Huangdi Yinfu Jing Jie — Jian Changchen's Commentary

The Classic of the Hidden Accordance (Yinfu jing) is among the most compressed and most argued-over scriptures in the Daoist Canon: a text of only a few hundred characters, traditionally attributed to the Yellow Emperor and said to have been transmitted to him by the Mysterious Woman, read at various times as cosmology, statecraft, military strategy, and the inner art of long life. This is not that scripture itself but a commentary on it — the Yellow Emperor's Classic of the Hidden Accordance, Explained (黃帝陰符經解), composed by a Song-dynasty Daoist named Jian Changchen, who styles himself in the text's own colophon as co-administrator of the Jianlong Belvedere and a purple-robed master. The bibliographic headnote carried with this text dates it only to "approximately the Northern Song," on the authority of its listing in Zheng Qiao's twelfth-century bibliographic treatise, the Tongzhi; nothing more precise is known to us.

The work opens with the commentator's own preface and a short account of the scripture's legendary transmission, then proceeds through the base text of the Yinfu jing itself, arranged in its traditional four chapters, each short line or clause of the ancient scripture followed by Jian Changchen's prose explanation. This translation keeps that alternation visible: each phrase of the old scripture is set in bold as a block quotation, with the commentary running beneath it in ordinary prose.

One term recurs at the center of both scripture and commentary: ji 機, rendered throughout as "mechanism" — the hidden pivot or trigger by which Heaven, the myriad things, and the human mind move and are moved. The commentary treats this word as the key to the whole work, and this translation has tried to keep that single English word under it wherever it appears, at some cost to elegance, so a reader can trace the scripture's own argument.

Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, printed in full below the translation. The base scripture that this text comments on, the Yinfu jing itself, has been rendered into English several times since the nineteenth century; this particular commentary upon it, to our knowledge, has not. See the colophon below for what was checked.

Translation

Preface

A person lives between Heaven and Earth: the one who confers the bodily form is father and mother; the one who bestows the vital breath is yin and yang; and what carries the myriad things is the body. Yet what makes the body answer to the Way in its dealings with things, secretly according with the human heart-mind — this is the Hidden Accordance alone.

Long ago, when Fuxi passed away and Shennong arose, the Yellow Emperor made writing and tallies, causing Cangjie to observe the forms of birds and beasts and the patterns of Heaven and Earth, and to draw on the images of the myriad things to fashion written characters. Ghosts and spirits wept — was it then that the Great Way was first split apart?

The Way, once transformed, arrives at affairs; affairs, once transformed, arrive at the mechanism. And in the working of the mechanism: at the highest level there is the conduct of governing the state by the Way and its Power; in the middle there is the art of preserving the whole body and guarding life; next there is the principle of establishing hegemony and pacifying the realm. All is provided, nothing is left out.

At that time the Yellow Emperor, the first ancestor of the current of the Daoist school, wishing to spread the true wind of the teaching, obtained the more than three hundred words of the Mysterious Woman, and struck out a further hundred-odd characters of his own, gathering up the pivotal authority of the myriad transformations and governing the marvelous workings of the host of spirits. It hides the subtle and conceals the wondrous, it embraces Heaven and encompasses Earth; its text is spare, its meaning profound, and its principle returns to what each reader must find for himself.

I have privately examined the commentaries of the various schools: their principles each go their own separate ways, and their interpretations cling to partial views. They know only that the Hidden Accordance is the Yellow Emperor's own pronouncement of the Law, and not something transmitted by the Mysterious Woman. Yet, examining what the Inner Tradition records, it says: the Yellow Emperor received from the Mysterious Woman the transmission of the meaning of the Classic of the Hidden Accordance, and was able inwardly to accord with Heaven's mechanism and outwardly to match human affairs. So the three hundred words were indeed transmitted by the Mysterious Woman, while the hundred words are the Yellow Emperor's own exposition of them.

Hence its diction is spare and its purport far-reaching, its meaning profound and its principle unfathomed. Consider how it says: "thereupon there is a marvelous vessel, and from it the ten thousand images are born"; "the eight trigrams and the sexagenary cycle, the mechanism of spirits and the hiding-place of ghosts"; and "the art by which yin and yang overcome one another advances, luminous and clear, into visible image." Once one knows this, the meaning of the Hidden Accordance is exhausted, and later generations can add nothing further to it.

Long ago, when Confucius expounded the Changes and appended his Commentary on the Words, the Way of the Changes was left with nothing further concealed. Truly, writing does not exhaust speech, and speech does not exhaust meaning — what more, then, is there to say? This is why I, your servant, have ventured to prune away the old commentaries of the various schools and to compose a new annotation, so that what is made manifest and put to use may above all be free of error.

Moreover, in the teaching set forth by the Yellow Emperor and Laozi, the Way prizes the gathering of emptiness; its lofty words and expansive discourse depart from the world and differ from common custom. It does not entice the ears and eyes of the dusty and vulgar, but reveals only the heart and belly of sages and worthies. Whoever savors it with intent obtains its host of wonders; whoever is broadly versed in things reaches its utmost subtlety. Instituted since the Three Sovereigns, its Way has spread through ten thousand generations, adding to the counsel of sagely rulers and furnishing the use of worthy ministers. From as far back as Qin and Han, down through Sui and Tang, generals and ministers, renowned officials, exalted adepts and reclusive scholars — those who have annotated it are beyond counting.

Now, the use of the Hidden Accordance has its wonder in Heaven's mechanism. If one truly attains it in the mind, how could this be called a small aid? Respectfully prefaced by Jian Changchen.

The Traditions of the Classic of the Hidden Accordance

Long ago the Queen Mother of the West descended to Mount Wangwu and transmitted to the Yellow Emperor the art of warfare, which he used to fight Chiyou on the plain of Zhuolu, cutting down the demonic and pernicious and removing harm from the realm. Only then did he govern the states, establish the altars of soil and grain, divide the lands, and enfeoff the lords; the Five Phases were fixed in their places, and the great brigands were done away with.

The Queen Mother then again sent the Mysterious Woman to transmit to the Emperor the secret formula in nineteen chapters and the more than three hundred words of the Hidden Accordance, together with the texts on the golden elixir and jade tablets, the arts of the precious talisman that flies through the void, and the methods for entering fire and treading on water — nothing was left unprovided. The Yellow Emperor thereupon established offices for welcoming the immortals and cultivated the essentials of ascending to the Real, bringing forth numinous chapters and secret books to spread the Daoist teaching; wherever it was applied, within the six directions there was nothing that was not brought to fulfillment. That he rose from Lake Dongting mounted on a fire-dragon, and that his ministers buried his sword and shoes at the Ba Mountains, are matters plainly recorded in the histories.

He handed down and displayed this scripture so that later generations might embody it and put it into practice; hence the humane, seeing it, call it humaneness, and the wise, seeing it, call it wisdom. For the most part, whoever awakens to it does so by ordering the Way, the Law, and technique so as to manifest humaneness while concealing its use; whoever reads it must find its principle for himself.

Commentary on the Yellow Emperor's Classic of the Hidden Accordance

Composed by your servant Jian Chen, co-administrator of the affairs of the Jianlong Belvedere, purple-robed Daoist, Grand Master of Preserved Tranquility.

Chapter One: Spirit-Immortals Embrace the One and Set Forth the Way

Cherish the seminal essence and preserve the vital breath, and the spirit will then survive. Attain the Way and do not die — this is called being an immortal (xian). It is for this reason that the Way of spirit-immortals answers to a person as the Valley Spirit does; this is what Laozi meant by "the Valley Spirit never dies." What a person preserves is spirit; what a person meets with is transformation. To embrace the One is to be as the myriad things are, which carry yin on their backs and embrace yang in their arms; hence it is said, "the Way generates the One." Though the numbers set forth reach into the myriads, hundred-millions, and trillions, all of them arise from the One. This chapter wishes to transmit this broadly and completely, like the moon reflected in water, in which nothing fails to appear. Hence it is set as the heading placed at the top.

To observe the Way of Heaven and to hold fast to Heaven's motion — that is all there is to it.

