Inner Alchemy Illuminated Daoist Classic 明道篇

Composed by Wang Weiyi, a Taoist priest of the Yuan Dynasty.

One scroll, included in the Alchemy and Arts category of the Dongzhen Section of What is The Daozang. The scroll opens with the author's preface written in the Jiachen year of the Dade reign (1304), stating that he composed eighty-one poems and twelve Xijiang Moon ci poems to elucidate the way of Internal Alchemy. Attached at the end of the scroll are a treatise titled *On the Subtlety of Forging the Golden Elixir and a song named The Ode to Attaining the Dao.

Inner Alchemy Illuminated

The way of Internal Alchemy elucidated in this text takes the cultivation of nature before destiny and non-action in accordance with nature as its essence. It proclaims: "Generally, the essence of forging the Golden Elixir lies in keeping far from sensual pleasures, overcoming selfish desires, casting aside the distinctions between self and others, upholding filial piety and loyalty in full, and rectifying the mind and sincere the intention"; "Taking the Great Void as the cauldron and vessel, the sun and moon as the medicinal ingredients, non-action and naturalness as the firing process, purity, tranquility and harmonious balance as the nurturing and tempering, the attainment of a spiritual body beyond the physical form as the transcendence of the mortal frame, and the shattering of the void as the ultimate accomplishment".

Its cultivation methods do not adhere to the constraints of years, months, days or hours, nor do they focus on the regulation of the firing process. The sole essence lies in abiding in perfect stillness and calm, free from a single wandering thought. Its doctrines integrate the theories of mind and nature from Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and belong to the alchemical methods of the Quanzhen Dao in the Yuan Dynasty.