Unofficial History of the Square Pot 方壶外史
Paul PengUnofficial History of the Square Pot
Written by Lu Xixing, a Taoist patriarch of the Internal Alchemy school in the Ming Dynasty.
It was completed roughly during the reigns of Jiajing to Wanli.
The original work consists of eight volumes, with a movable-type edition published by Zheng Guanying of Xiangshan in the fourth year of the Republic of China (1915).
Unofficial History of the Square Pot
It is also included in the Doctrines and Teachings category of Extra-Canonical Taoist Texts.
This book is a collection of Lu Xixing’s works, including most of his writings except Notes on the Southern Hua Classic. It takes its title from Lu Xixing’s courtesy name “Fanghu Wai Shi” (Unofficial Historian of the Square Pot).
Most works collected in the first seven volumes are commentaries by Lu Xixing on earlier Taoist scriptures and treatises, including:
Notes on the Supreme Jade Emperor’s Mind-Seal Marvelous Scripture,
Notes on the Yellow Emperor’s Yin Fu Scripture,
Mysterious Insights on the Laozi Dao De Jing,
Notes on the Zhouyi Cantong Qi,
Oral Teachings on the Zhouyi Cantong Qi,
Notes on Master Cui’s Entering the Medicine Mirror,
Notes on Lü Chunyang’s Hundred-Character Stele,
Notes on the Four Hundred Characters of the Golden Elixir by Master Ziyang,
Notes on Longmei Zi’s Poems Confirming the Golden Elixir,
Notes on Qiu Changchun’s Song of the Blue Sky, and others.
Lu Xixing was the founder of the Eastern School of Internal Alchemy in the Ming Dynasty. His alchemical method emphasizes the dual cultivation of yin and yang, beginning with foundation building, self-refinement, and mind-collection for nature cultivation. His commentaries on earlier alchemical scriptures and odes also uphold the dual cultivation view, expressed concisely and directly.
The eighth volume contains four original works by Lu Xixing:
On the Mysterious Surface,
Correct Chapters on the Golden Elixir,
Diagrams of the Great Purpose of the Golden Elixir,
Seven Refutations.
All are treatises expounding internal alchemy.
Among them, On the Mysterious Surface includes more than twenty short essays, systematically explaining his yin-yang dual cultivation alchemy. It holds that internal alchemy practice takes following nature as the root, and the union of yin and yang as the essential key. It states:
“The true fire has no fixed phases; the great medicine has no fixed measure.”
“Inner cultivation, in one phrase, is nothing but abiding continuously, as if existing.”
Correct Chapters on the Golden Elixir integrates pure cultivation and dual cultivation methods, arguing that yin-yang dual cultivation is not the so-called three-peaks sexual alchemy. His doctrines exerted an influence on Li Xiyue of the Qing Dynasty.
