìngmíng, here offered…”). The deities to whom the offering is made are then enumerated.
The text then turns to a series of talisman-procedures: the Dùtuō liùqīn fú 度脫六親符 (talisman for delivering the six categories of kin), to be drawn in cinnabar with the yín mudra on the birthday of the deceased (red-ink, swallowed or worn) or on the death-day of the deceased (cinnabar-on-paper, burned, the ash kneaded with mud and applied to the heart); the Fúliàn shēnxíng fú 服煉身形符 (talisman for ingesting-and-refining the bodily form), drawn with the kǎn 坎 mudra in red ink; and many further talismans, each with mudra, ink-colour, incantation, and stage of the rite specified.
The work is a principal SòngYuán Jìngmíng manual of daily practice. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1096, John Lagerwey) place it as the executive companion to the doctrinal compendium KR5b0265 (Wàndào yùzhāng mìjué).
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 1096 (DZ 561, John Lagerwey).
- Akizuki, Kan’ei. Chūgoku kinsei dōkyō no keisei: Jōmyō-dō no kisoteki kenkyū. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978.