Bao Pu Zi Nei Pian (抱朴子內篇) · Volume 1

晉·葛洪著

Written by Ge Hong of the Jin dynasty.

抱朴子曰：“玄者，自然之始祖，而萬殊之大宗也。眇眛乎其深也，故稱微焉。綿邈乎其遠也，故稱妙焉。其高則冠蓋乎九霄，其曠則籠罩乎八隅。光乎日月，迅乎電馳。或倏爍而景逝，或飄滭而星流，或滉漾於淵澄，或雰霏而云浮。因兆類而為有，託潛寂而為無。淪大幽而下沈，凌辰極而上游。金石不能比其剛，湛露不能等其柔。方而不矩，圓而不規。來焉莫見，往焉莫追。乾以之高，坤以之卑，雲以之行，雨以之施。胞胎元一，範鑄兩儀，吐納大始，鼓冶億類，佪旋四七，匠成草昧，轡策靈機，吹噓四氣，幽括沖默，舒闡粲尉，抑濁揚清，斟酌河渭，增之不溢，挹之不匱，與之不榮，奪之不瘁。故玄之所在，其樂不窮。玄之所去，器弊神逝。夫五聲八音，清商流徵，損聰者也。鮮華豔採，彧麗炳爛，傷明者也。宴安逸豫，清醪芳醴，亂性者也。冶容媚姿，鉛華素質，伐命者也。其唯玄道，可與為永。不知玄道者，雖顧眄為生殺之神器，唇吻為興亡之關鍵，綺榭俯臨乎雲雨，藻室華綠以參差。組帳霧合，羅幬雲離。西毛陳於閒房，金觴華以交馳，清弦嘈囋以齊唱，鄭舞紛糹柔蜲，哀簫鳴以凌霞，羽蓋浮於漣漪，掇芳華於蘭林之囿，弄紅葩於積珠之池，登峻則望遠以忘百憂，臨深則俯攬以遺朝飢，入宴千門之焜熀，出驅朱輪之華儀。然樂極則哀集，至盈必有虧。故曲終則嘆發，燕罷則心悲也。寔理勢之攸召，猶影響之相歸也。彼假借而非真，故物往若有遺也。

Baopuzi said: "The Mysterious (profound and unfathomable) is the first ancestor of nature (being so of itself, not 'the natural world'), and the great progenitor of the myriad differing things. It is so deep that it cannot be seen distinctly, and so it is called the Subtle. It is so remote that it stretches on without end, and so it is called the Marvelous. In its height it crowns the nine heavens; in its breadth it envelops the eight quarters. It is brighter than sun and moon, swifter than the lightning's flash. Now it flickers and glints like a departing gleam, now it drifts and darts like a star streaming by, now it floats upon the limpid abyss, now it hangs thick like a mist of cloud. Borrowing the visible classes of things it appears as being; lodging in hidden stillness it appears as nonbeing. Downward it sinks into the great darkness; upward it soars beyond the North Pole. Metal and stone cannot match its hardness; clear dew cannot match its softness. Square, it is yet not bound by the carpenter's square; round, it is yet not bound by the compass. It comes and no one sees it; it goes and no one can overtake it. Heaven is high because of it, earth is low because of it, clouds move because of it, rain falls because of it. It gestates the Primal One, casts the Two Powers in its mold, breathes the Grand Beginning in and out, fans the forge that smelts out the hundreds of millions of kinds, wheels the twenty-eight lodges round their circuit, fashions the dawn of primal chaos, reins in the numinous workings, breathes forth the four qi (the flowing stuff that forms and pervades all things), gathers the deep and dark into empty silence, unfolds the brilliant and splendid, presses down the turbid and lifts the clear, and measures out the Yellow River and the Wei. Add to it and it does not overflow; ladle from it and it is not drained; give to it and it grows no more flourishing; take from it and it does not wither. Therefore where the Mysterious abides, the joy is inexhaustible; where the Mysterious departs, vessels decay and spirit dies away. The five notes and the eight timbres, the clear shang and the gliding zhi, are what injure the hearing. Fresh blooms and gaudy colors, ornate and dazzling, are what injure the sight. Feasting, ease, and pleasure, clear wine and fragrant brews, are what disturb the inborn nature. Seductive looks and charming poses, lead powder and white skin, are what hew down the lifespan. Only the Mysterious Way (the word Laozi borrowed to name the source and workings of all things, itself beyond naming) can keep company with it long. As for one who does not know the Mysterious Way, though his glance be the instrument of life and death and his lips the hinge of rise and ruin, though ornamented terraces lean over the clouds and rain and decorated palaces stand in uneven ranks of blue-green, though curtains of gauze close like mist and hangings of gossamer part like clouds, though Xishi and Maoqiang be arrayed in his inner chambers, golden goblets cross in flight, clear strings clamor in unison, and the dances of Zheng trail and wind (the base text is damaged here), while mournful pipes resound through cloud and mist and feathered canopies float upon the ripples; though he pluck fragrant blooms in a park of orchid groves and toy with red petals upon a pond of gathered pearls, climb high to gaze afar and forget a hundred cares, lean over the deep and forget morning hunger, go in to a feast amid the blaze of a thousand gates and drive out in the ceremony of vermilion wheels—yet when joy reaches its height sorrow arrives, and fullness must be paid with loss. So when the tune ends a sigh escapes; when the feast is over the heart grieves. This is truly what the nature and circumstance of things summon, like the shadow chasing the form and the echo answering the sound. All those things are borrowed and not genuine, so once they are gone it feels like something has been lost."

夫玄道者，得之乎內，守之者外，用之者神，忘之者器，此思玄道之要言也。得之者貴，不待黃鉞之威。體之者富，不須難得之貨。高不可登，深不可測。乘流光，策飛景，凌六虛，貫涵溶。出乎無上，入乎無下。經乎汗漫之門，遊乎窈眇之野。逍遙恍惚之中，倘佯彷佛之表。咽九華於雲端，咀六氣於丹霞。俳徊茫昧，翱翔希微，履略蜿虹，踐跚旋璣，此得之者也。

As for the Mysterious Way, obtaining it lies within; those who merely keep it remain outside; those who use it enter the realm of spirit; those who forget it are stuck fast among mere things—this is the essential saying for pondering the Mysterious Way. He who obtains it is honored, without waiting for the majesty of the yellow battle-axe. He who embodies it is rich, without needing rare and precious goods. Its height cannot be climbed; its depth cannot be plumbed. Riding the streaming light, whipping the flying shadows, one surmounts the six voids and threads through the all-pervading flux; one emerges where there is no further above, enters where there is no further below, passes through the gate of the boundless sweep, and roams the fields of dim remoteness; carefree within the blur and dream, strolling beyond the seeming and the shadowed; one swallows the Nine Blossoms among the clouds and chews the Six Qi in the cinnabar mist, lingering in the vast obscurity, soaring in the faint and tenuous, treading the winding rainbow and pacing the jeweled turning-sphere—such is the man who has obtained it.

其次則真知足，知足者則能肥遁勿用，頤光山林。紆鸞龍之翼於細介之伍，養浩然之氣於蓬蓽之中。襤縷帶索，不以貿龍章之煒曄也。負步杖策，不以易結駟之駱驛也。藏夜光於嵩岫，不受他山之攻。沈鱗甲於玄淵，以違鑽灼之災。動息知止，無往不足。棄赫奕之朝華，避僨車之險路。吟嘯蒼崖之閒，而萬物化為塵氛。怡顏豐柯之下，而朱戶變為繩樞。握耒甫田，而麾節忽若執鞭。啜荈漱泉，而太牢同乎藜藿。泰爾有餘歡於無為之場，忻然齊貴賤於不爭之地。含醇守樸，無慾無憂，全真虛器，居平味澹。恢恢蕩蕩，與渾成等其自然。浩浩茫茫，與造化鈞其符契。如暗如明，如濁如清，似遲而疾，似虧而盈。豈肯委尸祝之坐，釋大匠之位，越樽俎以代無知之庖，舍繩墨而助傷手之工。不以臭鼠之細瑣，而為庸夫之憂樂。藐然不喜流俗之譽，坦爾不懼雷同之毀。不以外物汩其至精，不以利害汙其純粹也。故窮富極貴，不足以誘之焉，其餘何足以悅之乎？直刃沸鑊，不足以劫之焉，謗讟何足以戚之乎？常無心於眾煩，而未始與物雜也。

Next comes true contentment. He who knows contentment can withdraw in ease without seeking employment, nourishing his radiance among the mountain forests. He folds the wings of luan-bird and dragon into the ranks of tiny shelled insects, and within a door of brambles and brushwood nurtures his vast, flood-like qi. Ragged, with a rope for a belt, he would not trade it for the blaze of a dragon-embroidered robe; carrying his bundle and leaning on a staff, he would not trade it for an unbroken file of four-horse chariots. He hides the night-glowing pearl in the cliffs of Mount Song rather than accept the cutting and polishing of foreign stone; he sinks his scales in the dark abyss to escape the calamity of being bored and burned. In motion and in rest he knows when to stop; wherever he goes there is no want. He casts off the dazzling morning flower and shuns the road where carts overturn. Whistling and chanting among the gray cliffs, the myriad things turn to dust for him; smiling at ease beneath the lush branches, vermilion gates and grand households become poor homes hung on rope hinges. Gripping the plow to till the great field, the marshal's baton suddenly feels light as a carter's whip; sipping tea and rinsing in spring water, the grand sacrificial meats are the same as pigweed. At peace, he has joy to spare in the field of nonaction (not forcing things by subjective will but letting them run their own nature, not merely doing nothing); content, in the land of noncontention he sees noble and mean as one. Holding the mellow, guarding the uncarved block (unworked wood, the image of the genuine state before human carving), he has neither desires nor cares; he preserves the genuine and treats mere things as empty, his dwelling plain, his flavors mild. Broad and unbound, he shares the self-so of the unhewn whole; immense and shoreless, he tallies with the tokens of creation. Like dark yet bright, like turbid yet clear, like slow yet swift, like empty yet full—how could he quit the seat of the impersonator of the dead or forsake the master's place, reach over the sacrificial vessels to cook for the ignorant cook, or drop the marking-line to help a workman who will only hurt his hand? He does not take trifles like a stinking rat for the worries and delights of a vulgar man. Aloof, he takes no joy in the praise of the common crowd; serene, he does not fear their parroted slander. He lets no outward thing disturb his utmost essence, lets no profit or harm soil his purity. So utter poverty or utmost wealth and honor cannot tempt him—what else could possibly please him? A drawn blade and a boiling cauldron cannot coerce him—how could slander grieve him? Toward every kind of vexation he is ever without a mind to meet it, and he has never once mingled with outward things.

