Anthology of Central Harmony中和集

Also known as

Qing'an Yingchanzi Zhonghe Ji (Qing'an Yingchanzi's [Li Daochun's] Anthology of Central Harmony)

Author / transmission

Li Daochun

Period

Yuan · Compiled by Li Daochun (active in the late 13th century), edited by his disciple Cai Zhiyi, completed around the Zhiyuan to Dade reigns of the Yuan (around 1290).

Canon division

Dongzhen Section, Fangfa Category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Dongzhen Section, Methods category.

Category

Alchemical Texts

Fascicles

Six fascicles

Synopsis

The Zhonghe ji (Anthology of Central Harmony) is a collection of treatises, poems and prose by Li Daochun (styled Qing'an, also Yingchanzi), an internal-alchemy master of the early Yuan, and is the representative work of what later generations called the Central Lineage (Zhongpai) of alchemy, fusing the Southern and Northern Lineages. Li Daochun was a second-generation disciple of Bai Yuchan and was also influenced by Quanzhen; he held that the Center (zhong) is the mysterious pass, that 'attaining centrality and harmony sets heaven and earth in their places and nurtures the ten thousand things,' and took 'guarding the center' as the essential instruction of alchemical practice, advocating the dual cultivation of nature and life with priority given to nature. He divided alchemical practice into the highest vehicle of sudden enlightenment and complete penetration and the upper, middle and lower vehicles of gradual cultivation, and composed the Taiji tu song and the Shijinshi, explaining alchemy through the principles of the Three Teachings. His discussion of the single aperture of the mysterious pass — that it lies not at any particular place in the body but in the Center — is expressed with particular incisiveness. Li Daochun also wrote the Daode huiyuan, the Qingjing jing zhu, and the Zhouyi shangzhan.

Key Ideas

• The Center is the mysterious pass: cultivating the elixir through attaining centrality and harmony
• Fusing the Southern and Northern Lineages; dual cultivation of nature and life
• The highest vehicle distinguished from the three gradual vehicles
• Unity of the Three Teachings; the Taiji as the elixir itself

Structure

Six juan: juan 1 diagrams and explanations, juan 2–3 discursive essays, juan 4 questions and answers, juan 5–6 poems and lyrics.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Daozang jiyao edition

Translations

• Partial English translation by Thomas Cleary (The Book of Balance and Harmony, 1989)

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikipedia: Li Daochun
• CTEXT search

Related scriptures

Related figures