Lü Zu Xiaozai Zengfu Liangfang — A Morality Tract in the Voice of Lü Dongbin
This is a short morality tract (善書) spoken in the voice of Lü Dongbin — Lü Zu, "Patriarch Lü," the most beloved immortal of Chinese popular Daoism — and framed as a medical prescription. Eighteen virtues, from filial obedience to patience, are prescribed like the ingredients of a pharmacy formula, complete with dosages and processing instructions in the vocabulary of Chinese medicine. Tracts of this kind, produced through spirit-writing (扶乩) in Lü Zu's name, circulated widely among lay believers in late imperial China. This text's precise date cannot be fixed from the source alone; it does not appear among the scriptures of the 1445 Zhengtong Daozang, and survives instead in the popular morality-book tradition, transmitted here through the Chinese Wikisource transcription.
The text alternates prose exhortation with verse — quatrains of seven-character lines, and a run of couplets each built with a caesura before a closing gloss, kept here with a dash following the source's own layout — and ends with a short testimonial in verse and prose. Its governing conceit is the pun running through 藥, "medicine" and, by extension, "remedy": the eighteen good medicines are ground fine, formed into pills, and swallowed in a "broth of a calmed mind." This translation keeps the pharmacy vocabulary — parts, dram, pinch, slice, whole — so that conceit stays visible in English.
Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese, printed in full below the translation. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Lü Zu Xiaozai Zengfu Liangfang.
Translation
A poem says:
The ancients left behind an old medical prescription,
a great tonic broth to clear the eyes and purify the mind.
If the people of this age take my various medicines,
ten thousand misfortunes and a thousand disasters will turn to good fortune.
Eighteen good medicines:
Filial obedience (ten parts)
Hidden virtue (use in full)
Kindness (dispense as needed)
Careful speech (one dram)
Attentiveness (ten parts)
Loyalty and uprightness (one lump)
Contentment with one's lot (use as needed)
Abstention from lust (with the pit removed)
Benevolence and righteousness (use liberally)
Honesty (one whole)
A good heart (one slice)
Caution (a pinch)
Abstention from gambling (washed clean)
Trustworthy conduct (use in full)
Harmony (one whole)
Accommodation of others (any amount will do)
A warm heart (one strand)
Patience (a hundred pieces)
Grind these medicines fine with an attentive mind; form them into pills with pāramitā — the ferry to the other shore — as the binder, each the size of a bodhi seed. Take one hundred and eight pills at each dose, escorted down by three good friends, and swallow slowly, warm, in a decoction of a calmed mind. Strictly avoid the knife hidden in a smile, the arrow shot from the dark, and storms raised on level ground.
This prescription issues from the Bureau of Transforming Men, the County of Exhorting Men, the Assembly at Vulture Peak, and the Great Storehouse of Scriptures. It specifically treats every disease of disloyalty and unfilial conduct, of inhumanity and injustice, of disrespect toward Heaven and Earth, of profaning the spirits, of deceiving one's own heart and burying one's conscience, of harming the many to enrich one's own house, of stirring up quarrels and inciting lawsuits, of profiting oneself at others' expense, of lying and spreading gossip, of envying the closeness of others, of running wild in violence, of scorning the poor and favoring the rich, and of licentiousness and theft. Cultivate and apply according to this prescription, and there is nothing that will not respond and prove effective — truly an excellent prescription.
A verse bears witness:
This prescription is here, offered to you, sir —
go seek out its ingredients in haste.
If you see the prescription and do not take the medicine,
from what day will your illness ever lighten?
If sons and grandsons surpass me,
what use have I for money?
If sons and grandsons fall short of me,
what use have I for money?
When ordinary people are caught in hardship and calamity, speak to comfort and to explain — above it benefits one's ancestors, below it shelters one's sons and grandsons.
To push a man down and to hold a man up
are done with the very same hand;
to praise a man and to entrap a man
come from the very same mouth.
Better to use the hand that holds others up
than to open the mouth that entraps them.
If a man follows these words,
the sons born to him will increase in fortune and long life;
if a man follows this prescription,
his future path will be forever secure and lasting.
A verse bears witness:
The instructions handed down by father and mother are weighty;
the laws of the court are stricter still.
Of the ten thousand scrolls of the sages' words,
patience comes first of all.
Having erred, one should repent and change;
meeting an enemy, do not bind yourself in grudges.
