Tàishàng sānbì wǔjiě mìfǎ 太上三辟五解祕法
Most-High Secret Method of the Three Repulsings and Five Loosenings
About the work
An anonymous single-juǎn Daoist fǎshù 法術 manual on the “sānbì wǔjiě” 三辟五解 (Three Repulsings and Five Loosenings) — a structured sequence of liberation-rites by which the practitioner can transcend the mundane. The work is sub-titled in the source “Chǔ dàfū yǐndì bāshù tōngxiān zhèngdào” 楚大夫隱地八術通仙正道 (“Eight Hidden-Earth Techniques of the Chǔ Grandee, Orthodox Way to Communion with the Immortals”).
Abstract
The opening reads: “Fán cǐ wǔ zhě jiē kě chāofán rùshèng. Ruò cóng mén rù: cóng qián yīmén èrmén, zé kě chángshēng — shì shǐ hánshǔ bù qīn; cóng sānmén, zé kě yǐ fǎnběn huányuán — shì yǐ sǐ ér bùwáng zhě shòu; ruò cóng sìmén wǔmén, zé kě yǐ tuōlí wǔxíng, bùshēng bùmiè — shì yuē ‘zhī kōng bùkōng, zhī sè bùsè’.” 凡此五者皆可超凡入聖。若從門入：從前一門二門，則可長生（…）；從三門，則可以返本還元（…）；若從四門五門，則可以脫離五行不生不滅，是曰知空不空，知色不色 (“All five of these can take one beyond the mundane into sageliness. To enter at the First or Second Gate is long life — by it, heat and cold cannot enter; to enter at the Third Gate is to return to the source — by it, dying yet not perishing is longevity; to enter at the Fourth or Fifth Gate is to escape the Five Phases, neither born nor dying — this is called ‘knowing emptiness as not-empty, knowing form as not-form’.”).
The Nòngshén chūshēn fǎ 弄神出身法 (“Method for Playing with the Spirit and Departing the Body”) is then prescribed: on a jiǎzǐ day, bathe and change clothes; at midnight enter a quiet chamber; sit in meditation facing south; burn incense; clench the fists; knock the teeth twenty-four times; strike the Tiāngǔ 天皷 (Heaven-Drum) twenty-four times; visualise an inner sphere of qì 1.3 cùn in the lower dāntián, with the Yīngér 嬰兒 (Babe) within it; suddenly huòrán ér qù 豁然而去 (“burst forth and depart”), passing through the Huágài 華蓋 and twelve gates of the Chónglóu 重樓 (twelve-storey tower = throat), pierce through the Níwán 泥丸 at the crown; an inner zǐyún huángwù 紫雲黃霧 (purple cloud, yellow mist) covers all; the Babe then walks forth before one’s face and grows.
The text continues with the other techniques. The work is one of the more elaborate SòngYuán chūshén 出神 (spirit-departure) manuals; Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 771–772, John Lagerwey) place it in the late-Sòng to Yuán esoteric milieu.
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: 771–772 (DZ 583, John Lagerwey).
Other points of interest
The frame of “knowing emptiness as not-empty, knowing form as not-form” (zhī kōng bùkōng, zhī sè bùsè) is a direct quotation from the Bānruò xīnjīng 般若心經 (Heart Sūtra), inserted here in a Daoist setting — a striking instance of SòngYuán Buddhist-Daoist syncretism in the chūshén tradition.