Tenets of Dao-Generated Life 道生旨

Composed by Shi Jianwu, a Taoist priest of the late The Tang Dynasty.

The New Book of Tang·Bibliography records it as "One Volume of Shi Jianjun’s Treatise on Distinguishing Doubts".

It is also cataloged in Secret Catalogue of the Southern Song Dynasty and Comprehensive Records of Literature.

The existing version in The Daozang is included in the Methods Category of the Dongshen Section.

Excerpts of this text are also found in Volume 88 of Yunji Qiqian (Seven Bamboo Slips of the Cloudy Satchel).

This text discusses the principles of cultivating health and attaining immortality in the context of Taoism.

The author holds that: "All things live and die in accordance with the rise and fall of Qi." Those who study the Dao should rectify the root and understand the origin, preserve qi and settle spirit, harmonize spirit with qi, and keep body and spirit inseparable. One should not merely know how to maintain tranquility and indifference, entrust one’s will to silence and stillness, or act arbitrarily beyond the body and spirit; nor should one only take herbs, metals and stones, circulate qi and abstain from grains, or drive and summon spirits. Such practices are not the way to preserve life. The author finally points out: "Preserving qi and settling spirit cannot be achieved through dull stillness, nor maintained through rigid inaction. Moreover, spirit has no fixed abode while qi is always in motion; the body is extremely still while its functions are infinite. Thus we know that the essence of preserving qi lies in circulation, and the secret of settling spirit lies in application. I once heard from my master: 'When the body is empty, qi is consolidated; when the form is still, spirit is united. This is the profound mystery of transcending the mortal world, an ineffable great function.'"