Daoist Canon of Hexagrams and Alchemy 太古集

Composed by Hao Datong in the Jin Dynasty.

The original version comprised fifteen scrolls, while only four scrolls survive in the current edition of The Daozang, included in the Taiping Section.

Daoist Canon of Hexagrams and Alchemy

This work is a collection of poems and prose by Hao Datong, a great master of The Quanzhen Dao, with more than half of its poems and odes lost. The surviving content can be divided into three parts. First is A Concise Annotation on Zhouyi Cantong Qi, a collection of four-character gathas with self-written annotations for each line. It generally holds that the Dao takes emptiness and non-action as its essence and action as its function; Taiji gave birth to the separation of all things, the Three Realms took their fixed positions, and heaven and earth revealed their phenomena through the Eight Trigrams, Five Elements and the Seven Luminaries. Taoist practitioners observe the heavens above and the earth below, embodying the way of heaven and applying it in their cultivation.

The way of the I Ching takes Qian and Kun as its gate and door, the North Star as its pivot, the sun and moon as its transformation and operation, the four seasons as its rulers, the Five Elements as its flexibility and change, emptiness and tranquility as its essence, and responsive action as its function. When a sage embodies and applies this way, it must be through the mind; when transforming and penetrating it, it must be through the spirit. Unifying infinite spirits with a single spirit, encompassing boundless dharma with a single dharma, and governing countless minds with a single mind—this is its essential meaning.

Second is a collection of I Ching diagrams, listing thirteen diagrams each with annotations. It studies the numerical and phenomenal laws of movement and circulation within the diagrams of the Eight Trigrams, Five Elements, astronomy and calendar, applying them to Internal Alchemy cultivation.

Third are thirty poems on the Golden Elixir, all expounding on internal alchemy. Its doctrine regards preserving the spirit and guarding Qi as the essential, stating that by forgetting emotions and stilling worries, "One innate nature returns to the origin and gathers the upright Qi; ten thousand spirits converge at the crown and radiate the three blossoms"—thus the great elixir is achieved, and one ascends to heaven on a cloud.