Lingbao Inner Alchemy Manual 灵宝大炼内旨行持机要

The author is unknown.

Judging from its content and linguistic style, it was written by a Taoist monk between the Tang and Song dynasties.

Consisting of one scroll, it is included in the Jade Instructions Category of the Dongxuan Section within the Daoist Canon (The Daozang).

Lingbao Inner Alchemy Manual

This text expounds the method of "Creation within a Vessel", a magical art by which Numinous Treasure Taoists refine and deliver their own sinful souls to ascend to heaven. The practice begins with paying homage and reciting scriptures, followed by guiding Qi directly into the Dantian, gathering the radiance of the nine Qis to form an infant effigy that takes the exact form of the practitioner. This infant ascends to the Niwan Palace in the brain and transforms into a precious pearl (also known as the millet-seed pearl).

Next, the practitioner visualizes all the saints and true immortals of the Thirty-Three Heavens coming floating down to earth, all entering the precious pearl. The Primordial Heavenly Lord emits a ray of white downy light from between his eyebrows, shining down on the Fengdu Underworld and the nine nether prisons, transforming all the prisons into pure land.

Subsequently, the practitioner visualizes one hundred thousand flying heavenly kings entering the prisons directly (the abode of the nether and the mortal located below the two kidneys) to pardon all sinful souls. Then, they visualize a red dragon (the tongue) stirring the divine water of the Flower Pond (saliva), swallowing it into the Water Palace and the Heavenly River, where all sinful souls enter the river to bathe, feeling a warmness like spring.

Finally, the practitioner envisions their spinal vertebrae as a great celestial bridge for ascension, with golden boys and jade maidens guiding all the deceased souls up the bridge to the Cinnabar Mound Fire Palace. After being refined by fire, the deceased souls are carried aloft by fire dragons all the way to the Clear Jade Realm, where they pay homage to the Primordial Heavenly Lord and merge their bodies into the precious radiance.

At this stage, the practitioner attains a state where "the mind is calm and still, forgetting both the external world and the self". This Numinous Treasure method of refinement and deliverance is a form of Neidan (Internal Alchemy) cultivation.