若夫操隋珠以彈雀，舐秦痔以屬車，登朽緡以探巢，泳呂梁以求魚，旦為稱孤之客，夕為狐鳥之餘。棟撓餗覆，傾溺不振，蓋世人之所為載馳企及，而達者之所為寒心而悽愴者也。故至人嘿韶夏而韜藻梲。。奮其六羽於五城之墟，而不煩銜蘆之衛。翳其鱗角乎勿用之地，而不恃曲穴之備。俯無倨鴟之呼，仰無亢極之悔，人莫之識，邈矣遼哉！”

As for using the Marquis of Sui's pearl to shoot a sparrow, licking the King of Qin's piles to win a carriage in his train, climbing a rotten line to grope into a nest, or swimming the Lüliang rapids for fish—a man may be an honored guest calling himself lord in the morning and the scraps of foxes and crows by evening. The ridge-beam snaps, the sacrificial meat tips from the cauldron, and he is sunk beyond all raising—these are exactly what the men of the world rush headlong after, and what makes the accomplished man go cold with pity. Therefore the utmost man puts the music of Shao and Xia away in silence and hides the carved capitals of his beams. On the ruins of the five cities he raises his six pinions without troubling to hold a reed in his beak for defense; he hides his scale and horn in the land where nothing is put to use, relying on no crooked burrow for protection. Looking down he has no shriek of the arrogant owl; looking up he has no regret of having gone too far—no one knows him, remote and unbounded to the very end!"

或問曰：“神仙不死，信可得乎？”抱朴子答曰：“雖有至明，而有形者不可畢見焉。雖稟極聰，而有聲者不可盡聞焉。雖有大章豎亥之足，而所常履者，未若所不履之多。雖有禹益齊諧之智，而所嘗識者未若所不識之眾也。萬物云云，何所不有，況列仙之人，盈乎竹素矣。不死之道，曷為無之？”

Someone asked: "That divine immortals never die—can this truly be attained?" Baopuzi replied: "Even given the utmost sight, one cannot see everything that has form. Even endowed with the utmost hearing, one cannot hear everything that has sound. Even with legs like Dazhang and Shuhai, what one has walked is less than what one has not walked. Even with the wisdom of Yu, Yi, and Qixie, what has been known is less than what has not been known. The myriad things swarm in confusion—what is there that does not exist? Moreover, the ranks of the immortals already fill the bamboo and silk records. Why should the way of deathlessness alone not exist?"

於是問者大笑曰：“夫有始者必有卒，有存者必有亡。故三五丘旦之聖，棄疾良平之智，端嬰隨酈之辯，賁育五丁之勇，而鹹死者，人理之常然，必至之大端也。徒聞有先霜而枯瘁，當夏而凋青，含穗而不秀，未實而萎零，未聞有享於萬年之壽，久視不已之期者矣。故古人學不求仙，言不語怪，杜彼異端，守此自然，推龜鶴於別類，以死生為朝暮也。夫苦心約己，以行無益之事，鏤冰雕朽，終無必成之功。未若攄匡世之高策，招當年之隆祉，使紫青重紆，玄牡龍跱，華轂易步趨，鼎餗代耒耜，不亦美哉？每思詩人甫田之刺，深惟仲尼皆死之證，無為握無形之風，捕難執之影，索不可得之物，行必不到之路，棄榮華而涉苦困，釋甚易而攻至難，有似喪者之逐遊女，必有兩失之悔，單張之信偏見，將速內外之禍也。夫班狄不能削瓦石為芒針，歐冶不能鑄鉛錫為干將。故不可為者，雖鬼神不能為也；不可成者，雖天地不能成也。世間亦安得奇方，能使當老者復少，而應死者反生哉？而吾子乃欲延蟪蛄之命，令有曆紀之壽，養朝菌之榮，使累晦朔之積，不亦謬乎？願加九思，不遠迷復焉。”

At this the questioner laughed loudly and said: "Whatever has a beginning must have an end; whatever exists must perish. So the Three August Ones and the Five Thearchs, sages like Kong Qiu and the Duke of Zhou Dan, men of wit like Qiji, Zhang Liang, and Chen Ping, men of eloquence like Duanmu Ci, Yan Ying, Sui He, and Li Yiji, men of valor like Meng Ben, Xia Yu, and the Five Strongmen—all of them died. This is the constant course of human order, the certain and great conclusion. We have heard only of things withering before the frost arrives, shedding their green leaves in midsummer, holding ears of grain yet never flowering, withering away before they bear—never of anyone enjoying a lifespan of ten thousand years, a term of long sight that does not end. So the ancients in their learning did not seek immortality, and in their speech did not speak of prodigies; they dammed up such heterodoxies and kept to the natural, pushing tortoises and cranes off among other kinds of creature and treating death and life as morning and evening. To labor the heart and bind oneself, to do what brings no benefit—carving flowers on ice, engraving rotten wood—in the end there is no assured achievement. Better to unfold lofty policies for setting the age aright, summon the flourishing blessings of one's own day, let purple and azure ribbons wind once more, bring the black-bulled dragon carriage to a halt, trade walking for ornate hubs and the plow for the meat in the cauldron—is that not splendid? Whenever I ponder the poet's satire in 'Great Fields' and think deeply on Confucius's testimony that all die, I say: do not grasp at the shapeless wind, chase the shadow that cannot be caught, seek what cannot be had, walk a road that can never be finished, cast off glory to enter bitter straits, or lay aside the easy to attack the hardest. Like a man who has lost his house chasing after a wandering maiden, he is sure to repent at both ends; like Shan Bao and Zhang Yi each trusting a one-sided view, he will invite calamity from within and without. Gongshu Ban and Mozi could not pare tile and stone into needle points; Ou Yezi could not cast lead and tin into a Ganjiang blade. So what cannot be done, even ghosts and spirits cannot do; what cannot be completed, even heaven and earth cannot complete. Where in the world is there a wondrous recipe that can make what must grow old young again, and bring what must die back to life? Yet you wish to lengthen the cicada's life until it lasts a full twelve-year cycle, to nurse the morning fungus's glory until it piles up many new and full moons—is that not absurd? I hope you will think on it again and again: the stray path is not yet far, and you can still come back."

抱朴子答曰：“夫聰之所去，則震雷不能使之聞，明之所棄，則三光不能使之見，豈輷磕之音細，而麗天之景微哉？而聾夫謂之無聲焉，瞽者謂之無物焉。又況管絃之和音，山龍之綺粲，安能賞克諧之雅韻，煒曄之鱗藻哉？故聾瞽在乎形器，則不信豐隆之與玄象矣。而況物有微於此者乎？闇昧滯乎心神，則不信有周孔於在昔矣。況告之以神仙之道乎？夫存亡終始，誠是大體。其異同參差，或然或否，變化萬品，奇怪無方，物是事非，本鈞末乖，未可一也。夫言始者必有終者多矣，混而齊之，非通理矣。謂夏必長，而薺麥枯焉。謂冬必凋，而竹柏茂焉。謂始必終，而天地無窮焉。謂生必死，而龜鶴長存焉。盛陽宜暑，而夏天未必無涼日也。極陰宜寒，而嚴冬未必無暫溫也。百川東注，而有北流之浩浩。坤道至靜，而或震動而崩弛。水性純冷，而有溫谷之湯泉；火體宜熾，而有蕭丘之寒焰；重類應沈，而南海有浮石之山；輕物當浮，而牜羊柯有沈羽之流。萬殊之類，不可以一概斷之，正如此也久矣。

Baopuzi replied: "Take away the hearing and even crashing thunder cannot make a man hear; cast off the sight and even the three luminaries—sun, moon, and stars—cannot make him see. Is it that the booming sound is faint, or the light that adorns the sky dim? Yet the deaf say there is no sound and the blind say there are no things. Still less could such men savor the harmonies of pipes and strings or the splendid patterns of mountain dragons and flowered fowl—how could they appreciate elegant cadences in perfect accord, or glittering scaled embroideries? So when deafness and blindness lodge in the bodily frame, a man does not believe in Fenglong the thunderer or in the mysterious images hung in the sky. How much less things subtler still! When darkness and dimness clog the spirit, a man does not believe there ever were a Duke of Zhou or a Confucius—how much less when you tell him the way of divine immortals! Survival and extinction, ending and beginning, are indeed the great outline. But same and different come unevenly; some cases are so and some are not; transformations take ten thousand shapes and oddities have no fixed quarter; the thing may be right while the event is wrong; roots agree while branches diverge—one cannot lay a single rule over all. To say that whatever has a beginning must have an end fits many cases, but to lump them together and view them as one is not a comprehensive truth. Say that summer must make things grow—yet shepherd's-purse and wheat wither in it. Say that winter must make things fade—yet bamboo and cypress flourish in it. Say that whatever has a beginning must end—yet heaven and earth are unending. Say that whatever lives must die—yet tortoises and cranes live on and on. High yang should bring heat, yet summer is not without cool days; extreme yin should bring cold, yet deep winter is not without a brief warmth. The hundred streams flow east, yet there are those that roll grandly north. The way of earth is utmost stillness, yet it sometimes quakes and collapses. Water's nature is cold, yet there are boiling springs in the Warm Vale; fire's body should blaze, yet there are cold flames at Xiaoqiu; the heavy kind should sink, yet the South Sea has mountains of floating stone; the light sort should float, yet Zangke has water in which a feather sinks (the base text's damaged characters are restored as 'Zangke'). That the myriad differing kinds cannot be fixed by one sweeping judgment has been exactly so for a very long time.

有生最靈，莫過乎人。貴性之物，宜必鈞一。而其賢愚邪正，好醜修短，清濁貞淫，緩急遲速，趨舍所尚，耳目所欲，其為不同，已有天壤之覺，冰炭之乖矣。何獨怪仙者之異，不與凡人皆死乎？

The most numinous among living things—none surpasses man. Creatures that receive an esteemed nature ought to be uniform. Yet worthy and foolish, crooked and upright, fair and ugly, tall and short, clear and turbid, chaste and wanton, quick and slow, hasty and tardy—what men pursue or shun, what their ears and eyes desire—differ from one another as far as heaven from earth, as irreconcilable as ice and coals. Why then single out for astonishment the distinctness of the immortals, that they do not all die like ordinary men?

若謂受氣皆有一定，則雉之為蜃，雀之為蛤，壤蟲假翼，川蛙翻飛，水蠣為蛉，荇苓為蛆，田鼠為鴽，腐草為螢，鼉之為虎，蛇之為龍，皆不然乎？

If you say that the qi each creature receives is fixed, then the pheasant turns into a great sea-clam, the sparrow into an oyster, the soil-worm borrows wings, the frogs of the rivers take wing, the water-oyster becomes a dragonfly, the xing-ling becomes a maggot, the field rat becomes a quail, rotting grass becomes fireflies, the alligator becomes a tiger, and the snake becomes a dragon—are all these not so?

若謂人稟正性，不同凡物，皇天賦命，無有彼此，則牛哀成虎，楚嫗為黿，枝離為柳，秦女為石，死而更生，男女易形，老彭之壽，殤子之夭，其何故哉？苟有不同，則其異有何限乎？

If you say that man alone receives the correct nature, unlike all common creatures, and that the fate august heaven bestows makes no distinction between them, then what of Niu Ai turning into a tiger, the old woman of Chu turning into a great turtle, Zhili Shu turning into a willow, the Qin girl turning into stone, the dead coming back to life, men and women exchanging form, the great age of Lao Peng and the early death of Shangzi—what accounts for all these? Once there is divergence, what limit is there to difference?

