Verses from the Western Cloud 西云集
Paul PengVerses from the Western Cloud
Composed by Qi Zhicheng in the Yuan Dynasty, it consists of three volumes and is included in the Taiping Section of The Daozang.
This collection of poems by Qi Zhicheng, a Quanzhen Taoist monk, contains more than two hundred seven-character jueju poems. Most of them express the carefree delight of living in seclusion as a Taoist hermit and the insights gained from cultivating the true self and nurturing one’s innate nature. As one poem goes: "I covet not the title of marquis over ten thousand households in the mortal world; forgetting fame and abandoning gain, I am free from all worries. When hungry, I go from door to door to beg for food as fate ordains; when full, I return to the hermitage to learn the art of dismembering an ox."
Verses from the Western Cloud
He teaches that cultivating the true self and studying the Dao all center on the enlightenment of the mind and innate nature, holding that a sudden realization of one’s mind and nature makes one an immortal—a doctrine that is close to Chan Buddhism. As he states in the poems: "Only when the nature is stabilized can one know that life is preserved of itself"; "There is no need to delve exhaustively into lead and mercury". He also says: "When the mind and nature are thoroughly enlightened, the spirit and qi will naturally be harmonious and balanced, and the great elixir will be formed of itself."
He exhorts people to cast away scheming and sever mortal ties, to transcend the mundane world and study the Dao—teachings that are consistent with the doctrines of The Quanzhen Dao.
