Lingbao Dalian Neizhi Xingchi Jiyao — an inner-visualization manual for the rite of Refinement and Deliverance
This short text is a working manual for the Lingbao "Great Refinement" (dàliàn 大煉), a form of the liàndù 煉度 or "Refinement and Deliverance" rite: the Daoist funerary ritual in which a priest, through inward visualization, refines the souls of the dead in an inner fire and raises them into the heavens. Its date and author are not established to us — the text is preserved in the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon without an attached colophon of its own — but its content places it within the broader current of Lingbao "Great Rite" (dàfǎ 大法) liturgy that elaborated the liàndù rite from the Song dynasty onward. We give no dynasty and no Daozang catalogue number, since we did not confirm either.
The text is entirely prose, written as a sequence of instructions to be silently visualized and performed rather than read aloud: the priest bows, breathes, and holds in mind an unbroken chain of images — an Infant formed of inner light, a Pearl, the god Yuanshi seated on a lion of five colors, the hells of Fengdu breaking open, the souls bathed, clothed, fed, carried across a bridge made of the spine, and refined in a furnace of fire before ascending to the highest heaven. Short glosses are woven through the instructions, in the manner of interlinear notes, explaining a term or correcting a word; we have kept these as parenthetical asides, exactly where the text places them.
One word needs a note. The text repeatedly uses hēi 黑, "black," as a technical noun — something drawn in by breath and gathered into light — rather than as a plain color word; we have rendered it throughout as "the black breath," asking the reader to hold it as the term of art it plainly is here, tied to the Water phase and the kidneys, rather than to import an ordinary sense of the word.
Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, which is printed in full below the translation. A published academic discussion of this text exists (see the colophon); to our knowledge, no complete published English translation of it does, and this is offered as the first.
Translation
Facing east, perform the nine bows — or three bows — and burn incense; or burn it before bowing, and burn it again when the moment comes, either is acceptable. Declare the intent of the retreat. At this point, broadly report to the High Sages, the Master, and the Perfected; when the purpose of one's coming has been declared, this is complete. Bow again three times, withdraw from the altar and sit level, harmonize the spirit and settle the black breath, and recite the Great Scripture nine times — either the Scripture of Birth in Heaven, or the Nine Stanzas of the Generation of Spirit, or the Invocation of the Azure Mystery. With each recitation, draw in a mouthful of the black breath, straight into the cinnabar field. (Thus it stands in the original; but it is feared that "cinnabar" here should properly be "body" — reading "straight into the body's own field, filling it entirely.") That is, the Water Palace — as the scripture says, "The Water Kings of the Two Bureaus face the Gate of Life," that is, the Water Section.
Gather the light of the nine blacks, and form a single Infant. (This transformation takes place exactly between the two kidneys; a single point of brightness — this is the place.) In form it resembles one's own body, facing outward, sitting cross-legged and upright, its remaining light spreading over Heaven and Earth. (This is not something outside the body — it is the transformation within the gourd.) Form and spirit grow bright and radiant. In a moment, the five-colored breath of the Five Viscera descends like clouds, bearing the Infant aloft; from the twin passes of the spine it rises up into the Palace of the Muddy Pellet, and suddenly transforms into a Precious Pearl. (That is, the Millet-Grain Pearl.) The Infant transforms into the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning; the cloud-breath of the Five Viscera transforms into a Five-Colored Lion; Yuanshi, within the Precious Pearl, sits atop the Five-Colored Lion, and hundreds of thousands of millions of precious rays blaze through all the heavens and all the earths, radiant and translucent, within and without.
Next visualize the Thirty-Two Heavens, ten thousand sages and a thousand Perfected, floating through the void and coming — all entering into the Precious Pearl, arriving together before the Sovereign, as though listening to the Law. Yuanshi releases from between his brows the light of the white curl-mark, shining down upon the Nine Darknesses and all the hells of Fengdu. (That is, below the navel.) Within the Palace of the Muddy Pellet, and within each of the two rays, the Precious Pearl is seen. Within each of the two pearls the Thirty-Two Heavens are seen, ten thousand sages and a thousand Perfected attending and following Yuanshi, no different from the Precious Pearl before. Within each of the two rays the Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering is seen, his light shining forth, his radiance reflected through the ten directions. All the hells of Fengdu, borne up by the power of the Celestial Worthy's Way, are made bright by his awesome radiance; in a single flash it breaks the heavy darkness, and it is transformed into a Pure Land.
Next visualize that beneath the two kidneys all is a place of dark shadow — that is, the hells. As soon as the gates of the hells open, the Northern Sovereign together with the officials and clerks of the underworld line up in ranks and pay homage outside the City Gate. (Fengdu lies behind the Water Section, between the loins and the spine.) When the homage is complete, the flying spirit-kings of the ten directions arrive, driving dragon-chariots, with Golden Lads and Jade Maidens attending at their sides, holding in their hands the talisman-mandate of Yuanshi, standing before the Sovereign. Receiving the decree of the Way face to face, they let their light descend, entering straight into all the hells of Fengdu; all the sinning souls due for it are granted pardon, and forthwith they leave the hells and gather before the Palace of Fengdu.