若夫仙人，以藥物養身，以術數延命，使內疾不生，外患不入，雖久視不死，而舊身不改，苟有其道，無以為難也。而淺識之徒，拘俗守常，鹹曰世閒不見仙人，便雲天下必無此事。夫目之所曾見，當何足言哉？天地之間，無外之大，其中殊奇，豈遽有限，詣老戴天，而無知其上，終身履地，而莫識其下。形骸己所自有也，而莫知其心志之所以然焉。壽命在我者也，而莫知其修短之能至焉。況乎神仙之遠理，道德之幽玄，仗其短淺之耳目，以斷微妙之有無，豈不悲哉？

As for the immortals: they nourish the body with medicines and extend their years with arts and numbers, so that inward illness does not arise and outward harm does not enter. Though they see long and do not die, their old bodies undergo no change; so long as that Way exists, the thing is not held to be hard. But men of shallow sight, bound by the common ways of the age, all say that no immortal is to be seen in the world, and conclude that such a thing cannot exist under heaven. How could what a man's own eyes have seen suffice as the standard? Between heaven and earth, vast beyond any outside, can the exceptional and the strange have a limit? To old age a man bears the sky overhead yet does not know what lies above it; all his life he treads the earth yet does not know what lies beneath it. His bodily frame is his own, yet he does not know why his will works as it does. His lifespan rests on his own person, yet he does not know how far its length or shortness may run. Still less the remote principle of divine immortals, the deep and mysterious reach of the Way and its power (the efficacy the Way shows when embodied in particular things, not moral 'virtue')—to lean on short-sighted ears and eyes and pronounce on whether the subtle exists or not, is that not pitiful?

設有哲人大才，嘉遁勿用，翳景掩藻，廢偽去欲，執太璞於至醇之中，遺末務於流俗之外，世人猶鮮能甄別，或莫造志行於無名之表，得精神於陋形之裡，豈況仙人殊趣異路，以富貴為不幸，以榮華為穢汙，以厚玩為塵壤，以聲譽為朝露，蹈炎飆而不灼，躡玄波而輕步，鼓翮清塵，風駟雲軒，仰凌紫極，俯棲崑崙，行屍之人，安得見之？假令遊戲，或經人間，匿真隱異，外同凡庸，比肩接武，孰有能覺乎？若使皆如郊閒兩曈之正方，邛疏之雙耳，出乎頭巔。馬皇乘龍而行，子晉躬御白鶴。或鱗身蛇軀，或金車羽服，乃可得知耳。自不若斯，則非洞視者安能覿其形，非徹聽者安能聞其聲哉？世人既不信，又多疵毀，真人疾之，遂益潛遁。且常人之所愛，乃上士之所憎。庸俗之所貴，乃至人之所賤也。英儒偉器，養其浩然者，猶不樂見淺薄之人，風塵之徒。況彼神仙，何為汲汲使芻狗之倫，知有之何所索乎，而怪於未嘗知也。目察百步，不能了了，而欲以所見為有，所不見為無，則天下之所無者，亦必多矣。所謂以指測海，指極而云水盡者也。蜉蝣校巨鰲，日及料大椿，豈所能及哉？魏文帝窮覽洽聞，自呼於物無所不經，謂天下無切玉之刀，火浣之布，及著典論，嘗據言此事。其閒未期，二物畢至。帝乃嘆息，遽毀斯論。事無固必，殆為此也。陳思王著釋疑論云，初謂道術，直呼愚民詐偽空言定矣。及見武皇帝試閉左慈等，令斷谷近一月，而顏色不減，氣力自若，常雲可五十年不食，正爾，復何疑哉？又云，令甘始以藥含生魚，而煮之於沸脂中，其無藥者，熟而可食，其銜藥者，遊戲終日，如在水中也。又以藥粉桑以飼蠶，蠶乃到十月不老。又以住年藥食雞雛及新生犬子，皆止不復長。以還白藥食白犬，百日毛盡黑。乃知天下之事，不可盡知，而以臆斷之，不可任也。但恨不能絕聲色，專心以學長生之道耳。

Suppose there is a philosopher of great talent who withdraws in admirable seclusion and never seeks employment, veils his brilliance and hides his literary gifts, discards pretense and casts off cravings, guards the great uncarved block within utmost purity, and lets trivial pursuits fall away among the common crowd—ordinary men can hardly even single such a man out; some cannot discern his resolve beneath a nameless exterior or reach his spirit inside a shabby frame. How much less the immortals, whose aims are strange and whose roads run elsewhere: they see wealth and rank as misfortune, glory and splendor as filth, rich baubles as dust, and fame as the morning dew. They tread the fiery whirlwind unscorched, step lightly over the black waves, beat their wings and sweep away the dust, hitch the wind as their team and the clouds as their chariot, mount beyond the Purple Pole above and lodge on Kunlun below—how could walking corpses ever see them? If in play they chance to pass through the human world, they hide the true and conceal the extraordinary; outwardly one with the common run, shoulder to shoulder and heel to heel, who could detect them? Only if they were all like Jiaojian with his two square pupils, Qiongshu with both ears growing above his head, Ma Shihuang riding a dragon, or Prince Jin himself driving a white crane; or bore scaly trunks and serpent bodies; or rode golden carriages in feathered dress—only then could they be recognized. Short of that, who but one with penetrating sight could see their forms, who but one with thorough hearing could hear their voices? Since the world neither believes nor refrains from slander, the true men detest this and hide away the deeper. Moreover, what ordinary men love is exactly what the highest gentlemen loathe; what the vulgar prize is exactly what the utmost men despise. Outstanding scholars of great capacity who nourish a flood-like qi still dislike meeting shallow men and the wind-blown crowd—how much more the divine immortals! Why should they hasten to let men worth less than straw dogs know that immortals exist, or seek anything from them? Yet men blame them for never having been made known. The eye cannot even make things out at a hundred paces, yet men would take what they see as existing and what they do not see as nothing—then surely much under heaven must not exist! This is what is meant by measuring the sea with a finger and declaring the water exhausted where the finger ends; a mayfly sizing up the great sea-turtle, a morning fungus appraising the great chun tree—how could they reach it? Emperor Wen of Wei read exhaustively and heard widely; he claimed there was nothing among things he had not met, said the world held no jade-cutting knife and no cloth cleansed by fire, and when he wrote the Dianlun he cited these as proof. Within less than a year both things arrived; the emperor sighed and at once destroyed that essay. That affairs are never fixed and certain is roughly for this reason. The Prince of Chen, Cao Zhi, wrote the Essay Resolving Doubts, saying that at first he had taken the arts of the Way to be nothing but empty words with which charlatans gull the people, and had settled it in his mind. Then he saw Emperor Wu shut up Zuo Ci and his fellows and make them abstain from grain for nearly a month, yet their color did not fade and their vigor stayed the same; they even said they could go fifty years without eating—this being so, what room remained for doubt? He also told how Gan Shi had a drug put in the mouths of live fish, which were then dropped into boiling oil: those without the drug cooked through and were fit to eat, while those holding the drug played all day as if still in water. Again, the drug's powder was dusted on mulberry leaves and fed to silkworms, and the worms lived past the tenth month without aging. Again, the age-holding drug was fed to chicks and newborn puppies, and all of them stopped growing. Again, the turn-back-from-white drug was fed to a white dog, and after a hundred days its fur had all gone black. Only then did he learn that the affairs of the world cannot all be known, and that deciding by conjecture is unreliable; he only regretted he could not forsake music and women to devote himself wholly to learning the way of long life.

彼二曹學則無書不覽，才則一代之英，然初皆謂無，而晚年乃有窮理盡性，其嘆息如此。不逮若人者，不信神仙，不足怪也。劉向博學則究微極妙，經深涉遠，思理則清澄真偽，研核有無，其所撰列仙傳，仙人七十有餘，誠無其事，妄造何為乎？邃古之事，何可親見，皆賴記籍傳聞於往耳。列仙傳炳然其必有矣。然書不出周公之門，事不經仲尼之手，世人終於不信。然則古史所記，一切皆無，何但一事哉？俗人貪榮好利，汲汲名利，以己之心，遠忖昔人，乃復不信古者有逃帝王之禪授，薄卿相之貴任，巢許之輩，老萊莊周之徒，以為不然也。況於神仙，又難知於斯，亦何可求今世皆信之哉？多謂劉向非聖人，其所撰錄，不可孤據，尤所以使人嘆息者也。夫魯史不能與天地合德，而仲尼因之以著經。子長不能與日月並明，而揚雄稱之為實錄。劉向為漢世之名儒賢人，其所記述，庸可棄哉？凡世人所以不信仙之可學，不許命之可延者，正以秦皇漢武求之不獲，以少君欒太為之無驗故也。然不可以黔婁原憲之貧，而謂古者無陶朱猗頓之富。不可以無鹽宿瘤之醜，而謂在昔無南威西施之美。進趨尤有不達者焉，稼穡猶有不收者焉，商販或有不利者焉，用兵或有無功者焉。況乎求仙，事之難者，為之者何必皆成哉？彼二君兩臣，自可求而不得，或始勤而卒怠，或不遭乎明師，又何足以定天下之無仙乎？

Those two Caos, speaking of learning, left no book unread; speaking of talent, were the heroes of their age—yet at first both declared there were no immortals, and only in old age, having exhausted pattern and nature, came to sigh as they did. That men who fall short of such figures do not believe in divine immortals is no cause for wonder. Liu Xiang's broad learning probed the minute and reached the marvelous; he experienced the deep and journeyed far; in reasoning he clarified true and false distinctly, examining being and nonbeing. The Liexian zhuan he compiled records more than seventy immortals: if none of it were real, why would he have fabricated it? The affairs of remote antiquity cannot be witnessed with one's own eyes; they come down to us only through written records. That the Liexian zhuan is so clear shows the thing must be so. Yet because the book did not come from the school of the Duke of Zhou and its contents never passed through Confucius's hands, the world refuses in the end to believe it. By that reasoning, everything recorded in the ancient histories would be nothing—far more than this one matter. Vulgar men covet glory and love profit, scrambling after name and gain; measuring the ancients from afar by their own hearts, they then disbelieve that in antiquity there were men who fled the throne's offers and thought lightly of the high offices of minister and chancellor—men like Chaofu and Xu You, Laolaizi and Zhuang Zhou—and hold that none of them were so. Still less are the divine immortals easy to know—how can one demand that everyone in the present age believe? Many say that Liu Xiang was no sage, and that what he compiled cannot stand alone as proof—this especially makes one sigh. The chronicle of Lu could not match the power of heaven and earth, yet Confucius wrote a classic on its basis; Sima Qian could not shine alongside sun and moon, yet Yang Xiong called his work a veracious record. Liu Xiang was a famed scholar and worthy of the Han—can what he recorded simply be thrown away? In general, the reason the world does not believe immortality can be learned, nor allow that the allotted lifespan can be extended, is precisely that Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han sought and did not obtain, and that Li Shaojun and Luan Da practiced it without the promised results. But one cannot, because Qianlou and Yuanxian were poor, declare that in ancient times there was no wealth of Tao Zhu or Yi Dun; nor, because Wuyan and Suliu were ugly, declare that in former days there was no beauty of Nanwei or Xishi. Advancement still has those who never reach it; farming still has crops that yield nothing; traders sometimes make no profit; armies sometimes win no success. Seeking immortality is harder still—why should all who practice it succeed? Those two rulers and two ministers may well have sought and failed: perhaps they were diligent at first and slack later, or perhaps they never met an enlightened teacher. How could that suffice to decide that there are no immortals under heaven?