Heaven's Way turns without ever accumulating, and so the myriad things are born from it. Hence things have images that can be observed, while the Way is formless and yet can be attained — and in this, things already attain of themselves. To know what Heaven does, and silently to answer its transformations, is to hold fast to Heaven's motion. Motion is the mark of what does not abide in one place; it is the Way circling like a hub — once one attains its center, one answers without fixed direction. Heaven is vast and complete, embracing and gathering the host of spirits; it guards by emptiness and takes stillness as its ancestor. It makes a person's mind like the Great Void, touching things and according with the Way, never congealing upon a thing, and so unmoving. When a person empties himself to meet things, there is nothing that fails to answer him — this is thing and self both forgotten, which is to accord with the marvelous working. Whoever has the substance to receive the Way has no fixed intent, no rigid necessity, no obstinacy, no self. Moving, he accords with the spirit's mechanism, and left and right he meets its source — this is the sage's non-action that leaves nothing undone. Being thus, one is whole and one has exhausted it. Seen in this light: the observer observes with the mind, not with the eye; the one who holds fast holds with the mind, not with the hand. Without deliberate observing and without deliberate holding, Heaven's Way is attained.

Heaven has Five Thieves; whoever perceives them flourishes.

According to the pattern set for things, there is the stealing of achievement, the stealing of skill, the stealing of timing, the stealing of resources, and the stealing of destiny — all of these are Heaven's doing, not something a person is able to do. Yet great Yu stole achievement, Gongshu stole skill, the sage Confucius stole timing, Fan Li stole resources, and Old Peng stole destiny. Hence "to steal" means to take. These five masters were skilled in Heaven's mechanism and so achieved the way of being a sage within and a king without. Speaking of the Five Thieves by analogy: in Heaven they are the five stars, on earth the five sacred peaks, in a person the five viscera. Taken together, within the art of the Five Thieves, what the Way calls immortality, the Confucians call the primal. Sought at a distance, they are external things; sought close at hand, they are inward desires. When the center is ruled by inward desire, the mind is enslaved to what is seen without. Even one who dwells in mountain forests, if he does not rest within, is called "sitting yet racing" — he has already lost his Heaven-given genuineness. This is because he does not recognize what the Five Thieves store up, and so an inward heat disturbs his breast; Zhuangzi called this "burning up one's Heaven-given harmony." Now people's natures differ in what they favor: what suits one does not suit another, and each clings to a partial view, unable to answer without fixed direction. Hence whoever perceives them is a person of great completeness. Moving, he necessarily recognizes the mechanism, and so he is able to command things and is not commanded by things. Taking the Way as his master, he is not carried off by the shifting of things — this is what the metaphor of the Five Thieves points to in the scene before us. Once the mind perceives them, they lie within one's own grasp: used well, they become the Five Powers; used ill, they remain the Five Thieves. Hence it says "flourishes."

The Five Thieves lie within the mind; their working extends to Heaven.

The working of these Five Thieves is exerted throughout Heaven, Earth, and the human realm — there is nowhere it is not present, yet it rests in the mind alone. Hence the Way is in things and the mind is in the body; when the Way is not carried off by things and the mind is not moved by the body, then it stands firm and cannot be uprooted. This is why the person of the Way governs before disorder arises and secures the state before danger comes. When a single mechanism moves, the hundred spirits follow it — is Heaven then far away? How could it be so close? It is that wherever thought arrives, there it answers to Heaven; what, then, is far or near about it? This is what is meant by saying the mind operates in this way.

The universe lies within the hand; the myriad transformations are born from the body.

What is light and clear is Heaven; what is heavy and turbid is Earth; the universe is the utmost limit above and below. How is it that the universe, wherever it may be, can be grasped in the hand? Laozi said: "Hold fast to the Great Image, and all the world goes to you." The hand takes hold of Heaven and Earth, turning yin and yang in their courses; considering how the Great Way shifts and moves as though turned upon the palm — truly the universe lies within the hand. The spirit-immortals likewise say: "There is one who has recognized the mechanism of creation and transformation, and grasps sun and moon in his hand as though setting them in a furnace." It is like knocking at the marvelous gate — one relies upon the craftsman's hand. This saying is deep and far-reaching; the text cannot make it fully plain. "The myriad transformations" is the general name for things, and to say they are born from the body is because the body is the substance of what is born. Only the human being is the spirit of the myriad things: the body gathers up the vital breath of Heaven and Earth, and within its emptiness the Four Great Elements are all stored. The head, round, images Heaven; the feet, square, image Earth; and what lies centered and harmonized is the body — the body too is a single Heaven-and-Earth. The Liezi says: "Heaven and Earth are one small thing within the void" — is this not to say that the myriad transformations are born from the body? Observing the body, one may know how the myriad transformations are born.

Heaven's nature is what is human; the human mind is the mechanism.

Wealth and honor are what people desire; poverty and lowliness are what people hate. It is human nature to love life and hate death, to move toward benefit and away from harm — all of this is endowed by Heaven. When a person seeks out a principle, awakens to a method, or accomplishes some task, it is gained through practice. Hence the nature endowed by Heaven has never failed to be obtained by seeking it; one holds the mind toward a distant hope and cultivates the body to accomplish it. Those who despise this call it idle fantasy, not realizing that idle fantasy is itself the ladder by which the Way is reached. So Heaven's nature is what makes the human being act; the human mind is what the mechanism makes act. What a person dwells in, when still, is the mind; when moving, it is the mechanism. How much more, then, when Heaven's mechanism is once triggered — one may, sitting still, advance in this Way. How, then, could this be spoken of with the petty and fussy? By this the character of the person may be known.

Establishing the Way of Heaven is what settles the human being.

The Way of Heaven is still while the way of the human being is in motion. In motion, one shares Power with yang; in stillness, one shares its wave with yin. To be quiet and unmoving, and yet, when stirred, to penetrate through — this is the sage receiving others through emptiness, and thereby able to turn the light back upon himself. The way of the human being moves easily and is hard to still; to be able to know its stillness is to answer to Heaven. This is what Laozi meant by: "to return to the root is called stillness; stillness is called returning to one's fate." It is to say that only after being settled can one answer, and thus exhaust principle and fully realize nature. Hence one establishes the Way of Heaven in order to take it as the model for the human being. If a person knows Heaven's silence, he is able to embody its transformations and cast off worldly dust; his mind becomes like a bright mirror, answering to things without limit, and he wanders together with the Way of Heaven — how, then, could the way of the human being remain far from it?

When Heaven triggers its mechanism of killing, dragons and snakes rise onto dry land. When a person triggers his mechanism of killing, Heaven and Earth are overturned. When Heaven and the human being trigger together, the ten thousand changes settle their mechanism.

The way of Heaven and the human being is distant, yet its answering is near; to move together with the season is to answer Heaven and follow the human being. If one moves without gaining the right time, one can never in the end meet the mechanism and match the turning. Now, among the Four Greats within this realm, Heaven is the highest, and yet it dares not act arbitrarily upon the human being, for fear that dragons and snakes will rise onto dry land. Hence dragons hide in the water and snakes conceal themselves in marshes; when, instead of hiding, they mingle together upon dry land, this makes manifest Heaven's own triggering. When a person moves without gaining Heaven's proper time, Heaven and Earth grow dark and dim, yin and yang lose their order, day turns to night — this shows that the person has acted arbitrarily. Hence Heaven moves by gaining the human being, and the human being acts by gaining Heaven. If a person recognizes the mechanism and moves with the season, then even ghosts and spirits dare not fathom his intent, and yin and yang dare not know his depths; when he issues commands, they are never without effect — this is called "triggering together." When a person's operation of mind accords with the Way and silently matches Heaven's genuineness, then the Three Powers settle into their places and the Five Elders raise up their achievement. Was it not just this — "triggering together" of Heaven and the human being — when, in ancient times, the eight hundred lords all assembled together at Mengjin? One who governs by the Way does not merely follow along and force a match; he examines antiquity in order to make use of it, and accumulates deeds and conduct in order to seek it, and so does not lose his resolve. And is it not that being sagely in stillness and being kingly in motion is the Way according with both the human being and Heaven — Heaven itself does not oppose it, how much less the human being? This is the moment of Heaven and the human being triggering together.

Nature has its skillfulness and its clumsiness, and either may be hidden away.

Whether nature is skillful or clumsy lies within the person; it can be bent or extended. Seeing the mechanism, one acts; keeping one's instrument hidden within oneself, one waits for the season to move — letting people see what is displayed but not what is concealed. This is to have a field of self-attainment, by which one is able to keep the body whole and stay far from harm, so as to have no regret afterward. What more, then, need a person of the Way and its Power add to this? Hence it is said: "the sharp instrument of the state must not be shown to others." So great skill appears as clumsiness, and it is never wearisome to keep it deeply hidden; turning it back to use, it becomes precious.

