Essentials for Cultivating Longevity修龄要旨

Also known as

Essential Directions for Cultivating Longevity

Author / transmission

Leng Qian (Ming)

Period

Ming · Attributed to Leng Qian of the Ming (styled Longyangzi, who served as Assistant Director of Music at the Court of Imperial Sacrifices in the early Hongwu era), composed around the early Ming; one scroll.

Canon division

Outside the Canon (Ming-dynasty text on nourishing life)

Collected in

Outside the Canon (included in Daoist Texts outside the Canon and the Yangsheng Congshu)

Category

Medicine and Nourishing Life

Fascicles

One Fascicle (Juan)

Synopsis

Essentials for Cultivating Longevity (Xiuling yaozhi), in one scroll, by Leng Qian of the Ming, is one of the most concise and practical handbooks of health preservation from the Ming dynasty. The work is divided into sections on regulation through the four seasons, regulation of daily life, the Six-Sound Formula for extending life, songs for warding off illness through the four seasons, the Sixteen-Character Wondrous Formula for longevity, the Sixteen-Section Brocade, the Eight-Section Brocade daoyin method, and daoyin verse formulas, condensing the methods of health preservation accumulated since the Song and Yuan into verse formulas and diagrams easy to memorize and recite. Its record of the "Six-Sound Formula" (xu for the liver, he for the heart, hu for the spleen, si for the lungs, chui for the kidneys, and xi for the Triple Burner) and of the "Sixteen-Section Brocade" and "Eight-Section Brocade" is an important textual basis for these two most widely transmitted systems of exercise as they stood in the Ming; the "Sixteen-Character Wondrous Formula" ("with each inhalation, lift; qi upon qi returns to the navel; with each lift, swallow; water and fire meet") sums up in the barest language the essentials of internal cultivation through swallowing saliva, lifting the perineum, and uniting water and fire. Written in plain, easily practicable language, the work was repeatedly transcribed from the Ming and Qing onward into texts such as the Eight Discourses on Nurturing Life, the Shoushi Baoyuan, and the Wanshou Xianshu, and it has had a profound influence on the transmission of modern qigong and traditional fitness practice.

Key Ideas

• Concise and practical Ming-dynasty health-preservation handbook
• Six-Sound Formula for extending life and songs for warding off illness through the four seasons
• Sixteen-Section Brocade and Eight-Section Brocade daoyin
• Sixteen-Character Wondrous Formula for longevity
• Profound influence on the transmission of modern qigong

Structure

One scroll, divided into sections on regulation through the four seasons, daily life, the Six-Sound Formula, and Brocade daoyin, largely composed in verse formulas.

Editions

• Ming printed edition
• Transcribed in the Eight Discourses on Nurturing Life and other works
• Photolithographic edition in Daoist Texts outside the Canon

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT Search
• Wikipedia: Baduanjin

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