夫求長生，修至道，訣在於志，不在於富貴也。苟非其人，則高位厚貨，乃所以為重累耳。何者？學仙之法，欲得恬愉澹泊，滌除嗜慾，內視反聽，屍居無心，而帝王任天下之重責，治鞅掌之政務，思勞於萬幾，神馳於宇宙，一介失所，則王道為虧，百姓有過，則謂之在予。醇醪汩其和氣，豔容伐其根荄，所以翦精損慮削乎平粹者，不可曲盡而備論也。蚊噆膚則坐不得安，蝨群攻則臥不得寧。四海之事，何祗若是。安得掩翳聰明，歷藏數息，長齋久潔，躬親爐火，夙興夜寐，以飛八石哉？漢武享國，最為壽考，已得養性之小益矣。但以升合之助，不供鍾石之費，畎澮之輸，不給尾閭之洩耳。

Seeking long life and cultivating the utmost Way—the crux lies in resolve, not in wealth and rank. For anyone not of that kind, high office and rich goods are instead a heavy encumbrance. Why? The method of learning immortality requires tranquil joy and calm detachment, washing away cravings, gazing inward and hearing inward, dwelling like a corpse with the mind free of affairs. But a thearch-king carries the heavy charge of all under heaven and governs a tangle of affairs of state; his thought labors over ten thousand springs of business and his spirit gallops across the cosmos. If one affair falls out of place, the kingly way is diminished; if the common folk err, he says the fault is his. Rich wine disturbs his harmonious qi; seductive faces hew at his rootstock. The ways these pare down his spirit, wound his thought, and thin his simple purity cannot all be told in their twists and turns. With a mosquito biting the skin, a man cannot sit at ease; with lice attacking in swarms, he cannot lie in peace. The affairs of the four seas are far worse than this. How could such a man veil his keenness of sight and hearing, pass his breath through the five viscera counting it, keep long fasts and purifications, tend the furnace-fire in person, rise early and retire late, and go on to refine the eight minerals in flight? Emperor Wu of Han enjoyed, in the length of his reign, nearly the longest of lives, and had already gained a small benefit in nourishing his nature. But a subsidy measured in pints and pecks cannot supply an expenditure in bells and piculs; the trickle of a field ditch cannot fill what drains away through the tail-gate of the sea.

仙法欲靜寂無為，忘其形骸，而人君撞千石之鍾，伐雷霆之鼓，砰磕嘈囐，驚魂蕩心，百技萬變，喪精塞耳，飛輕走迅，釣潛弋高。仙法欲令愛逮蠢蠕，不害含氣，而人君有赫斯之怒，芟夷之誅，黃鉞一揮，齊斧暫授，則伏屍千里，流血滂沱，斬斷之刑，不絕於市。仙法欲止絕臭腥，休糧清腸，而人君烹肥宰腯，屠割群生，八珍百和，方丈於前，煎熬勺藥，旨嘉饜飫。仙法欲溥愛八荒，視人如己，而人君兼弱攻昧，取亂推亡，闢地拓疆，泯人社稷，驅合生人，投之死地，孤魂絕域，暴骸腐野，五嶺有血刃之師，北闕懸大宛之首，坑生煞伏，動數十萬，京觀封屍，仰幹雲霄，暴骸如莽，彌山填谷。秦皇使十室之中，思亂者九。漢武使天下嗷然，戶口減半。祝其有益，詛亦有損。結草知德，則虛祭必怨。眾煩攻其膏肓，人鬼齊其毒恨。彼二主徒有好仙之名，而無修道之實，所知淺事，不能悉行。要妙深秘，又不得聞。又不得有道之士，為合成仙藥以與之，不得長生，無所怪也。

The method of immortality requires stillness, silence, and nonaction, forgetting the bodily frame; but a ruler strikes bells of a thousand piculs and beats thunderous drums, a banging clamor that startles the soul and shakes the heart; the hundred entertainments in their ten thousand changes dissipate his spirit and stuff his ears; he sends nimble hawks flying and swift hounds running, angles for what lies hidden and shoots at what flies high. The method of immortality requires extending love even to wriggling worms and harming nothing that holds the breath of life; but a ruler has blazing rages and executions that mow men down: with a wave of the yellow axe and one granting of the executioner's blade, corpses lie for a thousand leagues and blood flows in torrents, while the cutting and severing punishments go on unbroken in the marketplace. The method of immortality requires cutting off rank odors, halting grain and clearing the bowels; but a ruler boils the fat and slaughters the plump, butchers herds of living things, blends the eight delicacies and hundred flavors, and sets before himself a feast a whole length square, simmering peony sauces and eating fine flavors to satiety. The method of immortality requires spreading love over the eight reaches and looking on other men as on oneself; but a ruler swallows the weak and attacks the benighted, seizes amid disorder and topples the nearly fallen, opens up land and stretches his borders, destroys other men's altars of soil and grain, drives the living together and hurls them into deadly ground—lonely souls in far-off wastes, corpses left bare to rot in the fields, armies of bloody blades beyond the Five Ranges, the heads of Dayuan hanging at the Northern Gate, burying the living and slaughtering the surrendered by the hundred thousand at a stroke, piling the grand mound and sealing in the corpses until it rises to the clouds, exposed bones strewn like weeds, paving the ridges and filling the valleys. Qin Shi Huang made nine houses in ten wish to rebel; Emperor Wu of Han left the whole realm wailing and the registered households halved. If prayers bring benefit, then curses bring harm. If the ghost that bound the grass knew to repay kindness, then sacrifices performed as mere form must summon resentment. All these vexations assault the vitals of such men; men and ghosts together hate them with poison. Those two rulers bore the empty name of loving immortality without the substance of cultivating the Way; even the shallow things they knew they could not carry out, and the deepest secrets they could not hear. Nor did they obtain men of the Way to compound the immortal medicine for them. That they never won long life is nothing to wonder at.

吾徒匹夫，加之罄困，家有長卿壁立之貧，腹懷翳桑絕糧之餒，冬抱戎夷後門之寒，夏有儒仲環堵之映，欲經遠而乏舟車之用，欲有營而無代勞之役，入無綺紈之娛，出無遊觀之歡，甘旨不經乎口，玄黃不過乎目，芬芳不歷乎鼻，八音不關乎耳，百憂攻其心曲，眾難萃其門庭，居世如此，可無戀也。

I am but a commoner, and moreover poor and empty to the last. At home I have the poverty of Sima Changqing, whose rooms were nothing but bare walls; in my belly the hunger of the starving man of Yisang, whose grain ran out; in winter the cold of Rong Yi shut out beyond the gate; in summer the glare of Wang Ruzhong's ring of earthen walls. I wish to travel far but lack the fare for boat and carriage; I wish to build something but have no servant to labor in my place; indoors no pleasure of silk and satin, outdoors no joy of roaming sights; sweetness never passes the mouth, fine colors never meet the eye, fragrance never reaches the nose, the eight sounds never touch the ear; a hundred cares assault the heart's recesses and every hardship gathers at the gate. Dwelling in the world like this, one may well leave it with nothing to regret.

或得要道之訣，或值不群之師，而猶恨恨於老妻弱子，眷眷於狐兔之丘，遲遲以臻殂落，日月不覺衰老，知長生之可得而不能修，患流俗之臭鼠而不能委。何者？愛習之情卒難遣，而絕俗之志未易果也。況彼二帝，四海之主，其所耽玩者，非一條也，其所親倖者，至不少矣。正使之為旬月之齋，數日閒居，猶將不能，況乎內棄婉孌之寵，外捐赫奕之尊，口斷甘餚，心絕所欲，背榮華而獨往，求神仙於幽漠，豈所堪哉？是以歷覽在昔，得仙道者，多貧賤之士，非勢位之人。又欒太所知，實自淺薄，飢渴榮貴，冒乾貨賄，衒虛妄於苟且，忘禍患於無為，區區小子之奸偽，豈足以證天下之無仙哉？昔勾踐式怒璉，戎卒爭蹈火。楚靈愛細腰，國人多餓死。齊桓嗜異味，易牙蒸其子。宋君賞瘠孝，毀歿者比屋。人主所欲，莫有不至。漢武招求方士，寵待過厚，致令斯輩，敢為虛誕耳。欒太若審有道者，安可得煞乎？夫有道者，視爵位如湯鑊，見印綬如縗絰，視金玉如土糞，睹華堂如牢獄。豈當扼腕空言，以僥倖榮華，居丹楹之室，受不訾之賜，帶五利之印，尚公主之貴，耽淪勢利，不知止足，實不得道，斷可知矣。按董仲舒所撰李少君家錄云，少君有不死之方，而家貧無以市其藥物，故出於漢，以假塗求其財，道成而去。又按漢禁中起居注云，少君之將去也，武帝夢與之共登嵩高山，半道，有使者乘龍持節，從雲中下。雲太乙請少君。帝覺，以語左右曰，如我之夢，少君將舍我去矣。數日，而少君稱病死。久之，帝令人發其棺，無屍，唯衣冠在焉。按仙經云，上士舉形升虛，謂之天仙。中士遊於名山，謂之地仙。下士先死後蛻，謂之尸解仙。今少君必尸解者也。近世壺公將費長房去。及道士李意期將兩弟子去，皆託卒，死，家殯埋之。積數年，而長房來歸。又相識人見李意期將兩弟子皆在郫縣。

Some obtain the formula of the essential Way, some meet a teacher beyond compare, yet still they harbor regret over an old wife and weak children, still cling fondly to the mounds where foxes and hares make their homes, delay and delay until death, while days and months imperceptibly wear them old. They know long life can be won yet cannot cultivate it; they loathe the vulgar crowd as a stinking rat yet cannot let it go. Why? The affections bred by love and habit are hard in the end to dismiss, and the resolve to quit the world is not easily carried through. How much more those two emperors, masters of the four seas: what they doted on was not of one kind, and those they kept near in favor were very many. Even to make them keep a fast of ten days or a month, to dwell in quiet for a few days, could not be done—still less to cast away within the sweet loves they cherished, to relinquish without the blazing dignity of the throne, to cut fine dishes from the mouth and cut desires from the heart, to turn their backs on glory and go off alone to seek the divine immortals in the silent wastes—how could they have borne it? Therefore, surveying the past, those who won the way of the immortals were mostly poor and lowly men, not men of power and place. Moreover, what Luan Da knew was truly shallow: he hungered and thirsted for glory and rank, recklessly sought goods and bribes, flaunted falsehood amid shiftiness and forgot calamity in doing nothing—the petty frauds of a paltry fellow. How could they prove that there are no immortals under heaven? In old days Goujian bowed upon the crossbar to salute an angry frog, and his soldiers vied to walk into fire; King Ling of Chu loved slender waists, and many of his people starved to death; Duke Huan of Qi craved strange flavors, and Yi Ya steamed his own son; the lord of Song rewarded those who wasted away in filial mourning, and families were destroyed one after another. What a ruler wants, there is nothing he fails to get. Emperor Wu of Han summoned the masters of methods and favored them too richly, and so merely brought it about that such men dared hollow and preposterous deeds. If Luan Da truly had the Way, how could he have been put to death? A man who has the Way looks on rank as a boiling cauldron, sees seals and ribbons as mourning dress, regards gold and jade as dung, and beholds fine halls as prison pens. How could he wring his hands over empty talk, hoping by luck for glory, dwell in a house of vermilion pillars, receive rewards beyond measure, carry the seal of the General of Five Benefits, take the honor of wedding a princess, drown in power and profit, and never know enough? That he truly had not won the Way may be known with certainty. According to the Household Records of Li Shaojun compiled by Dong Zhongshu, Shaojun possessed the recipe of deathlessness; his family was poor and had no money to buy the ingredients, so he came to the Han seeking goods by this road, intending to leave once the work was done. And according to the palace Diaries of Activity and Repose, when Shaojun was about to depart, Emperor Wu dreamed that together they climbed Mount Songgao; halfway up, a messenger riding a dragon and bearing a tally came down out of the clouds and said that the Grand One invited Shaojun. The emperor awoke and told his attendants: by this dream of mine, Shaojun is going to leave me. Within days Shaojun reported illness and died. Long afterward the emperor had his coffin opened: there was no corpse, only his cap and clothes remained. The immortal classics say that a superior man ascends into the void body and all, and is called a celestial immortal; a middling one roams the famed mountains and is called an earthly immortal; an inferior one first dies and then sloughs off, and is called a corpse-freed immortal. Shaojun must surely have been freed by means of the corpse. In recent times Hu Gong took Fei Changfang away, and the Daoist Li Yiqi took his two disciples away; both made it seem they had died suddenly, and their families buried them. Several years later Changfang returned, and acquaintances saw Li Yiqi together with his two disciples, all in Pi County.