The wayward tendency of the Nine Openings lies in the Three Essentials, by which motion and stillness may be governed.

Earlier worthies took seeing and hearing, eating and breathing, and the two lower openings as the Nine Openings, and on this basis set forth the Three Essentials, warning against their motion and stillness so as not to lose what is genuine. For when a person's vital breath disperses into the Great Void it is formless, and when it gathers within the body it answers to affairs — and in this lies the proper measure of motion and stillness. Yet the ruler of the single body is the mind alone, and it too has its nine openings; hence it is said that the waywardness of the mind lies in the Three Essentials. So for the one who governs the vital breath and nurtures the mind: the body must be upright, the intention must be straight, the mind must be level — these are the Three Essentials that govern the mind, not the nine openings of ear, eye, mouth, and nose taken as the Three Essentials. Whether a person is in motion or stillness, it is the vital breath that makes it so. "Hold fast to your resolve; do not let your breath run wild. Set your mind aright; do not let it think of what is wayward." Hence the three hundred Odes may be covered by a single phrase: it is said, "think no wayward thought." This is truly to attain the inward nurturing of one's Heaven-given genuineness.

Fire is born from wood; when calamity is triggered, it must overcome its source. Treachery is born within the state; when the season stirs it, it must break forth in ruin. Whoever knows this and cultivates against it is called a sage.

Now wood gives birth to fire, and fire, in turn, consumes it; a person gives rise to affairs, and affairs, in turn, injure him. Hence the analogy of fire and wood applies to the human being: through ignorance, a person accumulates and stores up an angry breath, fails to regulate and control himself, and inwardly burns up his Heaven-given harmony until it brings about his ruin. But if a person recognizes the natural furnace and cauldron and cultivates it within his own body, his Power will then be genuine. Such a person is able to embody Heaven and model himself on the Way, so that the state has no treacherous ministers and the body has no false conduct. And yet even those close to sagehood may still lose their way through confusion — how far, then, are those merely gazing toward sagehood, as distant as the Hu and the Yue!

Heaven gives life, Heaven brings death — this is the principle of the Way.

When a thing arrives unbidden, it is called life; when a thing has already departed, it is called death. Life is the sprouting of spring; death is the falling of autumn. A person's having life is the vital breath gathering together; a person's having death is the vital breath dispersing — and so the coming and going, the death and life, of things and of people has never once ceased. This is what the Way governs, and it brings things to this. The flourishing and decay of the myriad things, the rising and vanishing of people, are the necessary principle of Heaven, Earth, yin, and yang. Death and life succeed one another, and both the ordinary and the sage alike know it. Hence, not obscuring the numinous origin, but following along with the transformation of things, one becomes the same as what precedes even the image of the Lord on High — and who, then, is there left to debate whose child one is? For the constancy of life and death is like sleeping and waking, having stood firm and endured of itself since antiquity.

Chapter Two: Enriching the State and Bringing Peace to the People Sets Forth the Law

To enrich the state is to provide for the body; to bring peace to the people is to still desire.

Heaven and Earth are the thief of the myriad things; the myriad things are the thief of the human being; the human being is the thief of the myriad things. When the three thefts are each fitting, the Three Powers are at peace.

Heaven and Earth nurture the myriad things, now giving life, now bringing death; the myriad things, in turn, steal from Heaven and Earth, yet neither give life nor bring death; the human being steals from the myriad things, both giving life and bringing death. The human being also steals from the myriad things in order to sustain and nourish himself — thus Heaven, Earth, and the human being take from one another in turn and so come to completion. The Three Powers turn and revolve, harmonizing together. Hence Heaven, Earth, the myriad things, and the human being together bring about their transformations; and so it is said: when the three thefts are each fitting, the Three Powers are at peace.

Hence it is said: eat at the proper time, and the hundred bones are ordered; move the mechanism at the proper time, and the ten thousand transformations are at peace.

Eating is the receiving of vital breath; the mechanism is Heaven's proper time and Earth's advantage. If eating loses its proper time, the hundred bones fall ill; if the mechanism is handled lightly in affairs, disaster is certain to follow. "The ten thousand transformations" means the ten thousand states. When the sovereign above is enlightened, the ten thousand states are at peace; when the people's hearts are harmonious, the ten thousand entanglements are stilled. For the way of nourishing life and the mechanism of governing the age are, in the end, one and the same.

People know that spirit is spirit, but do not know that what is not spirit is the very means by which it is spirit.

Spirit's marvelous working has no fixed direction, and people cannot come to know it. That which is spirit and yet does not itself know that it is spirit and is spirit — in this, the human being and spirit are being and non-being together: the human being has, and yet is without; spirit is without, and yet has. Having and not-having, not-having and having — these are what the human being and spirit share, all arising from what the mind stores within. To be hidden within Heaven and yet be Heaven, hidden within Earth and yet be Earth — is it not the mind and spirit alone that can do this? When sincerity reaches its utmost, spirit moves people; hence spirit has no fixed direction. In a thing it moves the thing, in a person it moves the person; possessing all the myriad methods everywhere at once, wherever the eye falls the Way is present — this is what spirit accomplishes.

Sun and moon have their fixed count; the greater and the lesser months have their settled measure. From this the sage's achievement is born, and spirit-illumination comes forth.

Days accumulate into a month; months accumulate into a year; twelve months are reckoned as marking one year's term. The day exhausts its place in the sequence, the month exhausts its place in the record, and three hundred and sixty days are fixed as one full year's end. The greater and lesser months, together with the increase and decrease of the count of yin-and-yang's waxing and waning, are why an intercalary month is inserted twice in five years, to make up what the full circuit of Heaven still lacks. It is from this that the sage's achievement is born and spirit-illumination comes forth. Hence people's lives are unequal in nobility and lowliness, worthiness and folly, and only one who has attained the Way is able to escape the count of the sixty-year cycle. This cycle is the overall register of Heaven and Earth, in which the sage's achievement is smelted and spirit-illumination is cast. Next, as the spirit of the myriad things, it causes ruler and minister, father and son, husband and wife, and all things to return wholly to their proper order — it is said that once in a thousand years a sage is born, once in five hundred a worthy is born; is this not bound up with the smelting and casting of spirits and sages? The Xunzi says: "Heaven and Earth give birth to the noble man; the noble man brings order to Heaven and Earth." As for discoursing on the Way, ordering the state, and harmonizing yin and yang — these are not things a person, as such, is able to do; they are what sagehood together with achievement, spirit together with illumination, bring about.

As for the mechanism of this theft, no one under Heaven is able to see it, no one is able to know it. The noble man, attaining it, makes his own person secure; the petty man, attaining it, treats his life lightly.

The mechanism is the change of gain and loss. That Heaven, Earth, the myriad things, and human affairs undergo stagnation and flourishing, rise and fall, loss and gain, possibility and impossibility, prosperity and decline — all of this is the mechanism's transformation. Hence to steal the mechanism is to seize creation and transformation within one's own breast, to hold the universe in the palm of one's hand; and so when people cannot fathom the source of another's accomplished achievement, it is the mechanism that has made it so. At the highest, it is the office of the ceremonial robe; in the middle, it is the way of the minister; below, it is the discipline of the household — applied to the Three Powers, there is nothing it does not bring to fulfillment. Vast, it shares its outward form with Heaven and Earth; minute, it divides its shape with a hair's tip. It is neither submerged nor silent, neither turbid nor bright — what is called "ground down yet not made thin, blackened yet not made dark" — this is the wonder of the mechanism. In this way, the things of the world have images that can be observed, and people can come to see them. But the mechanism of theft casts no reflection, and the mass of people can never come to know it; hence, if the mechanism's affair is not kept secret, harm results. That the noble man, attaining it, makes his own person secure, is his attaining the mechanism; that the petty man, attaining it, treats his life lightly, is his losing the mechanism. The people of the world, coarse and vulgar, have their nature obscured, and do not know the use of stealing the mechanism — this is why making one's own person secure and treating one's life lightly are shown forth, respectively, in the noble man and the petty man.

