金華宗旨

Jīn huá zōng zhǐ 金華宗旨

Purport of the Golden Flower

planchette-revealed scripture transmitted by 浮邱仙祖 (Fúqiū xiānzǔ — the Lǚ-zǔ-pantheon’s chief planchette deity) and Lǚzǔ (呂洞賓); with prefatory remarks by 孝悌王, 許遜 (Xǔ Jīngyáng), and 張三丰 (Zhāng Sānfēng) — three planchette personae

The famous Mid-Qīng inner-alchemical scripture of the Golden Flower, also titled Tài yǐ jīn huá zōng zhǐ 太乙金華宗旨 in some recensions — the text that under that fuller title would, in 1929 via Richard Wilhelm and C. G. Jung, become the most widely-translated of all Daoist inner-alchemical scriptures (translated as The Secret of the Golden Flower). The base text is a planchette-revealed exposition by Lǚ Dòngbīn (under the planchette persona Fúqiū xiānzǔ as chief speaker, with three additional speakers: 孝悌王, Xǔ Jīngyáng, and Zhāng Sānfēng — all giving prefatory speeches) on the inner cultivation of the yīmìngyīxìng dyad through the techniques of huí guāng 迴光 (turning back the light) and shǒu zhōng 守中 (guarding the centre). Selected to seven receivers by Xiàotì wáng on the basis of jǐngmìngshuāngquán (whole nature-and-life), the work explicitly distinguishes itself from “those who only refine the bodily form-and-pneuma after the dragon-tiger fashion.”

Prefaces

Preface (Xiàotì wáng). “Of old I received the imperial decree commanding the High-Perfected to perform-and-transform; within the Five-Tomb-Region we delivered many. Now I have selected seven men. — What I and these students have spoken is all the study of jǐngxìng zhìmìng (whole nature, attaining the mandate). It is unlike the worldly speakers who, when they speak of xìng, do not also speak of mìng, or when they speak of mìng, leave out xìng — adding gōngfū atop the substantive ground but failing to recognise the substantive ground when they have gōngfū, so that with a hair’s breadth-of-error they go a thousand miles wrong. To speak of xìng is to penetrate to the pre-cosmic; to speak of mìng is not to depart from the supreme-vacuity. Xìng and mìng unite at one body; substance-and-function alike are present; form-and-colour conjoin Heaven-nature for use; Heaven-nature surpasses form-and-colour to return to the source; the six sense-roots and six dust-objects are all form-and-colour; having form, having colour, all are based in Heaven-truth; apart from the six dusts there is no place to see xìng; apart from the six roots there is no foundation for establishing mìng. — When you recognise that the six dusts are all the original-root, then drop-by-drop returns to the source; when you see that the six roots are all the brightness-treasury, then place-by-place is numinously-penetrated. — If a single thing is not returned to xìng-quantity, in the end seeing of xìng is not real; if a single place is not relevant to mìng-pulse, hard to speak of having reached the establishment of mìng…”

Preface (Xǔ Jīngyáng). “Heaven-Earth set-up positions, the sage completed the can. The sage is also a man — how is it he completes the can in Heaven-Earth? Because from the sun-and-moon hanging-of-image, the four-seasons going-and-coming, the hundred-grasses flourishing, the things-and-creatures’ transformation — all twisted-mixed and uneven — the foolish man sees them going from no to having, and is fixed-stuck in the forms; the highest man sees them going from having and reverting to no, and so all observe-images and return to huà. So those who count back are favourable and those who know forward are reverse. Going forward becomes man, becomes thing, becomes mountain-stream-cliff-valley, becomes grass-tree-bird-fish, becomes wind-rain-dew-thunder, becomes dragon-snake-strange-marvel, the changes innumerable. Going reverse becomes Buddha, becomes immortal, becomes Wēiyīn, becomes Yuánshǐ, becomes the supreme-sage who zàn huàyù, becomes the most-sincere who zhī huàyù. — The interval of one-forward / one-reverse is the divergence-of-roads of man-and-ghost, the borderline-line of sage-and-common. — Lǎozǐ said: when qiánkūn is destroyed, there is no Yì to be seen. The body-of-man is one Heaven-Earth; Heaven-Earth has sun-and-moon, ten-thousand things opening-clear; the body-of-man also has sun-and-moon — therefore qiánkūn is the gate-and-door of the Yì. Man has the sun-and-moon’s essence-flower issuing-and-revealing — like a heavy-gate opening wide; from this directly ascending the cinnabar-tower up to the Jade-Pure — how could it be hard? — At any time, by what one immediately uses, by the foolish-folk’s easily-known and simply-able — this is the universal-deliverance heart-transmission of the highest man — what makes it boundless?”

