Songs of Gradual Awakening 渐悟集

Composed by Ma Yu in the Jin Dynasty.

It consists of two scrolls and is included in the Taiping Section of the The Daozang.

This work is a collection of ci poems and songs by Ma Yu, containing more than three hundred such pieces. Most were written after he renounced secular life and left his hometown, while practicing and propagating the Dao in the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi. The ci poems and songs in the book either express his own emotions and encourage himself, depicting his state of living an ascetic life of begging for food with unkempt hair and a dirty face; or are dedicated to and in response to others, exhorting people to abandon their families and learn to become immortals, encouraging fellow Dao practitioners and pointing out the essential principles of Internal Alchemy (Neidan) cultivation.

Songs of Gradual Awakening

The author vividly portrays the suffering of samsara, and eulogizes the carefree and unburdened life of practicing the Dao as a monk, as well as the eternal freedom of immortals. The essential principles of cultivation expounded in the book focus on the pure cultivation of mind and nature in internal alchemy. It states that when the mind is pure and free from desire, Qi and spirit will unite, and the elixir will be formed naturally. To achieve this, one must go against human inclinations, cut off thoughts of wine, lust, wealth, anger, attachment and love, banish worries and discard cunning, firmly tame the restlessness of the mind and heart, and polish the mirror of the mind until reaching the state of "dwelling in the mortal world yet untouched by dust, responding to the true and eternal; after responding to the true and eternal, the embryonic immortal manifests; after the embryonic immortal manifests, the true and eternal is firmly established".

It also states that "true merit" and "true conduct" must be cultivated together: true merit refers to pure self-cultivation in tranquility, and true conduct means saving people from suffering and hardship. There are also several poems and ci poems chanting things, all embodying the longing to escape the mortal world and transcend the mundane. In general, the author used poems and ci poems as a tool to propagate the Dao and redeem the world.