Yǎngmìng jīguān jīndān zhēnjué 養命機關金丹真訣
True Formula of the Golden Cinnabar and the Mechanism of Nurturing Life
About the work
An anonymous single-juǎn nèidān 內丹 (inner-alchemy) manual presenting the bodily jīguān 機關 (mechanism) of yǎngmìng 養命 (nurturing life) and the formulae of the jīndān (golden cinnabar) by reference to the bodily tuóyuè 橐籥 (bellows) and the embryonic bāo 胞 (placenta) anatomy.
Abstract
The text is structured as a series of numbered sections (dìyī 第一, dìèr 第二…), each treating a successive stage of the inner-alchemical process. Dìyī: the bellows generates the heavens and earth, transforms the qiánkūn 乾坤 and the sun-moon-stars; the primordial state is the mǐngxìng hùnyuán 溟涬混源 of muddled clear-and-turbid, from which white emerges from black; the clear is yáng and becomes the heavens and the mìng 命 (vital decree); the turbid is yīn and becomes earth and the xìng 性 (innate nature). From the One arise the Two, then the central zhèngqì 正炁 (“orthodox qì”) through which a human’s “root and source” is established. Dìèr: the tuóyuè in the body is the bāo (placenta), round like an egg-shell, attached at the navel-stalk, with two strings — left for jīng 精 (essence), right for niào 溺 (urine); the xùmìng 續命 (continuing life-decree) arises in the qì.
The text expounds this nèidān anatomy by reference to the canonical Daoist scripture Yīnfú jīng 陰符經: “Sāndào jì yí, sāncái jì ān” 三盜既宜，三才既安 (“when the three thefts are properly disposed, the Three Powers are at peace”). The whole forms a compact Southern-Sòng nèidān treatise on the embryological physiology of inner-alchemical practice.
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 3: 1187, John Lagerwey) treat the work as a late-Sòng anonymous nèidān manual, drawing on the Yīnfú jīng and the ZhōngLǚ lore.
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. 3: 1187 (DZ 572, John Lagerwey).
- Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008 — for the nèi-dān technical idiom.