Knowing the One All Things Are Accomplished 什么是知一万事毕

Also known as “Attaining the One Accomplishes All Things,” it originates from “Holding the One” in Dao De Jing and the concept of “Guarding the One” from the Fangxian Dao (Immortal Way) of the pre-Qin period.

Huainanzi · Training of the Spirit states: “Heaven and Earth move and intercommunicate; all things are summed up and unified. Knowing the One All Things Are Accomplished

If one can know the One, there is nothing that one does not know; if one cannot know the One, there is nothing that one can know.” This clearly puts forward the proposition of “knowing the One.”

Taiping Jing says: “The One is the root of the The Dao, the beginning of Qi, the foundation of life, and the master of all minds.” “The One is the time when the original Qi is pure and unadulterated.” “The One is the mind, the intent, the will; it is the spirit within one’s own body.”

Thus, the One is: the root of the Dao at the beginning of cosmic creation; the origin of Qi at the start of human life; the master of the mind within the human body; and the source of primal vitality in internal alchemy practice.

Secret Instructions of the Holy Ruler of the Taiping Jing notes: “The method of guarding the One enables one to understand all matters. Those entangled in all matters cannot know the One. Those who guard the One can transcend the world, eliminate disasters, serve the ruler, attain immortality, manage the family, and serve the gods and spirits.” “With the One as the foundation, all affairs proceed; knowing the One, all affairs are accomplished.”

Baopuzi · Inner Chapters · The True Earth records: “I have heard from my master: If one can know the One, all affairs are accomplished.”

According to Taoism doctrine, the Dao arises from the One, and its nobility is unmatched. Laozi’s idea that “The sage holds the One as the model for the world” developed into the Taoist method of “Guarding the One,” which holds that attaining the One is attaining the Dao.

Panshan Discourses says: “Someone asked: ‘Understanding the One accomplishes all things.’ It is also said: ‘Embrace the primal and guard the One.’ What, then, is the One?” The master replied: “It is the undifferentiated nature, the state before any distinction arises. Once you know it exists, you fall into conceptualization and can no longer be one. From the One comes the two, from the two the three, and from the three the ten thousand things. How then can you guard it? Better to be without even the One. Thus the ancestral master said: ‘Embracing the primal and guarding the One is the work of the superior person; eternally, there is ultimately no One.’ When this One is nowhere to be found, your own true identity manifests clearly—and it is not nothing.”

Later, the Quanzhen Dao took guarding the One as the practice of illuminating the mind and seeing the nature, holding that the One is the undifferentiated Dao-nature.