其家各發棺視之，三棺遂有竹杖一枚，以丹書於枚，此皆尸解者也。

(He continues:) Each family then opened its coffin to look, and in the three coffins there was in each a single bamboo staff with writing in cinnabar upon it—these had all been freed by means of the corpse.

昔王莽引典墳以飾其邪，不可謂儒者，皆為篡盜也。相如因鼓琴以竊文君，不可謂雅樂主於淫佚也。噎死者不可譏神農之播谷，燒死者不可怒燧人之鑽火，覆溺者不可怨帝軒之造舟，酗■者不可非杜儀之為酒。豈可以欒太之邪偽，謂仙道之果無乎？是猶見趙高董卓，便謂古無伊周霍光。見商臣冒頓，而云古無伯奇孝己也。又神仙集中有召神劾鬼之法，又有使人見鬼之術。俗人聞之，皆謂虛文。或雲天下無鬼神，或雲有之，亦不可劾召。或雲見鬼者，在男為覡，在女為巫，當須自然，非可學而得。按漢書及太史公記皆雲齊人少翁，武帝以為文成將軍。武帝所幸李夫人死，少翁能令武帝見之如生人狀。又令武帝見灶神，此史籍之明文也。夫方術既令鬼見其形，又令本不見鬼者見鬼，推此而言，其餘亦何所不有也。鬼神數為人間作光怪變異，又經典所載，多鬼神之據，俗人尚不信天下之有神鬼，況乎仙人居高處遠，清濁異流，登遐遂往，不返於世，非得道者，安能見聞。而儒墨之家知此不可以訓，故終不言其有焉。俗人之不信，不亦宜乎？惟有識真者，校練眾方，得其徵驗，審其必有，可獨知之耳，不可強也。故不見鬼神，不見仙人，不可謂世閒無仙人也。人無賢愚，皆知己身之有魂魄，魂魄分去則人病，盡去則人死。故分去則術家有拘錄之法，盡去則禮典有招呼之義，此之為物至近者也。然與人俱生，至乎終身，莫或有自聞見之者也。豈可遂以不聞見之，又云無之乎？若夫輔氏報施之鬼，成湯怒齊之靈，申生交言於狐子，杜伯報恨於周宣，彭生託形於玄豕，如意假貌於蒼狗，灌夫守田鼢，子義掊燕簡，蓐收之降於莘，欒侯之止民家，素姜之說讖緯，孝孫之著文章，神君言於上林，羅陽仕於吳朝，鬼神之事，著於竹帛，昭昭如此，不可勝數。然而蔽者猶謂無之，況長生之事，世所希聞乎！

In old days Wang Mang cited the canons and records to gloss over his wickedness, yet one cannot say all Confucians are usurpers and thieves. Sima Xiangru used his lute-playing to trick Zhuo Wenjun away, yet one cannot say the essence of elegant music lies in wanton license. A man who chokes to death is no grounds to mock Shennong for sowing the hundred grains; a man who burns to death is no grounds to resent Suiren for drilling fire; a man drowned when his boat overturned is no grounds to blame the Yellow Emperor for making boats; a man ruined by drink (the base text has a damaged character here) is no grounds to condemn Du Kang and Yi Di for inventing wine. How then can one, because of Luan Da's wicked fraud, say that the way of the immortals really does not exist? That is like seeing Zhao Gao and Dong Zhuo and declaring that in antiquity there were no Yi Yin, Duke of Zhou, or Huo Guang; or seeing Shangchen and Modun and declaring that in antiquity there were no Boqi or Xiaoji. Moreover, the Shenxian ji contains methods for summoning spirits and impeaching ghosts, and arts for letting men see ghosts. When vulgar men hear of these they call them empty words. Some say there are no ghosts and spirits under heaven; others say there are, but they cannot be impeached and summoned; others say that those who can see ghosts are, among men, called xi and among women, wu, and must be so by nature—it cannot be learned. Now the Hanshu and the Grand Historian's records both tell of Shaoweng of Qi, whom Emperor Wu made the General of Perfect Letters. When Lady Li, whom the emperor favored, died, Shaoweng could make the emperor see her in the likeness of the living, and he also made the emperor see the god of the stove—this is plain text in the histories. If an art can make a ghost show its form, and can make those who could not see ghosts see them, then by inference, what else could fail to exist? Ghosts and spirits have repeatedly wrought eerie portents among men, and the classics carry much evidence of them, yet vulgar men still do not believe ghosts and spirits exist under heaven. Still less the immortals, who dwell high and lodge far, whose clear current does not mingle with the turbid, who mount the distance and go far, never returning to the human world—who but a man who has won the Way could see or hear them? And the Confucian and Mohist schools, knowing these things cannot serve to instruct the age, never spoke of their existence from first to last. That the vulgar do not believe—how could it be otherwise? Only those who discern the true, who test and practice the various arts and obtain verification, judge that the thing must exist; it can be known to oneself alone and cannot be forced upon others. So: not seeing ghosts and spirits, not seeing immortals, does not warrant saying there are no immortals in the world. All men, worthy or foolish, know that they carry hun and po souls; when the souls part from them they fall ill, and when they depart entirely they die. Thus when they part, the masters of method have their arts for holding and recalling; when they depart entirely, the canons of ritual have their duty of calling and summoning—this is a thing of the nearest kind. Yet the souls are born with a man and abide until death, and no one has ever seen or heard them for himself. May one then, because they have never been heard or seen, say they do not exist? As for the ghost at Fushi who repaid kindness, the spirit of Cheng Tang that raged at Qi, Shensheng conversing with Hu Tu, Du Bo avenging himself on King Xuan of Zhou, Peng Sheng lodging his form in a black boar, Ruyi borrowing the guise of a gray dog, Guan Fu dogging Tian Fen, Zhuang Ziyi striking Duke Jian of Yan, Rushou descending at Shen, the spirit-marquis of Luan lodging at a family's home, Sujiang uttering prophecies, Xiaosun composing texts, the god-lord speaking in Shanglin park, Luoyang holding office at the Wu court—matters of ghosts and spirits written on bamboo and silk are plain like this and past all counting. Yet the benighted still say there are none—how much less a matter like long life, of which the world has rarely heard!

望使必信，是令蚊虻負山，與井蟆論海也。俗人未嘗見龍麟鸞鳳，乃謂天下無有此物，以為古人虛設瑞應，欲令人主自勉不息，冀致斯珍也。況於令人之信有仙人乎！

To insist that men must believe is to make mosquitoes and gadflies carry mountains, to discuss the sea with a frog at the bottom of a well. Vulgar men have never seen dragon, unicorn, luan-bird, or phoenix, and so declare that none such exist under heaven, supposing the ancients invented auspicious omens to make the rulers strive without ceasing and hope thereby to summon such rare creatures—how much harder to make men believe in the existence of immortals!

世人以劉向作金不成，便謂索隱行怪，好傳虛無，所撰列仙，皆復妄作。悲夫！此所謂以分寸之瑕，棄盈尺之夜光，以蟻鼻之缺，捐無價之淳鈞，非荊和之遠識，風胡之賞真也。斯朱公所以鬱悒，薛燭所以永嘆矣。夫作金皆在神仙集中，淮南王抄出，以作鴻寶枕中書，雖有其文，然皆秘其要文，必須口訣，臨文指解，然後可為耳。其所用藥，復多改其本名，不可按之便用也。劉向父德治淮南王獄中所得此書，非為師授也。向本不解道術，偶偏見此書，便謂其意盡在紙上，是以作金不成耳。至於撰列仙傳，自刪秦大夫阮倉書中出之，或所親見，然後記之，非妄言也。狂夫童謠，聖人所擇。芻蕘之言，或不可遺。採葑採菲，無以下體，豈可以百慮之一失，而謂經典之不可用，以日月曾蝕之故，而謂懸象非大明哉？外國作水精碗，實是合五種灰以作之。今交廣多有得其法而鑄作之者。今以此語俗人，俗人殊不肯信。乃雲水精本自然之物，玉石之類。況於世間，幸有自然之金，俗人當何信其有可作之理哉？愚人乃不信黃丹及胡粉，是化鉛所作。又不信騾及駏驉，是驢馬所生。雲物各自有種。況乎難知之事哉？夫所見少，則所怪多，世之常也。信哉此言，其事雖天之明，而人處覆甑之下，焉識至言哉？”

Because Liu Xiang failed at making gold, the world says he chased the recondite and practiced the outlandish, loved transmitting things of emptiness and nothing, and that the immortals he compiled were likewise fabrications. How pitiful! This is what is meant by throwing away a foot-wide night-glowing pearl for a speck of flaw, discarding the priceless Chungou sword for a nick the size of an ant's nose—it is not the far sight of a Bian He, not the eye for the genuine of a Fenghu. This is why Master Zhu grieved and Xue Zhu sighed long. The recipes for making gold are all in the Shenxian ji; the Prince of Huainan copied them out and made the Hongbao zhenzhong shu. But though the text exists, its essential passages are concealed: one must have the oral formula, pointing at the text and explaining it, before the thing can be done; and the ingredients used have mostly been renamed and cannot be taken at face value. Liu Xiang's father Liu De obtained the book while conducting the Prince of Huainan's trial—it was not received from a teacher. Xiang did not understand the arts of the Way; happening to see one part of the book, he thought its meaning lay wholly on the page, and so his gold-making failed. As for compiling the Liexian zhuan, it was abridged from the book of the Qin grandee Ruan Cang, or else set down after he had seen the thing himself—it is not wild talk. From the rhymes of madmen even sages still choose; the words of woodcutters may sometimes not be thrown away. In picking feng and fei greens, do not toss the plant aside because the root is coarse. How could one, for one miss in a hundred reckonings, declare the classics unusable, or because sun and moon have suffered eclipse, declare that the images hung in the sky are not greatly bright? Foreign lands make crystal bowls; in fact they are made by fusing five kinds of ash, and nowadays many in Jiao and Guang provinces have obtained that method and cast them. Tell this to vulgar men and they will not believe it at all—crystal, they insist, is a natural thing, of the jade kind. Still less, since the world happens to have natural gold, can vulgar men be made to believe it can be made by art. Fools do not even believe that minium and Hu powder are made by transforming lead, nor that the mule and the juxu are born of donkey and horse—they say each creature has its own kind. How much less things that are hard to know! The less a man has seen, the more he marvels at: this is the constant way of the world. That saying can be trusted: though those matters are as bright as the sky, a man under an overturned pot cannot recognize words of the utmost truth."

