The Qinghua Miwen 青华秘文 Yuqing Jinsi Qinghua Miwen Jinbao Neidan Lian Danjue

The full title of Qinghua Miwen is Yuqing Jinsi Qinghua Miwen Jinbao Neidan Lian Danjue. This Taoist text is attributed to Zhang Ziyang of the Northern Song Dynasty, though some scholars argue that it was written later than the Northern Song period and not by Zhang Ziyang himself.

Qinghua Miwen is a classic of extremely high theoretical caliber. If Wuzhen Pian (Awakening to Truth) is a theoretical work that summarized earlier Taoist practices and laid the overall direction for later Taoist inner cultivation, then Qinghua Miwen represents a further elevation of Wuzhen Pian’s theories—a deeper and more comprehensive theoretical synthesis of Taoist inner cultivation activities.

Included in the Zhengtong Daozang (Orthodox Taoist Canon), Qinghua Miwen is divided into three volumes (upper, middle, and lower) with twenty-six sections. Its content can be categorized into three parts: a philosophical overview, theories of cultivation and nourishment, and a general exposition of the Golden Elixir.

Qinghua Miwen holds that inner cultivation involves first returning the spirit to the heart, then preserving the heart and nurturing nature, and finally uniting nature with destiny, thereby attaining the spontaneous way of heaven. It is evident that destiny is both the ultimate goal of inner alchemy cultivation and the foundation upon which inner alchemy practices exist. All cultivation activities and their culmination in inner alchemy rely on destiny—they are anchored in destiny itself. No matter how important the heart may be, it merely serves as the repository of essence, qi, and spirit; only a heart abundant in essence, qi, and spirit constitutes a "complete entity."

Alchemy entails gathering scattered essence, qi, and spirit back into the heart, enabling the heart to attain its "complete nature." When the heart achieves this complete nature, it attains destiny. In this way, the heart "transforms" into destiny, which is essentially a process of "reverse cultivation" leading back to the way of heaven. In other words, the result of alchemy is not that essence, qi, and spirit each return to the way of heaven independently. Instead, it is the "Golden Elixir" formed through cultivation that returns and ultimately unites with the way of heaven. This Golden Elixir is the "heart" that has transformed into destiny—also called the "complete heart," which is synonymous with destiny.

Thus, the ontological core of Qinghua Miwen is "destiny," not the heart. Here, "destiny" does not refer to "fate" but to the "way of heaven." Destiny is the way of heaven, meaning two things: first, destiny exists within the way of heaven; second, destiny is identical to the way of heaven. The fundamental essence of inner alchemy in Qinghua Miwen can be summed up in one phrase: returning to the root and restoring destiny, for destiny is the way of heaven! Its philosophical thought revolves around a continuous pursuit of returning to the ontological source—destiny.

The ontological ideas embodied in Qinghua Miwen are significant for deepening our understanding of the characteristics of Taoist philosophy. For instance, regarding the proposition of "cultivating both nature and destiny," we often merely treat "nature" and "destiny" as a pair of concepts without achieving breakthroughs in exploring this proposition. Undoubtedly, this is due to our lack of an understanding of the ontological nature of "destiny."