When the heart holds nothing to be ashamed of,
the blue heaven stands overhead.
A person need not toil in greed for wealth — consider your allotted fortune,
for wealth grasped through greed brings disaster sent by Heaven — better to have none.
If a man has money but is no longer living — who is there to enjoy it?
Better that the man live and be less greedy for wealth — that is rightly said.
I urge you: do good works even without money — whether you have it or not,
for when calamity finally arrives it will cost you ten thousand strings — whether you had it or not.
I wish to speak with you of good deeds — but there is no leisure for it,
for one morning the body dies and lies beneath the Yellow Springs — busy or not, one goes.
Fate and fortune circle round, and the years renew themselves — do not pass them in vain,
for the wicked and the false all too easily disorder what is true — this is most to be feared.
Examine constantly the affairs of body and mind — and still there are faults,
so what leisure is there to speak of others — and meddle in affairs not one's own!
All the ten thousand affairs of this world are governed by Heaven — beyond human reckoning,
follow reason, hold to your course, and let things take their natural way — for there is a principle of Heaven.
Exhaust every scheme and wear out heart and blood — and it is all in vain,
for in the end you cannot carry away a single coin — a whole life come to nothing!
I respectfully exhort the good men and believing women of every quarter: may those who read this earnestly follow its teaching — reverently worship the Buddha, respectfully honor the spirits, and offer sacrifice to your ancestors. Devote your whole strength and person, taking loyalty and filial piety as the root. For the bonds and constants are of the utmost weight: be harmonious as husband and wife, be loving and deferential as brothers, be trustworthy and righteous as friends, and care for and support your clan. Let the man manage outer affairs with fairness and uprightness; let the woman manage the household with diligence, frugality, and gentleness. Deal with sisters-in-law with patience and yielding, without distinguishing close kin from distant; raise sons and daughters with both strictness and love, without dividing the principal wife's children from a concubine's children. Be lenient toward concubines, and kind and forgiving toward servants. Support and relieve the poor and needy; deal with neighbors and villagers according to right principle. Keep the heart benevolent and generous; discipline and guard body and mind.
The mind is the ruler of the body; the body is the instrument of the mind. All good and evil, all calamity and fortune, are made by one's own mind. When the mind cultivates good, it brings the body peace and joy; when the mind does evil, it brings the body danger and suffering. A mind that is upright becomes a Buddha; a mind that is deviant becomes a demon. Immortality is achieved through the mind; the Way is studied through the mind. Virtue is accumulated through the mind; merit is built through the mind. Fortune is made through the mind; offense is invited through the mind. The mind's ground is a field of blessing — take care to till and plant it, and never deceive or delude yourself. If a man can change his evil and cultivate good, calamity will naturally turn into fortune.
Now I write out this account, hoping all may reflect upon it broadly — do not by any means regard it lightly. Awaken to the scripture and govern the mind; take the medicine according to this prescription; it is truly like a golden elixir that exchanges one's very bones. I beg that you not fail this earnest and heartfelt hope.
A poem says:
Cause and effect shine forth clearly, and their principle may be traced;
where there is fairness, how could disaster come to intrude?
If you ask how hidden virtue is planted —
in every undertaking, first keep the heart set on others.
(Regarding this scripture of the mind and its excellent prescription: whoever copies out a single sheet of it and gives it to another gains one merit; whoever prints a thousand sheets of it — if he seeks a son, he obtains a son; if he seeks long life, he obtains long life; wealth, rank, and success come to him as he wishes. This has been tested again and again, and verified again and again.)
Colophon
This Good Works Translation was prepared for the "Lü Dongbin and the Immortals' Teachings" shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The prose exhortation is kept as prose; the source's quatrains of seven-character lines are kept as verse; the run of couplets built with a mid-line caesura before a closing gloss is kept with a dash, following the source's own layout; and the eighteen-medicine list is kept as a prescription list, term and dosage together, since the whole text depends on that pharmacy conceit staying visible.
Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed. Both local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western-language translation — Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud survey — were grepped for this text's Chinese title, for "Lü Zu," and for "Lü Dongbin"; both list other texts associated with Lü Dongbin (the Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi and several internal-alchemy works attributed to him) but record no entry for the Xiaozai Zengfu Liangfang. Two web searches were then run, on the Chinese title and on the romanized title; neither turned up a published English translation, nor any secondary discussion of one. On this evidence, to our knowledge this is the first complete published English translation of the Lü Zu Xiaozai Zengfu Liangfang. This is stated as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty.