或人難曰：“人中之有老彭，猶木中之有松柏，稟之自然，何可學得乎？”抱朴子曰：“夫陶冶造化，莫靈於人。故達其淺者，則能役用萬物，得其深者，則能長生久視。知上藥之延年，故服其藥以求仙。知龜鶴之遐壽，故效其道引以增年。且夫松柏枝葉，與眾木則別。龜鶴體貌，與眾蟲則殊。至於彭老猶是人耳，非異類而壽獨長者，由於得道，非自然也。眾木不能法松柏，諸蟲不能學龜鶴，是以短折耳。人有明哲，能修彭老之道，則可與之同功矣。若謂世無仙人乎，然前哲所記，近將千人，皆有姓字，及有施為本末，非虛言也。若謂彼皆特稟異氣，然其相傳皆有師奉服食，非生知也。若道術不可學得，則變易形貌，吞刀吐火，坐在立亡，興雲起霧，召致蟲蛇，合聚魚鱉，三十六石立化為水，消玉為臺，潰金為漿，入淵不沾，蹴刃不傷，幻化之事，九百有餘，按而行之，無不皆效，何為獨不肯信仙之可得乎！仙道遲成，多所禁忌。自無超世之志，強力之才，不能守之。其或頗好心疑，中道而廢，便謂仙道長生，果不可得耳。仙經曰，服丹守一，與天相畢，還精胎息，延壽無極。此皆至道要言也。民間君子，猶內不負心，外不愧影，上不欺天，下不食言，豈況古之真人，寧當虛造空文，以必不可得之事，誑誤將來，何所索乎！苟無其命，終不肯信，亦安可強令信哉！”

Someone objected: "Among men there are Laozi and Pengzu, just as among trees there are pines and cypresses—they received it from nature, so how could it be learned?" Baopuzi said: "In the molding and firing of creation, nothing is more numinous than man. So those who penetrate its shallows can command the myriad things; those who reach its depths can live long and see far. Knowing that the highest-grade medicines lengthen the years, men take those medicines to seek immortality; knowing that tortoises and cranes live far into the years, they imitate their daoyin exercises to add to their own. Moreover, the limbs and foliage of pine and cypress differ from other trees; the form and look of tortoise and crane differ from other creatures. But Pengzu and Laozi are still men—no separate kind that alone lives long. It is because they obtained the Way, not because they were naturally so. Other trees cannot imitate pine and cypress, and other creatures cannot learn from tortoise and crane—hence they die early. Man, possessing clear intelligence, can cultivate the way of Peng and Lao and so share their achievement. If you say there are no immortals in the world, yet what former sages recorded comes to nearly a thousand men, all with surnames and given names and the course of their deeds from beginning to end—not empty words. If you say they were all specially endowed with an extraordinary qi, yet by tradition each had a teacher he served and preparations he took—they did not know it from birth. If you say the arts of the Way cannot be learned, then what of changing one's shape and features, swallowing blades and breathing fire, being present while seated and gone while standing, raising clouds and brewing mist, summoning worms and snakes, gathering fish and turtles, instantly melting the thirty-six minerals to water, dissolving jade into syrup, breaking gold down to slurry, entering the depths without getting wet, treading on blades without being cut—the nine hundred and more feats of transformation, which performed as directed never fail? Why alone refuse to believe that immortality can be won? The way of the immortals ripens slowly and has many taboos; without a will beyond the world's and the strength of great ability, one cannot hold to it. Some harbor considerable doubt and give up halfway, then declare that the way of long life truly cannot be won. The immortal classics say: take the cinnabar and guard the One, and you come to an end only when heaven does; return the essence and breathe like the fetus, and your lengthened years have no limit. These are the essential words of the utmost Way. Even gentlemen among the common folk inwardly do not betray their hearts, outwardly are not ashamed before their own shadows, above do not deceive heaven, and below do not break their word—how much less the true men of antiquity! Would they have fabricated empty writings to mislead posterity with things utterly unattainable—and what would they have sought by it? If a man lacks that destiny, in the end he will not be willing to believe—how then could he be forced to believe?"

或難曰：“龜鶴長壽，蓋世閒之空言耳，誰與二物終始相隨而得知之也。”抱朴子曰：“苟得其要，則八極之外，如在指掌，百代之遠，有若同時，不必在乎庭宇之左右，俟乎瞻視之所及，然後知之也。玉策記曰，千歲之龜，五色具焉，其額上兩骨起似角，解人之言，浮於蓮葉之上，或在叢蓍之下，其上時有白雲蟠蛇。千歲之鶴，隨時而鳴，能登於木，其未千載者，終不集於樹上也，色純白而腦盡成丹。如此則見，便可知也。然物之老者多智，率皆深藏邃處，故人少有見之耳。按玉策記及昌宇經，不但此二物之壽也。雲千歲松樹，四邊披越，上杪不長，望而視之，有如偃蓋，其中有物，或如青牛，或如青羊，或如青犬，或如青人，皆壽萬歲。又云，蛇有無窮之壽，獮猴壽八百歲變為猿，猿壽五百歲變為玃。玃壽千歲。蟾蜍壽三千歲，騏驎壽二千歲。騰黃之馬，吉光之獸，皆壽三千歲。千歲之鳥，萬歲之禽，皆人面而鳥身，壽亦如其名。虎及鹿兔，皆壽千歲，壽滿五百歲者，其毛色白。熊壽五百歲者，則能變化。狐狸豺狼，皆壽八百歲。滿五百歲，則善變為人形。鼠壽三百歲，滿百歲則色白，善憑人而卜，名曰仲，能知一年中吉凶及千里外事。如此比例，不可具載。但博識者觸物能名，洽聞者理無所惑耳。何必常與龜鶴周旋，乃可知乎？苟不識物，則園中草木，田池禽獸，猶多不知，況乎巨異者哉？史記龜策傳云：江淮閒居人為兒時，以龜枝床，至後老死，家人移床，而龜故生。此亦不減五六十歲也，不飲不食，如此之久而不死，其與凡物不同亦遠矣，亦復何疑於千歲哉？仙經象龜之息，豈不有以乎？

Someone objected: 'The long life of tortoises and cranes is probably just an idle saying of the world — who has ever accompanied either of these creatures from beginning to end and so come to know it?' Baopuzi said: 'Once one holds the essentials, what lies beyond the eight limits is as though in the palm of one's hand, and a hundred generations away is as though the same moment; one need not keep to the courtyard and wait for it to come within view before knowing it. The Jade Register (Yuce Ji) says that a tortoise of a thousand years has all five colours complete, two bones on its brow rise up like horns, it understands human speech, floats upon lotus leaves or rests beneath thickets of yarrow, and above it white clouds are often coiling like a snake. A crane of a thousand years calls at the proper season and can climb into trees — those not yet a thousand years old never gather in trees; its colour is pure white and its brain has all turned cinnabar-red. Seen in this way, one can know. But creatures grown old are mostly wise and keep hidden deep away, so men seldom see them. According to the Jade Register and the Changyu Classic, these two are not the only long-lived beings. It says that a pine of a thousand years spreads its branches on all sides, its tip ceasing to grow, and seen afar resembles a resting carriage-canopy; within it are creatures, some like blue oxen, some like blue sheep, some like blue dogs, some like blue men, all living ten thousand years. It also says that snakes have a life without limit; a macaque at eight hundred years becomes an ape, an ape at five hundred becomes a jue (a great ape), and a jue lives a thousand years. The toad lives three thousand years, the qilin two thousand. The Tenghuang horse and the Jiguang beast each live three thousand years. The thousand-year birds and ten-thousand-year fowl all have human faces and bird bodies, their spans being as their names declare. Tigers, deer and hares each live a thousand years; at a full five hundred their hair turns white. Bears of five hundred years can then transform. Foxes, jackals and wolves each live eight hundred years; at a full five hundred they become skilled at taking human shape. Rats live three hundred years; at a full hundred they turn white, are skilled at possessing people to give oracles — called Zhong — and can know the fortune and misfortune of a whole year and matters a thousand li away. Categories like these cannot be recorded one by one. A man of broad knowledge simply names each thing he meets, and a man of wide experience has no doubts in principle. Why must one keep constant company with tortoises and cranes to know it? If one does not know things, then of the grasses and trees in a garden and the birds and beasts of field and pond there is still much unknown — how much more of the vast and strange! The "Account of Tortoise and Yarrow" in the Records of the Historian says that a man between the Yangzi and the Huai, as a child, propped his bed with a tortoise; when he later died of old age, the family moved the bed and the tortoise was still alive. That cannot have been less than fifty or sixty years; neither drinking nor eating and enduring so long without dying, it was already far enough removed from common creatures — why then doubt a thousand years? That the classics of immortals take their pattern from the tortoise's breathing is hardly without cause.'

故太丘長潁川陳仲弓，篤論士也，撰異聞記云，其郡人張廣定者，遭亂常避地，有一女年四歲，不能步涉，又不可擔負，計棄之固當餓死，不欲令其骸骨之露，村口有古大冢，上巔先有穿穴，乃以器盛縋之，下此女於冢中，以數月許乾飯及水漿與之而捨去。候世平定，其間三年，廣定乃得還鄉里，欲收冢中所棄女骨，更殯埋之。廣定往視，女故坐冢中，見其父母，猶識之甚喜。而父母猶初恐其鬼也，父下入就之，乃知其不死。問之從何得食，女言糧初盡時甚飢，見冢角有一物，伸頸吞氣，試效之，轉不復飢，日月為之，以至於今。父母去時所留衣被，自在冢中，不行往來，衣服不敗，故不寒凍。廣定乃索女所言物，乃是一大龜耳。女出食谷，初小腹痛嘔逆，久許乃習，此又足以知龜有不死之法，及為道者效之，可與龜同年之驗也。史遷與仲弓，皆非妄說者也。天下之蟲鳥多矣，而古人獨舉斯二物者，明其獨有異於眾故也，睹一隅則可以悟之矣。”

(Baopuzi continued:) So Chen Zhonggong of Yingchuan, Grand Chief of Taiqiu — a scholar steadfast in judgment — wrote in his Record of Strange Matters (Yiwen Ji) that in his commandery there was a man named Zhang Guangding who, amid the troubles, often had to flee for refuge. He had a daughter of four who could neither walk far nor be carried; he reckoned that to abandon her meant she would surely starve, yet he did not want her bones left exposed. At the village entrance stood an ancient tomb whose top had an opening bored through it, so he set her in a vessel and lowered her down, placing the girl inside the tomb, and gave her several months' dried rice and water, then left her and went away. When the world had settled again — three years had passed in between — Guangding was at last able to return home, meaning to gather the bones of the girl left in the tomb and bury them elsewhere. When he looked, the girl was still sitting in the tomb; seeing her parents, she even recognised them and was overjoyed. The parents at first feared she was a ghost; the father went down close to her and only then knew she was not dead. Asked where she had obtained food, the girl said that when the grain had just run out she was very hungry; she saw at the corner of the tomb a creature stretching its neck and swallowing breath, tried to imitate it, and gradually was no longer hungry; she had done so day after day until now. The clothing and bedding her parents had left when they went away — she stayed in the tomb without walking to and fro, so her clothes had not worn out, and she suffered no cold or frost. Guangding looked for the creature of which the girl spoke: it turned out to be a great tortoise. When the girl came out and ate grain, at first her belly ached and she retched; only after a long while did she grow used to it. This again suffices to know that the tortoise has a method of not dying, and is a proof that one who practises the Way, by imitating it, can live the same years as the tortoise. Sima Qian and Chen Zhonggong were not men given to wild talk. The insects and birds under heaven are legion; that the ancients singled out these two creatures shows that they alone stand marked out from the rest — see one corner and one may infer the whole.'