Preface (Zhāng Sānfēng). “The Way is time and that is all. Sun-and-moon comings-and-goings; cold-and-hot moving-changes; grasses-and-trees growing; bird-songs flying-and-singing; up to our daily-use motion-and-stillness — none is not the function of one moment, the change-without-end. When time arrives, you see it; this is the heart of Heaven-and-Earth, that cannot be named with one name, much less the others… I have come too late, the yáng exhausted at the top, transformations exhausted; just as the One-Yáng first returns, suddenly I come, no one can fathom my trace, no one can investigate my cause; the great-earth’s yánghé has all flowed-quiet and run-silent; this is the rotation of Heaven-and-Earth, but Heaven-and-Earth cannot be self-master in it; this is the going-and-coming of sun-and-moon, but sun-and-moon also follow it spontaneously; wind-and-cloud transform above, grass-and-tree sprout below — great indeed is the use of time! Therefore those who speak the Way do not depart from what is at-hand; one word, one motion, one matter, one thing, all of them can show the heart of Heaven-and-Earth.”

Abstract

A late-seventeenth / early-eighteenth century Lǚzǔ planchette scripture preserved in DZJY, transmitting the inner-alchemical doctrine of huíguāng shǒuzhōng through a triple-prefatory frame (Xiàotì wáng, Xǔ Jīngyáng, Zhāng Sānfēng). This scripture, in a related but slightly different recension under the title Tài yǐ jīn huá zōng zhǐ 太乙金華宗旨, was sent in a manuscript copy by Wilhelm Filchner from China to Richard Wilhelm in 1924 and translated by Wilhelm in 1929 as Das Geheimnis der Goldenen Blüte; C. G. Jung supplied the psychological commentary, and the work in this single English-via-German rendering became one of the most widely-circulated Daoist texts in 20th-century Europe. The DZJY text differs textually from the Wilhelm/Jung recension and is closer to the original fújī exposition.

For the textual history see Mori Yuria, “Identity and Lineage: The Daozang jiyao’s Tài yǐ jīn huá zōng zhǐ” (in his Brill volume Routledge Handbook of Chinese Religion, 2012); Esposito, Facets of Qing Daoism (2014), ch. on the Jīn huá zōng zhǐ. Composition is c. 1690–1750.

Translations and research

• Wilhelm, Richard. Das Geheimnis der Goldenen Blüte: Ein chinesisches Lebensbuch. Munich: Dorn, 1929. — with C. G. Jung’s psychological commentary; English translation as The Secret of the Golden Flower (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1931).
• Cleary, Thomas. The Secret of the Golden Flower: The Classic Chinese Book of Life. HarperOne, 1991. — direct English translation, but from a different recension. (See Mori Yuria’s review for textual reservations.)
• Despeux, Catherine. Taoism and Self-Knowledge: The Chart for the Cultivation of Perfection (Brill 2018) — touches on the Jīn-huá tradition.
• Mori Yuria 森由利亞. “Identity and Lineage: The Tai-yi jin-hua zong-zhi and the Spirit-Writing Cult to Patriarch Lü.” In Daoism in History, ed. B. Penny (Routledge 2006), ch. 7.
• Esposito, Monica. Facets of Qing Daoism (UniversityMedia 2014).

Other points of interest

The DZJY recension is textually distinct from the recension that reached Richard Wilhelm: the latter circulated through a different lineage of the Tài yǐ jīn huá zōng zhǐ tradition (likely an early-19th-century Sūzhōu recension), and the prefaces are different. The present DZJY text is a more conservative witness.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5i0046
• Spirit-writing speakers: 呂洞賓, 許遜, 張三丰 (託名).