Chapter Three: Strengthening the Army and Achieving Victory in Battle Sets Forth the Technique

The army is the very foundation of a secure state; it can be made strong but must not be made weak. Fought with, it wins — this makes for a strong opponent. The sovereign, possessing the awesome power of the Three Armies, does not exert it in order to pacify the realm; the foundation of Great Peace is established by the strength of the army. That the army, meeting an enemy, wins — this belongs to the state's army. The army of the human being, however, is not so. Laozi, speaking of the person's own army, said that fine weapons are inauspicious instruments; they are not the instruments of the noble man, and are used only when there is no other choice, with restraint and detachment counted as best. The mechanism of using the army lies in winning without glorying in it: whoever glories in it delights in killing people, and cannot gain his will under Heaven — this is the person's own army treating the enemy lightly. He who treats the enemy lightly comes close to losing his treasure; he who is unskilled in battle loses his true source, and after a great army has passed, bad years are certain to follow. The Scripture of the Yellow Court, Inner View, says: "For long life, be most careful in the bedchamber's urgency — how could death be made to bring the spirits to weeping?" This is the technique that steals one's own destiny; only the Yellow Emperor and Old Peng were skilled enough to attain it. When the body's army takes the field, there is danger that its general may be too easily moved; hence it is said that one should meet it as though conducting a mourning rite, handling it with the Way, and it can then be governed by speech alone — governing before disorder arises, securing the state before danger comes. When the battle is over and the shadowy demons are subdued, pearls and jewels fill the chamber; hence it is said: "when gold and jade fill the hall, none can keep them safe." The one who embodies the Way, in whom the human being's own army resides within the body itself, would do well to know this.

The blind are skilled at hearing, the deaf are skilled at seeing. Cut off benefit at its single source, and one's forces are worth ten times over; return to it three times, day and night, and one's forces are worth ten thousand times over.

Those who are deaf and blind, though they lack the wholeness of ear and eye, arrive at hearing without sound and seeing without the eye — they hear only inwardly, with the mind, their spirit made single and undivided. Hence it is said: cut off benefit at its single source, and this yields tenfold; think it over three times more, and it can match ten thousandfold. Now, people today have all six roots complete and all ten aspects whole, and use them for seeing and hearing, yet in the end they can never keep their ears and eyes whole — and are not the equal of the deaf and blind in the genuineness of their use of mind. "Forces" means the multitude. Though the multitude possess ear and eye complete, all of them lose, outwardly, the true use of seeing and hearing. Are those persons lacking in ear and eye, then, truly deaf and blind? Or do they attain it inwardly, in the mind, forgetting ear and eye in their seeing and hearing? Hence the utmost person casts his mind like a mirror, gleaming clear, taking in the dust of the outer world without partiality, receiving things without private bias.

The mind is born from things and dies by things; the mechanism lies in the eye.

What dwells in the center, empty, and governs the five faculties, is the mind. The mind alone is the source of the myriad methods; yet the time of having been born is not the equal of the time before birth — why is this? Once born, one is enslaved by the mind, so that one moves at the sight of benefit, is preoccupied at the sight of fame, competes for the sake of wealth, and thinks upon seeing beauty — all of this is things enslaving the human mind, so that one cannot fulfill one's Heaven-allotted span and dies midway before one's time. Seen in this light, it is because of the mind that a person has life and death; before birth, there was none of this. Laozi said: "act for the belly, not for the eye" — making the inward vision without any outward looking, so as to avoid images stirring the mind. As for reaching the method and becoming a sage, awakening to the Way and becoming a Perfected — how could one, setting aside this very mind, ever reach such awakening? "The mechanism lies in the eye" means that a person's mind dwells within and answers to things without.

Heaven has no deliberate kindness, and yet great kindness is born from it.

The turning armillary sphere revolves; the Great Way is originally empty. There is not a single thing to which it adds kindness, and yet it is of itself kindness. Hence the myriad things, each busy at its own task, all follow non-action. That kindness is planted and grows is the achievement of transforming things; that things have this achievement is what completes the order of the Great Way — what, then, does Heaven need to say? "The four seasons proceed, and the myriad things are born" — this is exactly it.

Swift thunder and fierce wind — nothing fails to stir into life at their sound.

That thunder and wind are swift and fierce is because Heaven and Earth's hard vital breath makes it so. Wind and thunder are the awesome power of Heaven's spirits, by which reckless action is shaken and startled, so that its command may proceed above and disorder dare not arise below. Now, one who acts with Power finds the mind at ease, and grows daily more admirable; one who acts falsely finds the mind wearied, and grows daily more clumsy. So when they hear the sound of thunder, the false person is never without unease in his breast, while the admirable person is at ease and untroubled — this is how the movement of thunder and wind causes no one to be without some fear. At the first sound, all stirring, sentient things awaken and are transformed.

At the height of joy, nature has abundance to spare; at the height of stillness, one is upright.

Nature is what the mind gives rise to; when nature has abundance, this is the height of joy. Stillness is the root of nature; at the height of stillness, one's conduct is upright. Letting go without clinging, one attaches to nothing, in motion or in stillness, that would harm one's life. What people prize lies in the height of uprightness, not in the height of joy. Hence at the height of joy there is spirit; being clear and still is taken as the root for receiving the Way, and so clarity and stillness are the use of the true Way for all under Heaven.

Heaven, in its utmost privateness, is used with utmost impartiality.

Heaven's way is distant and utterly private, and yet all things can be contained within it; the human way is near and utterly impartial, and yet nothing can escape it. What can be contained is simply what Heaven does; what cannot be escaped is what impartiality governs. Taken together, are utmost privateness and utmost impartiality separated by no more than the turning of a hand? Set loose within the Way, Heaven may seem to be defied; put to use among people, only impartiality cannot be sheltered from. Why is this? The Way employs goodness, and so brings its privateness to completion; impartiality governs by register, and so cannot be evaded. If utmost impartiality were not extended to the people, the human way would be deficient; if utmost privateness were not tolerated by Heaven, the principle of things would be deficient. That the Way employs both the public and the private is the teaching and transformation of good and evil. Hence the ruler, attaining it, fulfills the way of the ruler; the minister, attaining it, fulfills the way of the minister — and only then can customs be shifted and altered. When one who governs by the Way attains it, and private feeling can be made to operate within the mind, this is what is meant by "the bent becomes whole."

The mastery of the bird lies in the vital breath.

Two-footed and feathered — this is called a bird. As for the bird: the mind is the Vermilion Bird. When a person has vital breath, joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, taking and rejecting, are made to act through it, all because the mind is unable to master it well. When it inclines toward yang, one is joyful; when it inclines toward yin, one is angry. Let us try to discuss this: can the vital breath truly be mastered? The breath goes wherever it is driven — it is the horse of good and evil, which some call the "mind-horse"; all this is a matter of its being put to use without governance. It is the mind's own operation alone that matters; hence the adept skilled in vital breath, once he has tamed and subdued his mind, may be known by this. This is to have attained the way of governing the vital breath and nurturing the mind. Hence joy and anger do not alter his countenance, and flourishing and decline do not change his conduct — for the master within him is already settled. And who, then, could either disgrace or praise him? Not to be carried off by the shifting of things — this is the utmost mastery of the passions.

Life is the root of death; death is the root of life.

Life and death in a person are like day and night, never ceasing. Life is thus the root of death — whoever has life must die; death, in turn, is the root of life — once death has passed, life must come again. Rising and sinking in this way, submerged in the Six Paths, how could there be anything but the endless being-born of the born and the endless dying of the dead? Is there, then, truly anything to debate about death and life? There is not. The sages of antiquity set this aside, beyond the six directions, discussing it but never disputing it. Now, as for the one who is not born-into-being: he sheds this bodily frame and departs, attains the Way and becomes a Perfected, and, quiet and still, his numinous source becomes one with the empty void; he realizes non-action, passes beyond the Three Realms, and joins the ranks of the various Perfected — how, then, could he still be born? And as for one who, having necessarily died, is yet not-dying-into-death: following the nature of free and easy wandering, taking in the essence of night-mist, breathing wind and drinking dew, abstaining from grain and nourishing himself on rosy vapor, making the physical body firm and solid, he accumulates three thousand meritorious deeds and eight hundred good acts; when the merit is complete and the conduct fulfilled, one morning he rises lightly, flies to roam the Great Web of Heaven, and joins the assembly of the Perfected and Immortals. Having departed in this bodily form, how, then, could he die into death? Death must have its life — this having and not-having never ceases. Laozi said: "I have a great affliction because I have a body; when I have no body, what affliction could I have?" This speaks of not-being-born-into-being and not-dying-into-death. The way of the ordinary person, however, is not so — he does not escape the road of life and death, and so arrives at the turning wheel of transmigration.

Kindness is born from harm; harm is born from kindness.

