Qizhenzi (Shi Jianwu)
Shi Jianwu (780–861), styled Dongzhai (or, by another account, Xisheng), with the Taoist name Qizhenzi (“Master Who Dwells in Truth”), was a celebrated poet and Taoist scholar of the Tang dynasty. He was the first top graduate of the imperial examinations (zhuangyuan) from the Hangzhou region, and the first person to lead civilian settlement of the Penghu Islands—a legendary figure who was at once poet, Taoist scholar, and pioneer.
Shi Jianwu was born into poverty. As a youth he studied hard day and night at the “monks' temple” on Mount Wuyun in Fenshui, Tonglu, and at Longmen Temple in Fuyang. At forty he placed first in the imperial examinations, but caring little for fame and gain, he returned east to his home without waiting for an official appointment. He lived as a recluse in the Western Hills of Hongzhou (today's Nanchang, Jiangxi), devoting himself to cultivating the Tao and refining elixirs; he called himself Qizhenzi and made a deep study of inner alchemy and nurturing life. His Taoist writings include the Western Hills Collection in ten scrolls, the Records of the Immortals Gathering in Truth at the Western Hills (Xishan Qunxian Huizhen Ji), the Secrets for Resolving Doubts About Nurturing Life, the Classic of Taibai, and a commentary on the Yellow Emperor's Classic of the Hidden Talisman (Yinfu Jing). His teachings on nurturing life had a far-reaching influence on later schools of qigong and health cultivation and are found in classics such as the Pivot of the Tao (Daoshu).
The one qi has no fixed form; it waxes and wanes with the times, and the life and death of the myriad things rise and fall together with qi. Dwelling amid what is so of itself, they all are so without knowing why they are so. What they are endowed with is formed under the canopy of heaven and upon the earth. Whatever has form should first know its root; knowing its root, one's seeking will reach everywhere. In cultivating the Tao one must first set the source right; with the source set right, the stream will respond everywhere.
If one abandons the root and seeks outside, or turns one's back on the source and pursues crooked inquiry, then even if one hunts through the Hundred Schools and exhausts all the masters, one merely multiplies empty theories and precepts; as for the results in preserving and nurturing life, those who have attained will see that one has only misled oneself.
Looking over the lovers of the Tao in the world today, they are beyond counting. Though they know to guard themselves with calm contentment, they have no idea that within calm contentment there is a wondrous use. Though they know to take emptiness and nothingness as their principle, they have no idea that within emptiness and nothingness there is nothing left undone. If one does not know the principle of the wondrous use of emptiness, nothingness, and calm contentment, and merely commits one's will to silence and stillness, acting blindly outside body and spirit, this is called useless practice; it is not the gradual path of preserving life. Moreover, the spirit abides because of the body, and the body is kept by the spirit; if the spirit moves outward, the body too is hard to preserve.
Others take herbs, woods, metals, and minerals to strengthen the body, without knowing the natures of herbs, woods, metals, and minerals or investigating what suits the favorable and unfavorable turns of the four seasons. Taken over a long time, they instead harm one's harmonious qi, and before middle age is out, illness and harm arise together. This leads frivolous people to say it is all like tying up the wind and catching shadows, impossible to attain. They turn around and call students of the Way unworthy and call true recluses followers of a deceitful path. Is this not sad?
A deluded man once used this to mock me, saying: “I have heard that by studying the Tao one can attain long life. From childhood to old age I have seen thousands of people studying the Tao—those who ingest qi and give up grain, those who command spirits and summon them for trial, those of clarity and stillness without desire, those cultivating immortality and refining their conduct. Among all these, I have never failed to hear of their deaths.
“Their bodies lie buried beneath the dark earth, and they are merely said to have achieved release from the corpse (shijie). Reasoning from this, those who attain it must simply have numinous bones; it is not something that can be learned and attained.”
Hearing this argument, I could not help feeling pity within and a daze without. After pondering a while, I sighed deeply and answered: “Judging from what you have just said, your views are truly very base and most deluded.
“People today, learning the affairs of the human world, still sometimes succeed and sometimes fail; how much more so the wondrous root, mysterious and deep, dim and silent—how could it be attained hastily? Moreover, the Great Tao has no favorites; it responds to whoever moves it. To speak of numinous bones is surely far off the mark. Now, ingesting qi and giving up grain is something Taoism values; those who attain it all have the power of not eating and the effect of a lightened body. Then they say of themselves that their stomach and intestines have no dregs and they will soon rise on clouds and rainbows, and with bodies made light they sit hoping for phoenixes and cranes.
“Those who gather and eat medicines rely on the Hairy Woman as their proof, and those who practice breathing cite the numinous tortoise as evidence. They never realize that their true qi is secretly being extinguished and their embryonic essence withering within, yet they cling to stale principles about pines and bamboos and hold to deluded ideas from brush and ink—truly lamentable. Is it any wonder? As for those who command spirits and summon them for trial, this is ritual service within the Taoist way. They study it to the finest detail and exhaust the Declarations of the Perfected. Yet truly it is an empty name outside oneself and reckless action in the human world. For oneself it gives no proof of prolonged life; for others it is of some use in averting calamity. They wildly concoct auspicious omens and idly pronounce on fortune and misfortune. People such as these are not following the way of preserving life. Others, taking clarity, stillness, and non-action (wuwei), dwell deep in seclusion cut off from the world, their bodies like withered wood and their wills like dead ashes, not knowing the heart of the workings of heaven and earth, nor examining the principles of the movement of yin and yang. In this way, though they wander in the vague and elusive, the vague and elusive is boundless; though they merge with the dark and obscure, the dark and obscure is unfathomable. Instead, beyond the inaudible and invisible, the workings of the spirit are lost; within the empty whiteness, the mysterious pass is left unguarded.”
In the midst of the discussion there was a high perfected one present, who sighed deeply and said: “Guarding the One is not the One; treading the True is not the True. These are only the steps leading to the gate; they have not yet glimpsed the use within the chamber. In general, preserving qi and lodging the spirit cannot be achieved by mere tranquility, nor held by mere blankness. The spirit has no fixed place and qi is always moving; the body is utterly still yet its use is inexhaustible. Thus know that the key to preserving qi lies in moving it, and the secret of lodging the spirit lies in using it. I once heard from my teacher: ‘When the body is empty, qi circulates everywhere; when the form is still, the spirit gathers.’ This is the mysterious key to transcending the world, the great use of the nameless.”