Sayings of the Ultimate Truth 至真语录

Abbreviated as True Discourses.

Composed by Liu Chuxuan (courtesy name the Immortal of Longevity), a patriarch of The Quanzhen Dao in the Jin Dynasty.

It was roughly compiled in the Renxu year of the Taihe reign period (1202).

Sayings of the Ultimate Truth

Consisting of one scroll, it is included in the Tai Xuan Section of The Daozang.

Compiled by two of Liu Chuxuan’s disciples, the Masters Xu and Li, this book contains eighty discourses of Liu Chuxuan and propagates the tenets of the Quanzhen Dao. It primarily takes the eternal existence of the Dao nature as its foundation and non-action and purity as its core. Drawing on the theories of Yin and Yang and Five Elements, it interprets the meanings of life and death, joy and suffering, good and evil, fortune and misfortune, right and wrong, nobility and humbleness, wisdom and foolishness, as well as the Dao and the secular world, aiming to transcend Yin and Yang and the Five Elements to reach the realm of immortality without death.

It states that the Dao existed before heaven and earth, and the innate nature transcends all things; the Dao operates Yin and Yang to generate all things, and the innate nature refines lead and mercury to cultivate the physical form. "When Yin and Yang dissipate, the Dao abides forever; when all things decay, the innate nature remains eternal."

It also claims that the Dao, virtue and goodness of intentional action are false and finite, while the Dao, virtue and goodness of non-action are true and infinite. Therefore, practitioners of the Dao must abandon intentional action and embrace non-action. By curbing anger and restraining desires, and being free from greed and attachment, one’s true nature remains unclouded, the spirit transcends life and death, and one attains the eternal Dao and the true self.

The book repeatedly speaks of karmic samsara and retribution, exhorting people to do good and refrain from evil to avoid suffering karmic retribution in the cycle of rebirth after death.