To give to another is called kindness; to injure another is called harm — and yet here kindness and harm are turned upside down. One who takes the Way as his charge first labors his sinews and bones, withers his nature, takes motion as stillness, and uses obscurity to reach brightness — this stands but a single step from the Way itself. Hence one who long dwells in solitude and silence, and whose person ascends into the threshold-realm of the sage, is a case of harm giving birth to kindness. That kindness gives birth to harm means: when a person, amid wealth and honor, indulges in whatever he does and follows wherever his desires lead, and does not know to cultivate himself — once his body has passed away, the spirits and sages do not raise him up, and he is scattered among the various paths of rebirth. How could this not be lamentable? Hence the two roads of kindness and harm must not go unexamined.

The foolish person takes the patterned principle of Heaven and Earth as sagely; I take the patterned principle of the season and of things as wise.

Those whose minds are stopped up like thatch, dull and confused, unopened in cleverness, are called foolish. The nature of the foolish person is not broadly versed in things, does not know the Way, and does not submit to teaching; he asks, what sort of thing are Heaven and Earth, what sort of Way is patterned principle? And so, seeing them, he calls them sagely, without knowing the reason why. That I take the patterned principle of the season and of things as wise means: to know people is to be wise (zhe). And zhe also means understanding: once one knows others, one can know oneself; and once one can know oneself, one may be broadly versed in things and discern the Way, and settle what is right and what is wrong — this is the exercise of wisdom. Strategy and calculation are all contained within it: aim at wealth and honor, and wealth and honor follow; aim at long life, and long life follows. This is because the patterned principle of the season and of things all lie within my own compass, subject to my own direction — is this not exactly what the Way is capable of? To seize the patterned principle of the season and of things and make it one's wisdom — this is the completeness of the Way and its Power.

Chapter Four: The Yellow Emperor's Exposition of the Hidden Accordance

This chapter of exposition is what the Yellow Emperor himself set forth. Now the Hidden Accordance is spare in diction yet far-reaching in purport, profound in meaning yet unfathomed in principle. Continuing to trace its ultimate intent, and expounding the meaning of the scripture, it allows later students, upon seeing this text, to grasp more than half of the scripture's purport.

The wise person guards himself through seeming foolish; I take sageliness through not being foolish. Others expect its meaning; I do not expect its sageliness.

A scholar who possesses the Way and yet obscures his traces is said to have great wisdom that looks like folly. This is because he harmonizes and unites the boundary of Heaven and the human being, allowing no gap between them. This is the cultivation of the art of the Chaos-lord, Hundun: inwardly the person stores the mind of the worthy and the wise, while outwardly indulging the road of the foolish and the common, so as to withdraw from the world, becoming a tree of no use, so as to live out his Heaven-allotted years — this is what the wise see fit to do. That I do not act foolish is a rebuke offered in the Yellow Emperor's own words: he fears that this class of persons will pass from the world without a name, and so the Great Smith who fashions things, on behalf of the multitudes, sends down numinous spirit, making them worthy and wise, spreading bounty and benefiting the age. Now, to withdraw and not take office — is this not lofty and admirable? This is what Laozi meant by: "when the achievement is complete and the name established, to withdraw the person — this is the Way of Heaven." The sage expects that Heaven will give birth to sages, and that worthy men will follow to assist them. As with Gaozong's dream in which he obtained Fu Yue — was this Gaozong's own doing, or Fu Yue's own arising, or did Heaven itself make it so? That I do not expect it means: I embody the Way of what is spontaneously so, wishing the mind to accord with Heaven's own reckoning, never advancing rashly, and moving always in accord with the season — and in this the worthy does not envy the foolish, and the sage does not expect either things or self. This is to hold fast to the Way of Heaven, so that yin, yang, ghosts, and spirits can none of them come to know it.

To sink into water or plunge into fire is to bring destruction upon oneself.

Yang within yin is called fire; yin within yang is called water — fire is the trigram Li, water is the trigram Kan. Now the gate of the mysterious female is what is called the root of Heaven and Earth; it is also the thread of human relations and the ordering of male and female. Desire and nature cannot be eliminated; the point lies only in having moderation. Hence the analogy of water and fire is the union of lead and mercury, the mating of tiger and dragon — if their employment is allowed to run even slightly to excess, one comes close to losing one's own treasure.

The Way of what is spontaneously so is still, and so Heaven, Earth, and the myriad things are born.

"I take no action, and the people transform themselves; I love stillness, and the people rectify themselves" — this is the Way of what turns to spontaneity. Now Heaven and Earth are the father and mother of the myriad things, and they do not treat giving-life as an act of giving life at all — how much less, then, do the myriad things! "The myriad things" is the general name for what assists the Way, while the Way itself embodies the condition of spontaneity — and so the myriad things are born from it.

The Way of Heaven and Earth proceeds by steady soaking, and so yin and yang overcome one another.

Heaven bestows and Earth gives birth, and their benefit has no fixed direction. Heaven's way is by stillness; Earth's way is by motion. When motion and stillness lose their constancy, yin and yang fall out of order. Now, if even the utmost greatness of Heaven and Earth still cannot overflow its bounds, how much less could a person overstep the proper measure!

Yin and yang push one another forward, and their transformation follows its course.

Heaven and Earth's two vital breaths are called yin and yang, which push and shift the myriad things forward; hence their transformation follows the cycling round of yin and yang. Now the passage of dawn into dusk, the movement of the hard and the soft, the succession of death and life, the alternation of cold and heat, the flowing motion of all things, and the constant feelings of human beings — never has there been a single thing that stepped outside the measure and count of yin and yang. Even the dim and hidden realms of the Six Ultimates are all cast and molded by it.

Hence the sage, knowing that the Way of what is spontaneously so cannot be defied, follows it and thereby governs by it.

The Way of what is spontaneously so does not pair itself with the host of things; hence the sage, knowing that it cannot be defied, follows its constant measure. This is why "humanity models itself on Earth, Earth models itself on Heaven, Heaven models itself on the Way, and the Way models itself on what is spontaneously so" — how, then, could there be any further defying of the Way of spontaneity?

The Way of utmost stillness — pitch-pipe and calendar together cannot lay hold of it.

The utmost stillness of the Way — pitch-pipe and calendar cannot lay hold of it, for these belong to measure and count. A person still within the art of the five phases, who has not fashioned its mechanism, how could he transcend the ordinary and enter into sagehood? If a person has reached the utmost Way, how could pitch-pipe and calendar be used to gauge him? The Way of what is spontaneously so is only to be spoken of, in its outer bound and inner compass, by one who empties the mind and fills the belly. If the least mechanical scheming still resides within one's breast, how far, then, one stands from the Way!

Thereupon there is a marvelous vessel, and from it the ten thousand images are born.

The marvelous vessel is the very substance that receives life. It is to say that the Way bestows its countenance and Heaven bestows its form; "thereupon there is" means that it has, from the outset, possessed this numinous brightness, and "the ten thousand images" means that they are all provided for within the single body.

The eight trigrams and the sexagenary cycle are the mechanism of spirits and the hiding-place of ghosts. The art by which yin and yang overcome one another advances, luminous and clear, into visible image.

The eight trigrams and the sexagenary cycle are the pivotal authority of Heaven and Earth, the marvelous working of spirits and ghosts; hence, gazed at, they have no boundary; dwelt in, they have no center; residing, they have no fixed place; issuing forth, they have no fixed form — this is the utmost principle of the Hidden Accordance. That it says again "the art by which yin and yang overcome one another" points to the mechanism that steals one's destiny, which in later ages Qiankeng and Rongcheng were the ones who attained. "Luminous and clear" means bright and manifest. "Advances into image" refers to the Great Excess hexagram, to the nine in the fifth place, and to the meaning of the withered willow bringing forth blossom. If one matches and understands the images of drawing forth and adding to the trigram's vital breath, and the subtlety of its waxing and waning, and comes to know the method of the cauldron and vessel, so as to preserve the seminal essence and circulate the vital breath, then one is able to make yin and yang overcome one another. This is what Laozi meant by: "those of antiquity who were skilled in being men of the Way were subtle, wondrous, mysterious, and pervasive, too deep to be recognized" — this speaks of the essential Way. Only afterward does one use the lines in advancing and withdrawing, and match motion and stillness to the hexagram; hence the trigram Li obtains yang and thereby signals form, and the trigram Kan obtains yin and thereby completes substance — this is what is meant by "one yin and one yang is called the Way." "What continues it is goodness; what completes it is nature" — and so the marvelous meaning of the Hidden Accordance, unless one has the capacity of an exalted Perfected or a supreme immortal, who could ever take part in it? Whoever savors it may come to know it in the mind, but it cannot be conveyed in words; hence it is what the common people use every day without knowing it.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Daoist shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The work alternates short lines of the ancient Yinfu jing scripture with the commentator Jian Changchen's prose; this translation keeps the alternation visible by setting each scriptural line as a bold block quotation, with the commentary in ordinary prose beneath it, matching the source's own paragraphing throughout. The preface, the account of the scripture's legendary transmission, and the four chapter divisions follow the source exactly; the modern bibliographic headnote at the top of the source was not translated into the body, as it is catalogue matter rather than scripture, but its facts (author, approximate date, bibliographic listing) were used in the reader introduction above.