或難曰：“龜能土蟄，鶴能天飛，使人為須臾之蟄，有頃刻之飛，猶尚不能，其壽安可學乎？”抱朴子答曰：“蟲之能蟄者多矣，鳥之能飛者饒矣，而獨舉龜鶴有長生之壽者，其所以不死者，不由蟄與飛也。是以真人但令學其道引以延年，法其食氣以絕谷，不學其土蟄與天飛也。夫得道者，上能竦身於雲霄，下能潛泳於川海。是以蕭史偕翔鳳以凌虛，琴高乘朱鯉於深淵，斯其驗也。何但須臾之蟄，須刻之飛而已乎！龍蛇蛟螭，狙猥鼉□，皆能竟冬不食，不食之時，乃肥於食時也。莫得其法。且夫一致之善者，物多勝於人，不獨龜鶴也。故太昊師蜘蛛而結網，金天據九鳸以正時，帝軒俟鳳鳴以調律，唐堯觀蓂莢以知月，歸終知往，乾鵲知來，魚伯識水旱之氣，蜉蝣曉潛泉之地，白狼知殷家之興，鸑鷟見周家之盛，龜鶴偏解導養，不足怪也。且仙經長生之道，有數百事，但有遲速煩要耳，不必皆法龜鶴也。上士用思遐邈，自然玄暢，難以愚俗之近情，而推神仙之遠旨。”

Someone objected: 'The tortoise can hide away in the earth, the crane can fly in the sky; ask a man to hide for a moment or to fly for an instant and he cannot even do that — how then can their long life be learned?' Baopuzi answered: 'Insects that can hibernate are many and birds that can fly are many, yet tortoise and crane alone are cited for the long life in which they do not die — and the reason they do not die is not the hiding or the flying. So the Perfected have us learn their daoyin stretching-and-breathing to lengthen our years and imitate their swallowing of qi to give up grain; they do not have us learn their earthen hiding or their flight in the sky. One who has attained the Way can rear himself up to the clouds above or dive and swim the rivers and seas below. Thus Xiao Shi mounted the void together with his soaring phoenix and Qin Gao rode a red carp into the deep — these are the attestations. How should it stop at a moment's hiding or an instant's flight? Dragons, snakes, jiao and chi flood-dragons, apes, and alligators (one character damaged in the base text) can all go without food the whole winter through, and while not eating they are actually fatter than when they eat — yet no one has obtained that method of theirs. Moreover each creature has one special gift, and there are many ways in which the animals surpass man — not tortoise and crane alone. So Taihao took the spider for his teacher and knotted nets; the Jintian clan relied on the nine hu birds to set the seasons in order; the Yellow Emperor waited upon the phoenix's song to tune the pitch-pipes; Tang Yao watched the mingjia calendar-plant to know the months; Guizhong knows what has gone and the Qian magpie knows what is coming; the Fish Elder reads the qi of flood and drought and the mayfly knows the ground of hidden springs; the White Wolf foreknew that the house of Yin would rise and the yuezhuo bird's appearing marked the greatness of the house of Zhou. That tortoise and crane happen to understand the nurture that leads life along is no cause for wonder. Besides, the Way of long life in the classics of immortals comprises several hundred methods — only some slower and some quicker, some laborious and some essential; one need not in all things imitate tortoise and crane. The highest scholar sets his thoughts far and distant and is by nature in mysterious accord; one cannot use the shallow feelings of the foolish and vulgar to measure the far-reaching intent of gods and immortals.'

或曰，“我等不知今人長生之理，古人何獨知之？”“此蓋愚闇之局談，非達者之用懷也。夫占天文之玄道，步七政之盈縮，論凌犯於既往，審崇替於將來，仰望雲物之徵祥，俯定卦兆之休咎，運三棋以定行軍之興亡，推九符而得禍福之分野，乘除一算，以究鬼神之情狀，錯綜六情，而處無端之善否。其根元可考也，形理可求也，而庸才近器，猶不能開學之奧治，至於樸素，徒銳思於糟粕，不能窮測其精微也。夫鑿枘之粗伎，而輪扁有不傳之妙；掇蜩之薄術，而亻區僂有入神之巧，在乎其人，由於至精也。況於神仙之道，旨意深遠，求其根莖，良未易也。松喬之徒，雖得其效，未必測其所以然也，況凡人哉？其事可學，故古人記而垂之，以傳識者耳。若心解意得，則可信而修之，其猜疑在胸，皆自其命，不當詰古人何以獨曉此，而我何以獨不知之意耶？吾今知仙之可得也，吾能休糧不食也，吾保流珠之可飛也，黃白之可求也，若責吾求其本理，則亦實復不知矣。世人若以思所能得謂之有，所不能及則謂之無，則天下之事亦鮮矣。故老子有言，以狸頭之治鼠漏，以啄木之護齲齒，此亦可以類求者也。若蟹之化漆，麻之壞酒，此不可以理推者也。萬殊紛然，何可以意極哉？設令抱危篤之疾，須良藥之救，而不肯即服，須知神農岐伯所以用此草治此病本意之所由，則未免於愚也。”

Someone said: 'We do not know the principle by which men of today may live long — why did the ancients alone know it?' Baopuzi said: 'This is, I suppose, the cramped talk of the dull and benighted, not the outlook of one who comprehends. To divine the mysterious courses of the heavens; to compute the waxing and waning of the Seven Governors; to discuss the transits and encroachments of the past; to examine the rise and fall that is to come; to look up and read the auspices of cloud-forms; to look down and fix the good and ill of hexagram and crack; to work the three divining tokens and decide whether a marching army will stand or fall; to deduce from the nine tallies the allotment of fortune and misfortune; by multiplication, division and the reckoning of units to plumb the true state of ghosts and spirits; to interweave the Six Feelings and pass judgment on good or bad that has no thread to follow — the root of all this can be investigated and its pattern sought, yet mediocre talents and narrow capacities cannot even open the esoteric order of these arts; upon mere dregs they sharpen their thoughts, unable to plumb the subtle essence. Chisel and tenon is a crude craft, yet Wheelwright Bian held in it a subtlety that could not be passed on; catching cicadas is a shallow skill, yet the hunchback had in it a knack that entered the divine (the base text's graph here is damaged; read "the hunchback"). It lay in that man, through utmost refinement. How much more so the Way of gods and immortals, whose purport is profound and far-reaching — to seek its root and stem is truly not easy. Even the likes of Master Red Pine and Wang Qiao, though they obtained the effects, did not necessarily fathom why it is so — how much less ordinary men? That the matter can be learned is why the ancients wrote it down and handed it on: to transmit it to those who would understand. If the heart is opened and the meaning grasped, one may believe it and cultivate it; when doubt lodges in the breast, that comes of each man's own allotted fate, and one should not keep demanding why the ancients alone understood this while I alone do not. I now know that immortality can be attained and I can abstain from grain and not eat; I vouch that 'flowing pearls' (mercury) can be made to ascend in flight and that the Yellow-and-White (gold and silver) can be obtained — yet if you press me for its underlying principle, that I truly do not yet know either. If the men of this world call 'existent' only what their thinking can reach and 'nonexistent' whatever it cannot, then there would be very few things under heaven. So Laozi had a saying: use a wildcat's head to cure the rat-sore and the woodpecker to guard against tooth-decay — these too can be arrived at by reasoning along the kind. But that crab makes lacquer spoil and hemp makes wine go bad cannot be deduced by reason. The myriad differences are tangled together — how could they be exhausted by the mind's intent? Suppose a man bears a grave and urgent illness for which a good medicine is needed to save him, yet refuses to take it at once, insisting that he must first know whence Shennong and Qibo drew their original intent in using this herb for this disease — he would hardly escape folly.'

或曰：“生死有命，修短素定，非彼藥物，所能損益。夫指既斬而連之，不可續也；血既灑而吞之，無所益也。豈況服彼異類之松柏，以延短促之年命，甚不然也。”抱朴子曰：“若夫此論，必須同類，乃能為益，然則既斬之指，已灑之血，本自一體，非為殊族，何以既斬之而不可續，已灑之而不中服乎！餘數見人以蛇銜膏連已斬之指，桑豆易雞鴨之足，異物之益，不可誣也。若子言不恃他物，則宜搗肉冶骨，以為金瘡之藥，煎皮熬發，以治禿鬢之疾耶？夫水土不與百卉同體，而百卉仰之以植焉。五穀非生人之類，而生人須之以為命焉。脂非火種，水非魚屬，然脂竭則火滅，水竭則魚死，伐木而寄生枯，芟草而兔絲萎，川蟹不歸而蛣敗，桑樹見斷而蠹殄，觸類而長之，斯可悟矣。金玉在九竅，則死人為之不朽。鹽滷沾於肌髓，則脯臘為之不爛，況於以宜身益命之物，納之於己，何怪其令人長生乎？”

Someone said: 'Life and death are fated; long or short, they are fixed from the start — not something those drugs can add to or subtract from. A finger already cut off and set back cannot be joined again; blood already spilled and swallowed back brings no benefit. How much less can taking pines and cypresses of another kind extend a brief span of years — that is hardly the way of things.' Baopuzi said: 'If we follow this line of talk, that only the same kind can bring benefit, then a finger already severed and blood already spilled are originally of one body with oneself, not another race — why should the severed be impossible to rejoin and the spilled unfit to take? I have repeatedly seen men reattach a severed finger with shexian ("snake-held") salve, and replace the feet of chickens and ducks with mulberry-and-bean grafts: the benefit of foreign things cannot be denied. If by your account we may not rely on other things, then should we pound flesh and smelt bone to make a medicine for blade-wounds, and decoct skin and boil hair to treat a balding temple? Water and earth are not of one body with the hundred plants, yet the hundred plants rely on them to be planted. The five grains are not of the kind of living men, yet living men need them as their life. Grease is no kin of fire and water no kin of fish, yet when grease runs dry the fire goes out and when water fails the fish dies; fell the tree and its parasitic growths wither, cut the grass and the dodder wilts; when the river crab does not come back its companion jie is ruined, and when the mulberry is cut through its borers die. Push outward along these kinds and the point may be grasped. Gold and jade placed in the nine apertures keep a dead man from decay; brine touching flesh and marrow keeps dried meat from rotting. How much more, then, when things suited to the body and beneficial to life are taken into one's own body — what wonder that they make a man long-lived?'