A note on two points. 波羅密 (pāramitā, "that which has crossed to the other shore") is a Buddhist loanword already present in the Chinese and is kept as such, glossed once. The four places of origin the text claims for itself — the Bureau of Transforming Men, the County of Exhorting Men, the Assembly at Vulture Peak, and the Great Storehouse of Scriptures — belong to the rhetorical convention of this genre of morality tract, which likes to root its authority in fantastical bureaus and assemblies; they are translated as the text gives them and are not to be read as real bibliographic claims. No unencodable characters occurred in this source.
Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.
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Source Text: 呂祖消災增福良方
Classical Chinese text of the Daoist Canon, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
呂祖消災增福良方
詩曰：
古人留下舊醫方，明目清心大補湯。
世人用我諸般藥，萬禍千災化吉祥。
良藥十八味：孝順（十分），陰騭（全用），恩惠（隨施），慎言（一味），仔細（十分），忠直（一塊），安分（隨用），戒淫（去心），仁義（廣用），老實（一個），好心（一片），小心（一點），戒賭（洗凈），信行（全用），和氣（一個），方便（多少不拘），熱腸（一條），忍耐（百個）
此藥用心細研，用波羅密為丸，如菩提子大，每服一百單八顆，引用益友三個，平心湯徐徐溫服。切忌笑裏刀、暗中箭、平地風波。此方出在化人府，勸人縣，靈山會上，大藏經中，專治一切不忠不孝、不仁不義、不敬天地、褻瀆神明、瞞心昧己、害眾成家、刁唆訐訟、利己損人、謊說是非，妒人親近、逞兇橫行、欺貧重富、姦盜邪淫等症。依方修治，無不應驗，真良方也。
有詩證曰：
方子由 君請，藥材急急尋。
見方不服藥，病從何日輕？
兒孫勝如我，要錢作什麼？
兒孫不如我，要錢作什麼？
凡人在顛沛患難之中，用言解釋，上資祖考，下蔭兒孫。
推人與扶人，皆是一般手；
讚人與陷人，皆是一般口。
寧使扶人手，莫開陷人口。
人若依此語，生子增福壽；
人若依此方，前程永固久。
有詩證曰：
父母垂訓重，朝廷法更嚴。
聖言千萬卷，第一忍為先。
有過當改悔，逢仇莫結冤。
心中無愧事，頭上有青天。
為人不必苦貪財——看你福，
貪得財來天降災——不如無。
若是有錢人不在——誰受用？
不如人在少貪財——說的是。
勸君作福便無錢——有也無，
禍到頭來使萬千——無也有。
欲要與君談善事——不得閒，
一朝身死臥黃泉——忙也去。
氣運迴圈歲月新——莫虛過，
邪非容易亂其真——最可怕。
時時檢點身心事——尚有錯，
哪有工夫說別人——管閒事！
世間萬事總由天——不容算，
順理操持聽自然——有天理。
使盡機關心血悴——枉徒然，
到頭難帶一文錢——一場空！
奉勸諸方善男信女，閱之者務祈謹遵教導，虔誠禮佛、恭敬神明、祭祀祖先。竭力致身，忠孝為本。夫綱常之至重也，和順夫妻，愛悌兄弟，信義朋友，顧攜宗族。男當外政公平正直；婦理內務勤儉柔和。處妯娌以忍讓勿辨親疏；育子女以嚴慈莫分嫡庶。寬待姬妾，恩恕仆從。扶濟貧困，循理鄉鄰。存心仁厚，治戒身心。心為身主，身為心用。一切善惡禍福，皆由自心造作。自心修善，令身安樂；自心作惡，令身危苦。心正成佛，心邪成魔。仙由心成，道由心學；德由心積，功由心建；福由心作，罪由心招。心地福田，規勉耕種，切勿自欺自誤。人能改惡修善，自然轉禍為福。今書此敘，普願眾省，切莫等閒視之。悟經治心，依方服藥，真如換骨金丹。幸勿負諄諄切望也。
詩曰：
影響昭昭理可循，公平豈有禍相侵。
若言陰德如何種，舉事先存為眾心。
（以上心經良方，能寫一張送人者一功；能刊千張者，求子得子，求壽得壽。富貴功名如意而得，屢試屢驗。）
Source Colophon
The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 呂祖消災增福良方, revision of 12 July 2009), 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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