Before the claims above were written, a translation-status check was performed. The two local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western translation were searched by Chinese title, pinyin, and author name: Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation lists the base scripture, Huangdi yinfu jing (DZ 31), and records several English and other-language renderings of that base text going back to Frederic Balfour's 1881 "The 'Yin-fu' Classic; or Clue to the Unseen," along with translations by Legge and Philastre and a study of the text by Christopher Rand — but it does not list this particular commentary, Jian Changchen's Huangdi yinfu jing jie, among the works translated. The Purple Cloud reference did not turn up a match for either the author's name or this commentary's title. Two further web searches (the Chinese title with "English translation," and the author's name with "commentary" and "translation") turned up bibliographic and catalogue references to this commentary — including its listing in the Zhonghua Daozang title index and its text on the Tao Library website — but no published English translation of it. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of Jian Changchen's Huangdi yinfu jing jie. We state this as the limit of our search, not as a certainty, and note explicitly that the base scripture it comments on, the Yinfu jing itself, is a different, already-translated work; no existing translation of that base scripture was consulted in preparing this rendering of the commentary.

A note on terms. Ji 機, the "mechanism," is the commentary's central word and is kept as one English word — "mechanism" — everywhere it occurs, including compounds such as tianji (Heaven's mechanism), shaji (the mechanism of killing), and daoji (the mechanism of theft), so a reader can trace its recurrence through the argument. Wuzei 五賊, the "Five Thieves," and jiuqiao 九竅 / sanyao 三要, the "Nine Openings" and "Three Essentials," follow the house glossary's established renderings. Two names in the text appear to vary within the source itself — the commentator is named "Jian Changchen" (蹇昌辰) in the preface's title line and its final signature line reads "賽昌辰" (a probable transcription variant of the same name), while the author line before Chapter One gives "臣蹇晨解" ("your servant Jian Chen"); all three are rendered here as written, without silent harmonization, since the source itself does not resolve them.

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.

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Source Text: 黃帝陰符經解

Classical Chinese text of the Daoist Canon, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

經名：黃帝陰符經解。蹇昌辰撰，約出於北宋。《通志‧藝文略》著錄。一卷。

黃帝陰符經解序

夫人生天地之間，稟形者父母，受炁者陰陽，載萬物者身也。然身與道應於物，幽契乎人心者，唯《陰符》而已。昔庖犧氏沒，神農氏出，黃帝作書契，使倉頡觀鳥獸之形與天地之儀，運用萬物之象制為文字，鬼神泣，其大道裂於是乎？道一變至於事，事一變至於機，而機之用也，上有道德治國之行，中有全身保命之術，次有霸業安邦之理，備而无遺。當是時也，黃帝始祖，道家者流，欲廣真風，得元女三百餘言，復擊以一百餘字，總萬化之機權，統群靈之妙用，藏微隱妙，該天括地，其經簡，其義深，理歸於自得者也。竊嘗考諸家註解，理各異端，義執偏見，徒知《陰符》為黃帝之法言，非元女之所授。然觀《內傳》所載云：黃帝得元女授《陰符經義》，能內合天機，外契人事，則三百言實元女之所授，而百言乃黃帝之演釋者也。故辭要而旨遠，義深而理淵，觀其爰有奇器，是生萬象，八卦甲子，神機鬼藏。陰陽相勝之術，昭昭然進乎象矣。知此則《陰符》之義盡矣，後世不可以加諸。昔者，孔子之講《易》而繫其辭，則《易》之道无餘蘊，誠書不盡言，言不盡意，復何言哉？臣所以輒刪諸家舊解，創為新注，所顯證用，貴无錯焉。且黃老設教，道貴集虛，高言廓論，離世異俗，不誘塵俗之耳目，唯露聖賢之腹心。玩志者得其眾妙，博物者造其至微，制自三皇，道敷萬代，益聖主之謀，資賢臣之用。上至秦漢，下及隋唐，將相名臣，高真逸士，箋注者不勝其數矣。今《陰符》之用，妙在天機，苟造乎心，豈云小補？賽昌辰謹序。

陰符經事蹟

昔西王母降於王屋山，授帝兵法，用戰蚩尤於涿鹿之野，以剪滅妖孽，除天下害。然後治邦國，立社稷，分土地，封諸侯，五行定，巨盜除。王母再遣元女授帝秘訣一十九章、《陰符》三百餘言，至於金丹玉篆之文、寶符飛空之術、入火履水之法，无不備焉。黃帝乃建迎仙之官，修登真之要，出靈章祕書以廣道教，施之則六合之內无不濟也。自洞庭跨火龍上昇，群臣葬劍履於巴山，具史明矣。傳示此經，使後世體而行之，故仁者見之謂之仁，智者見之謂之智。悟之者，大抵在乎序道法術以顯仁藏用；覽之者，理歸自得者也。

黃帝陰符經解

同知建隆觀事賜紫道
士保寧大師臣蹇晨解

神仙抱一演道章

惜精保炁，神則存焉。得道不死，名曰仙。為是故神仙之道，應人如谷神，老氏所謂谷神不死是也。人之所存者神，所遇者化，抱一者則萬物負陰而抱陽，故謂之道生一。設數僅萬億兆，而皆自一之起。此章欲浩傳該備如水中月，无不現矣。故標章上。

觀天之道，執天之行，盡矣。

天道運而无所積，故萬物生。是故物有象而可觀，道无形而可得，是物既自得矣。而知天之所為，默而應化，是執天之行爾。行也者，不住之相，是道之循環如樞，始得其環中，故應無方；天也者，廣大悉備，包總群靈，以虛為守，以寂為宗，使人心若太虛，觸物合道，不凝滯於物，而不動也。人既虛己以待物，則物莫不應焉，是物我兩忘，乃契妙用也。有受道之質，則毋意、毋必、毋固、毋我。動合神機，左右逢其源，是聖人无為无不為矣。夫如是，則全之盡之也。由此觀之，觀者觀其心，非目之觀也，執者執其心，非手所執也。无觀无執，天道得矣。

天有五賊，見之者昌。

設物之理，是賊功、賊巧、賊時、賊物、賊命，皆天之所為，非人之所能為也。然大禹賊功，公輸賊巧，孔聖賊時，范蠡賊物，老彭賊命。故賊者，取也。是五子，善天機而為內聖外王之道。且五賊者，譬而言之，在天則為五星，在地則為五嶽，在人則為五臟；該而言之，總五賊之術內，在道曰仙，在儒曰元。遠取之，則外物也；近取之，則內慾也。中主內慾，心役外見。雖居山林而不內息者，名曰坐馳，且喪其天真，是不識五賊之蘊而生，內熱擾其胸中，莊子謂焚其天和爾。夫人之性好尚不同，在彼非此，處此非彼，各滯偏見，不能應於無方，故見之者則大全之士。動必識機，故能役物，不為物役也。與道為主宰，不逐物遷，則五賊之喻以譬之前境，心既見之則在我提挈之內，善用之則為五德，不善用之則為五賊，故為昌也。

五賊在乎心，施行於天。

彼五賊之用，施於天地人間，未嘗不在焉，止於心而已矣。故道在物，心在身，道不為物遷，心不為身動，則确乎其不可拔。是有道之人制治於未亂，保邦於未危。一機動則百神隨，天之遠耶？何其至耶？是念之所至以應於天，又奚遠近乎哉？此言心之運者如此。

宇宙在乎手，萬化生乎身。

輕清者天，重濁者地，宇宙乃上下之至極。何宇宙之所在而手能執耶？老氏謂：執大象，天下往。手者，掌握天地，輪次陰陽，顧大道推移如運之掌上，誠宇宙在乎手也。神仙亦曰：有人識得造化機，手搏日月安鑪裏。如扣妙門，憑乎匠手。此言幽遠，文不可顯。萬化者，物之總名，而云生乎身者，蓋身者生之質，惟人萬物之靈，身鍾天地之炁，空中四大无不蘊焉。首圓象天，足方象地，中和乃身，身亦一天地也。《列子》謂：天地空中一細物，豈不以萬化生乎身耶？觀其身則萬化之生可知矣。

