The Five Contemplations of the Numinous Treasure of the Cavern Mysteries
Compiled by Lu Xiujing of the Southern Dynasties.
The first half of the book is The Five Contemplations, which expounds the method of practicing the Stove-Carbon Retreat. As one of the retreat rituals of the early Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, this method “takes asceticism and self-restraint as meritorious deeds”.
Practitioners of the retreat must set up an altar in the open air, smear yellow clay on their foreheads, let their hair down and bind themselves, hold a jade bi in their mouths, lie prostrate on the ground, and kowtow to repent. A single retreat ceremony lasts thirty-six days; over the long days and months, practitioners endure frost and dew, with their feet frozen and heads soiled with mud, suffering from hunger and cold.
It was for this reason that Lu Xiujing wrote The Five Contemplations, stating that those who practice the retreat should harbor five kinds of grateful feelings:
- Gratitude for the hardships endured by parents in giving birth to and raising oneself;
- Sorrow that parents suffer torments in the Three Evil Paths on account of oneself;
- Thankfulness that, despite the delusions and sufferings of human life, one is fortunate enough to entrust one’s fate to the Three Jewels;
- Gratitude for the enlightenment and salvation bestowed by the Supreme Lord and other celestial worthies;
- Appreciation for the kindness of revered teachers in guiding and redeeming oneself.
It is claimed that with these five contemplations, practitioners of the retreat can willingly endure hardships without being deluded.
The latter half is The Methods of Various Retreats, which discusses the essential tenets and classifications of Taoist retreat rituals.
It asserts that “the Dao regards fasting and retreat as the foundation of cultivating virtue and the gateway to seeking the true Dao”. Since Taoist practitioners vary in their natural aptitudes, retreat rituals are also divided into different grades. The main categories include three ranks and twelve methods, namely two methods of the Cavern True and Highest Clarity Retreats, nine methods of the Cavern Mysteries and Numinous Treasure Retreats, and one method of the Three Evil Paths Stove-Carbon Retreat, with the functions of each clearly specified.
Though the book has only one scroll, the theories of retreat rituals expounded in it exerted a profound influence on later Taoism.
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