或難曰：“神仙方書，似是而非，將必好事者妄所造作，未必出黃老之手，經松喬之目也。”抱朴子曰：“若如雅論，宜不驗也，今試其小者，莫不效焉。餘數見人以方諸求水於夕月，陽燧引火於朝日，隱形以淪於無象，易貌以成於異物，結巾投地而兔走，針綴丹帶而蛇行，瓜果結實於須臾，龍魚瀺灂於盤盂，皆如說焉。按漢書欒太初見武帝，試令鬥棋，棋自相觸。而後漢書又載魏尚能坐在立亡，張楷能興雲起霧，皆良史所記，信而有徵，而此術事，皆在神仙之部，其非妄作可知矣。小既有驗，則長生之道，何獨不然乎！”

Someone objected: 'The recipe-books of gods and immortals seem right yet are wrong; they must surely have been fabricated by meddlesome men — they cannot have come from the hands of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi or passed before the eyes of Master Red Pine and Wang Qiao.' Baopuzi said: 'On such elevated reasoning they ought to have no effect, yet test them in small matters and none fails to work. I have repeatedly seen men draw down water with the fangzhu mirror beneath the evening moon and draw down fire with the yangsui mirror beneath the morning sun; become invisible and sink into the realm without shape; change their features and turn into alien creatures; knot a towel and cast it to the ground so that a hare bounds away; fasten a needle upon a vermilion sash so that a snake departs; melons and fruits ripen within a moment; dragons and fish sink and rise in a basin — all exactly as the books say. In the Book of Han, when Luan Tai first saw Emperor Wu he tried setting chess pieces to fight, and the pieces struck one another of themselves; the Book of the Later Han records that Wei Shang could be present while seated and vanish upon standing, and that Zhang Kai could raise clouds and mists. These were set down by good historians, trustworthy and attested, and such arts all belong to the department of gods and immortals — that they were no fabrication may thereby be known. If the small already answers to the test, why should the Way of long life alone be otherwise?'

或曰：“審其神仙可以學致，翻然凌霄，背俗棄世，烝嘗之禮，莫之修奉，先鬼有知，其不餓乎！”抱朴子曰：“蓋聞身體不傷，謂之終孝，況得仙道，長生久視，天地相畢，過於受全歸完，不亦遠乎？果能登虛躡景，雲輿霓蓋，餐朝霞之沆瀣，吸玄黃之醇精，飲則玉醴金漿，食則翠芝朱英，居則瑤堂瑰室，行則逍遙太清。先鬼有知，將蒙我榮，或可以翼亮五帝，或可以監御百靈，位可以不求而自致，膳可以咀茹華璚，勢可以總攝羅酆，威可以叱吒梁成，誠如其道，罔識其妙，亦無餓之者。得道之高，莫過伯陽。伯陽有子名宗，仕魏為將軍，有功封於段幹。然則今之學仙者，自可皆有子弟，以承祭祀，祭祀之事，何緣便絕！”

Someone said: 'If immortality can truly be attained by study, and a man suddenly soars up beyond the clouds, turning his back on custom and abandoning the world, then the zheng and chang offerings will have no one to perform them — and if the ghosts of his forebears have awareness, will they not go hungry?' Baopuzi said: 'I have heard that keeping the body unharmed is called completing one's filial duty; how much more one who gains the Way of immortals, lives long and sees far, ending only when heaven and earth themselves end — is this not far beyond merely receiving one's body whole and returning it whole? If he can truly mount the empty void and tread upon light and shadow, have clouds for chariots and rainbows for canopies, sup on the bright mists of dawn and breathe in the pure essence of the Dark and Yellow, drink jade nectar and golden liquor, eat green zhi-mushrooms and vermilion blossoms, dwell in agate halls and jeweled chambers, and roam carefree through the Grand Clarity — then if the ghosts of his forebears have awareness, they will share in his glory. He may lend winged aid to the Five Thearchs or superintend the hundred spirits; office would come to him unsought; his table would hold fine and splendid jade to chew; his power could govern all Luofeng and his awesomeness cow Liangcheng with a shout. If one truly follows that Way, then even without comprehending its subtlety there would be none left hungry. In the height of attaining the Way none surpasses Boyang (Laozi); yet Boyang had a son named Zong who served as a general of Wei and was enfeoffed at Duangan for his merit. So those who study immortality today can likewise have sons and brothers to carry on the sacrifices — by what reckoning should the matter of sacrifice ever be cut off?'

或曰：“得道之士，呼吸之術既備，服食之要又該，掩耳而聞千里，閉目而見將來，或委華駟而轡蛟龍，或棄神州而宅蓬瀛，或遲迴於流俗，逍遙於人間，不便絕跡以造玄虛，其所尚則同，其逝止或異，何也？”抱朴子答曰：“聞之先師云，仙人或昇天，或住地，要於俱長生，去留各從其所好耳。又服還丹金液之法，若且欲留在世間者，但服半劑而錄其半。若後求昇天，便盡服之。不死之事已定，無復奄忽之慮。正復且遊地上，或入名山，亦何所復憂乎？彭祖言，天上多尊官大神，新仙者位卑，所奉事者非一，但更勞苦，故不足役役於登天，而止人間八百餘年也。又云，古之得仙者，或身生羽翼，變化飛行，失人之本，更受異形，有似雀之為蛤，雉之為蜃，非人道也。人道當食甘旨，服輕暖，通陰陽，處官秩，耳目聰明，骨節堅強，顏色悅懌，老而不衰，延年久視，出處任意，寒溫風溼不能傷，鬼神眾精不能犯，五兵百毒不能中，憂喜譭譽不為累，乃為貴耳。若委棄妻子，獨處山澤，邈然斷絕人理，塊然與木石為鄰，不足多也。昔安期先生龍眉寧公修羊公陰長生，皆服金液半劑者也。其止世間，或近千年，然後去耳。篤而論之，求長生者，正惜今日之所欲耳，本不汲汲於升虛，以飛騰為勝於地上也。若幸可止家而不死者，亦何必求於速登天乎？若得仙無復住理者，復一事耳。彭祖之言，為附人情者也。”

Someone said: 'A scholar who has attained the Way — the arts of breath fully possessed and the essentials of ingestion all complete, who covering his ears can hear a thousand li and closing his eyes can see what is to come — may lay down his splendid team and go yoke a flood-dragon, or forsake the Divine Continent and dwell on Penglai and Yingzhou; or he lingers amid the common current and roams free in the world of men, not at once cutting off his tracks for the mysterious void. What they honour is the same, yet some go and some stay — why is that?' Baopuzi answered: 'I have heard my late master say that among immortals some ascend to heaven and some dwell on earth; the essential point is that all live forever — staying or going follows each one's own liking. Moreover, in the method of taking the Returned Elixir and Golden Liquor, if for the time being one wishes to remain in the world one takes only half the dose and keeps the other half; should one later seek to ascend to heaven, one swallows it all. Once the matter of not dying is settled there is no more fear of a sudden end; even if one roams the earth a while or enters some famed mountain, what more is there to worry over? Pengzu said that in heaven there are many honoured officials and great spirits, and a newly arrived immortal of low rank must serve not one but several — the toil is only greater; so it is not worth scrambling to climb the sky, and he remained among men for more than eight hundred years. It is also said that among those of old who became immortals, some grew feathers and wings upon their bodies, transformed and flew, losing their human root and taking on an alien shape — like a sparrow turning into a clam or a pheasant into an oyster — which is not the human way. The human way is to eat what is sweet and fine, wear what is light and warm, join yin and yang, hold office and rank, keep ear and eye keen and joints strong, the countenance glad, growing old yet not declining, lengthening one's years and seeing far, going out or staying in at will; cold, heat, wind and damp cannot injure; ghosts, spirits and the swarming essences cannot trespass; the five weapons and hundred poisons cannot strike; worry, joy, slander and praise cannot become a burden — this is what is precious. To cast off wife and children, dwell alone among mountains and marshes, cut off human bonds far away and sit lumpen beside trees and stones is nothing to praise. In former times Master Anqi, Dragon-Browed Lord Ning, Lord Xiuyang and Yin Changsheng were all men who took a half dose of the Golden Liquor; they lingered in the world — some for close to a thousand years — and only afterward departed. To speak plainly, those who seek long life are simply cherishing what they desire today; at heart they are not in a fever to mount the void, nor do they hold soaring aloft as better than life on earth. If by fortune one may stay at home and not die, what need is there to beg for a quick ascent to heaven? If having become an immortal there were truly no way to remain, that would be another matter. Pengzu's words were spoken to accord with human feeling.'

或問曰：“為道者當先立功德，審然否？”抱朴子答曰：“有之。按玉鈐經中篇云，立功為上，除過次之。為道者以救人危使免禍，護人疾病，令不枉死，為上功也。欲求仙者，要當以忠孝和順仁信為本。若德行不修，而但務方術，皆不得長生也。行惡事大者，司命奪紀，小過奪算，隨所犯輕重，故所奪有多少也。凡人之受命得壽，自有本數，數本多者，則紀算難盡而遲死，若所稟本少，而所犯者多，則紀算速盡而早死。又云，人慾地仙，當立三百善；欲天仙，立千二百善。若有千一百九十九善，而忽復中行一惡，則盡失前善，乃當復更起善數耳。故善不在大，惡不在小也。雖不作惡事，而口及所行之事，及責求佈施之報，便復失此一事之善，但不盡失耳。又云，積善事未滿，雖服仙藥，亦無益也。若不服仙藥，並行好事，雖未便得仙，亦可無卒死之禍矣。吾更疑彭祖之輩，善功未足，故不能昇天耳。”

Someone asked: 'Is it true that one who pursues the Way must first establish merit and virtue?' Baopuzi answered: 'There is indeed such a teaching. The middle chapter of the Yuqian Jing (Classic of the Jade Handle) says that establishing merit ranks highest, and removing transgressions comes next. For one who pursues the Way, the highest merit is to rescue men in peril, free them from calamity, protect them in illness, and keep them from wrongful death. One who wishes to seek immortality must take loyalty, filial piety, harmony, obedience, benevolence and good faith as the root. If virtue is not cultivated and one busies oneself only with recipes and arts, none can attain long life. For a great wrong the Arbiter of Fates strikes off a ji; for a small fault a suan — according to the gravity of the offence, so that what is docked is more or less. Every man receives an allotted span with a base number of its own: where the number is originally large, the ji and suan are hard to exhaust and death comes late; where the endowment is originally small and the offences many, the count runs out quickly and death comes early. It is further said that one who wishes to become an earth-immortal must establish three hundred good deeds, and one who wishes to become a heaven-immortal twelve hundred. If at eleven hundred and ninety-nine good deeds one suddenly commits a single evil amid them, all the former good is lost and the count of good deeds must begin again. So no good deed is too small to count and no evil too slight to erase it. Though one does no evil, if the mouth speaks of what one has done, or one demands recompense for a gift bestowed, the merit of that deed is again lost — only not wholly lost. It is also said that while the accumulated good deeds are not yet complete, taking the medicine of immortals brings no benefit; yet if one does not take the medicine but does good throughout, though one may not straightway gain immortality one can still be free of the calamity of a sudden death. I privately suspect that Pengzu and his like simply had not yet made their store of good works sufficient, and so could not ascend to heaven.'