天性，人也。人心，機也。

富與貴，是人之所欲；貧與賤，是人之所惡。人之性也，好生而惡死，就利而去害，皆賦之天也。如人求一理，悟一法，成一事者，由習而得之。故天資之性，未有不求而得，心懷遠望，修其身而就之。鄙之者謂之妄想，殊不知妄想乃致道之梯也。故天之性，人使之為也；人之心，機使之為也。人所居靜則心也，動則機也，况天機一發，則可以坐進此道，又豈可與剪剪者言哉？方其人可知矣。

立天之道，以定人也。

天道靜而人道動，動而與陽同德，靜而與陰同波。寂然不動，感而遂通者，聖人以虛受人，則能返照也。人道易動而難靜，能知其靜乃應于天，老氏所謂：歸根曰靜，靜曰復命。謂定然後能應，則窮理盡性矣。故立天道以法人，人若知天之默默，故能體變化而去塵垢，心若明鑑，應物無窮，與天道同遊，於人道又奚遠者耶？

天發殺機，龍蛇起陸。人發殺機，天地反覆。天人合發，萬變定機。

天人之道遠而應近，與時偕行者，是應天順人。如不得時而動，終莫能會機契運也。且夫域中四大，至高者天，尚不敢擅發於人，恐龍蛇之起陸。故龍隱於水，蛇藏於澤，不藏而交相於陸，是彰天之發也。人不得天時而動，則天地晦冥，陰陽錯序，變晝為夜，以示人之擅發。故天得人而行，人得天而動，若人識機以時而動者，雖鬼神莫敢測其情，陰陽莫敢知其奧，發號施令，必不徒然，是謂合發。人之運心合道，默契天真，則三才定其位，五老舉其功。如古之八百諸侯，同會于孟津之上，豈不謂天人合發乎？治道者无以因循而合之，考稽古以用之，積功行以求之，則不失其志。且靜而聖、動而王者，是道合乎人天，天且弗違，而况於人乎？此天人合發之時也。

性有巧拙，可以伏藏。

巧拙之性在乎人，可以屈可以伸，見機而作，藏器於身，待時而動，使人見其顯而不見其隱。蓋有自得之場，而能全身遠害以亡後悔者也，道德之人又何加焉？故曰：國之利器，不可以示人。則大巧若拙，不厭深藏。返而用之，則為貴矣。

九竅之邪，在乎三要，可以動靜。

前賢以視聽、食息、大小為九竅以設三要，戒其動靜，不失其真。蓋人之炁散太虛則无形，聚身中而應事，以為動靜之宜，然一身之主，唯心有九竅，故謂之心之邪在乎三要。故治炁養心之士，身要正，意要直，心要平，乃制心之三要，非耳目口鼻之九竅為之三要也。動靜於人，炁使之然。持其志，無暴其炁；正其心，無思其邪。故《詩三百》，一言以蔽之，是曰思無邪。此誠得內養其天真也。

火生於木，禍發必剋。姦生於國，時動必潰。知之修鍊，謂之聖人。

夫木生火，反自剋；人生事，反自賊。故火木之喻在。人為無明，乃畜積怒炁，不自調制，內焚天和而致於殂也。若之人識自然爐鼎，修之身，其德乃真。是人能體天法道，使國无姦臣，身无偽行。而近聖之徒，猶迷而失之；望聖之人，何胡越之遠哉？

天生天殺，道之理也。

物之儻來曰生，物既去矣曰死。生者春之萌芽，死者秋之零落。人之有生，一炁而聚之；人既有死，一炁而散之，則物與人來去死生未嘗息焉。是道之所理而致於斯。萬物興廢，人有起滅，然天地陰陽必然之理也。生死代謝，凡聖共知，故不昧靈原，隨物遷徙，則同乎象帝之先，又孰擬議乎誰氏之子哉？蓋生殺之常，猶寢猶覺，自古以固存。

富國安民演法章

富國者資身也安民者息慾也。

天地，萬物之盜；萬物，人之盜；人，萬物之盜。三盜既宜，三才既安。

天地育萬物也，或生或殺；萬物又盜天地，而不生不殺；人盜萬物，而生而殺。人又盜萬物以資養，是天地人遞相交取而成。三才者，輪轉和合也。故天地萬物與人而成其變化，故曰：三盜既宜，三才乃安。

故曰：食其時，百骸理。動其機，萬化安。

食者，接炁也。機者，天時地利也。食失其時則百骸病，機輕於事則言必危。萬化者，萬國也。主上明，萬國安，人心和，萬緣息。蓋養生之道與治世之機，彼此一也。

人知其神而神，不知不神而所以神。

神者，妙用无方，人不得而知之。彼神而自不知其神而神，則人與神是有无也。人有而无也，神无而有也，有無無有，是人與神而共之總出心之蘊也。潛天而天，潛地而地，惟心神其能耶？是誠之至則神感人，故神無方也。在物感物，在人感人，具一切萬法在在處處，目擊而道存，是神之所為矣。

日月有數，大小有定。聖功生焉，神明出焉。

日者月之積，月者年之積，紀期十二月為一歲。是日窮於次，月窮於紀，定三百六十日為一終年。或大小盡以增减陰陽消息之數，故五歲再閏，以補周天之闕，於是聖功神明以之生，以之出，故人之生有貴賤賢愚之不等，唯得道者能逃甲子之數。甲子者，天地之總目，聖功陶焉，神明鑄焉。次為萬物之靈，使君臣、父子、夫婦、萬物盡歸於倫序，謂一千年而生聖，五百年而生賢，豈不係神聖之陶鑄乎？《荀子》謂：天地生君子，君子治天地。如論道經邦、燮理陰陽者，非人能之，是聖與功、神與明之所為也。

其盜機也，天下莫能見，莫能知。君子得之固躬，小人得之輕命。

機者，得失之變。使天地萬物人理為之否泰、興亡、損益、可否、盛衰，皆機之變也。故盜機者，是奪造化於胸臆，拈宇宙在掌中，故人不測其由而成其功業者，機使之然也。上為衮職，中為臣道，下為家節，施之於三才，無不濟矣。大與天地同表，細與毫髮分形，不湛不寂，不濁不皎，所謂磨而不磷，涅而不緇，乃機之妙也。如此，世之物有象而可觀，人得而見之。盜之機無映，兆人莫得而知之，故機事不密則害成。君子得之固躬者，得其機也；小人得之輕命者，失其機也。世之人鄙俚蔽性，而不知盜機之用也，所以固躬、輕命在君子、小人而顯之。

彊兵戰勝演術章

兵者，固國之本，可使彊，不可使弱。以戰則勝，是彊敵者也。主有三軍之威，不施以安天下。立太平之基，在兵之彊。兵之能遇敵則勝，此國之兵也。人之兵者，則不然。老氏以人之兵謂佳兵者，不祥之器。非君子之器，不得已而用之，恬淡為上。用兵之機，要在勝而不美。而美之者，是樂殺人者，不可得志於天下，是人兵之輕敵也。輕敵者幾喪吾寶，不善戰者而失其真源，大軍之後必有凶年者也。《黃庭內景》云：長生至慎房中急，如何死却令神泣？此道是賊命之術，惟黃帝、老彭為善得也。身兵臨陣，恐帥易動，故言以喪禮，處之以道，言之可制。治于未亂，保邦於未危。戰罷陰魔，珠珍滿室，故曰：金玉滿堂，莫之能守。體道之者，人兵在身，可宜知也。

瞽者善聽，聾者善視。絕利一源，用師十倍；三返晝夜，用師萬倍。

聾瞽之輩，雖偏失耳目之不全，而致於無聽之以聲，非視之以目，惟內聽之於心，神專一也。故云：絕利一源，而致十倍；若更三思，可敵萬倍。今人六根具，十相足，以視聽，終莫能全其耳目，而弗若聾瞽之用心真矣。師者，眾也。眾人雖備耳目，而皆外失於視聽。彼之人不足於耳目而聾瞽乎？彼人以內得之於心，是忘耳目而視聽乎？故至人甩心若鑑，瑩然而外塵不私，容物而無私也。

心生於物，死於物，機在目。

居中虛以治五官者，心也。惟心者為萬法之源，有生之時不若未生之時，何哉？有生者因心之所役，以致於見利而動，觀名而念，為財而競，睹色而思，皆物之役人心，使不得盡其天算而中道至於夭亡。由此觀之，是人因心而有生死，未生則无有此也。老氏謂：為腹不為目，使內觀无外視，免景動於心也。至乎達法成聖，悟道成真，捨此心，又何達悟乎？機在目，蓋人之心居內以應物於外也。

天之無恩而大恩生。

璇璣斡運，大道元虛，无一物而加於恩，自以恩矣。故萬物職職，皆從无為。植而恩者，化物之功。物之有功，以成於大道之序，天何言哉？四時行焉，萬物生焉，是矣。

迅雷烈風，莫不蠢焉。

雷風迅烈，天地之剛炁使其然也。夫風雷者，天神之威以震動驚乎妄作，使之其令以行乎上，亂不敢作于下。且夫作德心逸，日休作偽，心勞日拙，使其聞雷霆之聲，而偽者未嘗不介臆焉，休者坦然而無慮，是雷風之動人莫不懼焉。發聲之初，蠢動含靈，皆蘇變化矣。

至樂性餘，至靜則廉。

性者心之生，性餘則至樂；靜者性之本，至靜則行廉。放之而不執者，則無著物於動靜以害其生。人之所貴，在於至廉，而不在於至樂。故至樂則神；清而且靜，以為受道之本，故清靜為天下正道之用矣。

天之至私，用之至公。

天道遠而至私，物可容也；人道近而至公，物無逃也。可容者惟天之所為，不可逃者是公之所理。統而言之，至私至公在反掌之間乎？放之於道，則天之可違；使之於人，惟公不可庇。何哉？道以善而用之，故成其私；公以冊而理之，故不可避。使至公不加於民，則人道闕矣；至私不容於天，則物理闕矣。道之以公私之用，是善惡之教化也。故君得之而盡君道，臣得之而盡臣道，然後可以移風易俗。治道之士得之，私可以運于心者，是謂曲則全也。

禽之制在炁。

二足而羽謂之禽。禽者，心為朱雀也。人之有炁，則喜怒哀樂取捨使之也，皆是心之不能善制。至乎毗於陽則喜，毗於陰則怒。嘗試論之，炁果可制乎？炁者所適，善惡之馬也，或人曰意馬也，是皆無之用。唯其心之運，故善炁之士，既調伏心可知也。是治炁養心之道得矣。故喜怒不變其容，榮枯不易其操，乃主宰已定矣。又誰毀誰譽乎？不逐其物遷，是制情之至也。

生者，死之根；死者，生之根。

生死在人，如晝夜不息。此生者死之本，有生必死；死者又為生之本，死既去矣，必又生焉。如是出沒，溺於六道，何有不生生不死死乎？死生果有議耶？無有哉。蓋古聖人棄之於六合之外，論而不議。今夫不生生者，脫此形骸而去，得道成真，寂然靈源同於虛空，證入無為，出三界外，與諸真列位，又何生乎？既生必死，又不死者，率逍遙之性，納沆瀣之精，吸風飲露，辟穀養霞，堅固色身，積三千功，累八百行，功成行滿，一旦輕舉，飛遊大羅，與真仙會。是色身而去，又何死死乎？死必有生，是有無休止。老氏謂：吾有大患，為吾、有身。及吾無身，吾有何患？蓋言不生生而不死死。人之道則不然，是不出生死之路，以致於輪迴。

恩生於害，害生於恩。

施人曰恩，殘人曰害，此恩害顛倒。任道之人，先勞其筋骨，枯槁其性，以動為靜，用晦而明，此去道則一間耳。故久寓寂寞而身登聖人之閫域者，是害生恩也；恩生於害者，言人富貴之際，縱其所為，因其所欲，而不知修身，身既脫去，神聖不與提挈，散人諸趣，可不傷乎？故恩害二途，不可不察也。

愚人以天地文理聖，我以時物文理哲。

茅塞之徒，倥侗顓蒙，聰明不開，謂之愚。愚人之性，不博物，不知道，不率教，以謂天地何物也？文理何道也？故見之為聖，則罔知于何故。我以時物文理哲者，是知人則哲。又，哲，智也。既知人則己可知矣。已可知則博物辯道，定是與非，是智之使用也。機謀籌策，靡不在焉，圖富貴則富貴，圖長生則長生，是時物文理皆在我之彀中，屬我指撝之內，道之能乎哉？奪其時物文理以為哲，是道德之全矣。

黃帝陰符演章

此之演章，黃帝之所述也。然《陰符》辭約而旨遠，義深而理淵。續其旨歸，演釋經意，使後世之學者觀其辭則其經旨思過半矣。

哲人以愚虞，我以不愚聖，人以期其義，我以不期其聖。

士有道而晦迹，謂大智若愚。故和同天人之際，使之無間者也。是修混沌氏之術，人內蘊賢哲之心，外肆愚俗之路以遁世，為不材之木，使終其天年，此哲者之所見也。我以不愚，是黃帝辭以譏。斯人之輩恐沒世而无名稱焉，故大冶造物，為蒼生而降靈，使之為賢為哲，沛澤利世。今放而不仕，得非高尚乎？老氏所謂：功成名遂身退，天之道也。聖人期其天生聖人，繼賢人以輔之。如高宗夢得說，是高宗耶？是傳說耶？自天使其然哉？我以不期者，蓋體自然之道，欲心與天數合，必無苟進，動必合時，於是乎賢不睎愚，聖不期物我也者。是執天之道，使陰陽鬼神莫能得而知之。

沉水入火，自取滅亡。

陰中之陽曰火，陽中之陰曰水。則離也，水則坎也。今玄牝之門，是謂天地根，亦人倫之紀，男女之序。慾性不可除，止在於有節，故水火之喻，則鉛汞之合。虎龍之媾，任用稍荒，幾喪吾寶矣。

自然之道靜，故天地萬物生。

我無為而民自化，我好靜而民自正，此向然之道也。夫天地者，萬物之父母，不以生為生，而况於萬物乎？萬物者，輔道之總名，而道體自然之情狀，故萬物生焉。

天地之道浸，故陰陽勝。

天施地生，其益無方。天道以靜，地道以動；動靜失常，陰陽錯序。今至大者天地尚不能盈溢，而人豈可以踰矩矣。

陰陽相推變化順矣。

天地之二炁曰陰陽，推遷於萬物，故其變化者，是順陰陽之循環也。今旦暮之徙，剛柔之行，死生代謝，寒暑迭遷，凡物流動，人之常情，未嘗有一物而出乎陰陽之度數，但六極冥冥，皆被其陶鑄矣。

是故聖人知自然之道不可違，因以制之。

自然之道不與群物偶，故聖人知其不可違者，因其常數也。所以人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然，豈更有違其自然之道也哉？

至靜之道，律曆即不能契。

道之至靜，律曆即不能契，是度數也。人在五行術內，不造其機，豈可以超凡入聖也？人若達於至道，豈可以律曆而測乎？自然之道，虛心實腹，方可語於道之涯約。若機械稍在於胸中，去道一何遠哉？

爰有奇器，是生萬象。

奇器者，是受生之質。言道與之貌，天與之形，爰有則夙有其靈明也，萬象則一身備矣。

八卦甲子，神機鬼藏。陰陽相勝之術，昭昭然進乎象矣。

八卦甲子，天地之機權，神鬼之妙用，故望之无際，處之无中，居不有方，出而无體，乃《陰符》之盡理矣。重言陰陽相勝之衛者，此賊命之機，後世籛鏗，容成氏之所得者是矣。昭昭，則明明也。進乎象者，是大過，卦中九五，桔楊生華之義。若契會卦炁抽添之象、消息之微，識鼎器之法，保精運炁，則能使陰陽相勝。老氏所謂：古之善為士者，微妙玄通，深不可識，此言要道也。然後進退用其爻，動靜合其卦，故離得陽以兆形，坎得陰以成體，是之謂一陰一陽之謂道。繼之者善也，成之者性也，則《陰符》妙義，非高真上仙之資，其孰能與於此？玩之者可以心知，不可言告，故百姓日用而不知者是矣。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 黃帝陰符經解, revision of 2 March 2018), inspected from a witness copy captured on 8 August 2026. Chinese Wikisource transcriptions are published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the GFDL; the text itself is ancient and in the public domain. The wiki header and license templates have been removed; the text is otherwise complete and unaltered.

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