Next visualize the Flower Pool, vast and clear and brimming. Next visualize that, within the Precious Pearl, the thousand Perfected and ten thousand sages together recite the Great Spell of Cinnabar Yang. Next visualize the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning issuing his command: the Vermilion Dragon descends, churning the waves of the Mist Pool, pouring down to flood the Eastern Well like a waterfall. Swiftly visualize the tongue as the Vermilion Dragon, stirring the Flower Pool; when the divine water in the mouth is full to overflowing, turn to the left and swallow it down into the Water Palace before you — that is, the Heavenly River. Swiftly visualize that before the Water Palace lies a vast ocean, boundless and without limit; all the sinning souls bathe in it, in auspicious winds and mild black breath, warm as spring, its vapor rising through them inside and out, and there is not one who does not rejoice. At once they awaken from greed and anger, and turn their hearts to the true Way. The bathing is complete.
Yuanshi commands the Golden Lads and Jade Maidens, each holding pure garments beyond counting, to bestow them on all the sinning souls. When the robing is complete, the thousand Perfected and ten thousand sages within the Precious Pearl chant together in one voice the Scripture of Universal Salvation and the Hidden-Word Numinous Chapters. The Celestial Worthy of Great Unity and the Celestial Worthies of the Ten Directions, chanting as they walk, descend upon floating clouds. Great Unity, with the Dharma-rain of sweet dew, sprinkles all the souls everywhere; at once body and mind grow clear and cool, throat and gullet moistened and eased. The Celestial Worthies of the Ten Directions each hold a golden bowl and a jade spoon, filled with sweet dew and jade cream, and scatter this through the empty void to feed them; all the souls partake of this food of the Law, and eat until they are full and satisfied.
Next visualize the spine as the great bridge of the Law for ascending to Heaven, joining to the Crimson Palace of Zhuling, and reaching down below to the Water Palace. Golden Lads and Jade Maidens, holding banners and pennants in their hands, scatter fragrant incense and flowers, guiding all the departed souls up onto the bridge. At the Fire Palace of Zhuling there are: the Great Lord of Long Life (in the robes of a sovereign); the Great Spirit Sima (in a star-crown and robes); the Elder Lord Han (in a white jade crown, in blue and black-green robes); and the Directors of Fate and of Emolument, who extend life and increase the account, and the Venerable Spirit Who Delivers from Distress (in a star-crown and robes) — these oversee and ferry all the souls, sending them into the fire-furnace, where they are refined and delivered by blazing fire. As soon as the souls have passed through the fire's refining, they are clothed entirely in heavenly garments; hundreds and thousands of fire-dragons, from within the furnace, let down their light and leap up in flame, and come forth bearing all the departed souls, passing through the twelvefold tower, flying up through the void, straight to the realm of Jade Clarity. Face to face they bow to Yuanshi, and their persons come to rest within the precious light.
The practitioner then lets the mind sink into stillness and clarity, forgetting both self and thing; in perfect quiet, do not ask where the departed one goes to dwell — for if a single thread of concern still clings, the rite will not reach its completion, and there will be no bond by which deliverance can be brought about. The essential point lies entirely in secrecy: close the mouth, and carry out the practice in silence.
This method is the transformation within the gourd; it is not some doctrine of enveloping Heaven and wrapping Earth, or of vainly seeking the Mystery outside oneself. One must never lightly show it to unfit persons, for fear it becomes an occasion for delusion and disrespect and gives rise to disbelief — in which case master and disciple alike would together fall under the penalty of the Mystic Statutes. Be careful of this! Be careful of this!
Colophon
This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Lingbao shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently, sentence by sentence, from the classical Chinese text printed below. The source is continuous instructional prose without formal scripture/commentary alternation, but it carries short interlinear glosses and one collation-style note woven into the instructions; these have been kept as parenthetical asides exactly where the source places them, rather than moved into a separate apparatus.
Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed: the two local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western-language translation (Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud survey) were searched by Chinese title, pinyin, and known variant readings, and neither records this text. Two web searches were then run, under the Chinese title and under the romanized title. One relevant result surfaced: a University of Colorado doctoral dissertation, Bingxia Bian's The Daoist Body in the Liturgy of Salvation through Refinement, which names and discusses this text and renders its title into English as part of its analysis; its full page could not be retrieved for inspection (the server returned an access error), so we could not confirm whether it contains a complete translation or only discussion with partial excerpts, and we did not consult it in preparing this translation. No other translation, complete or partial, was found. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Lingbao Dalian Neizhi Xingchi Jiyao. We state this as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty.
A note on terms. Hēi 黑, "black," is used throughout as a technical noun for a breath or essence drawn into the body and gathered into light, tied to the Water phase and the kidneys; it is rendered consistently as "the black breath" rather than as a plain color. Yuánshǐ 元始 is given as "the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning," and Jiùkǔ Tiānzūn 救苦天尊 as "the Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering," following the house glossary's conventions for these titles. A small number of characters in the source appear to be transcription or scanning errors for near-homophones or visually similar graphs (for instance 束 for 東, "east"; 問 for 間, "between"; 呎 for 呪/咒, "spell"); where the intended reading was reasonably clear from context, the translation follows that reading, and the graphs as transcribed are kept unaltered in the Source Text below.
Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.
🌲
Source Text: 靈寶大煉內旨行持機要
Classical Chinese text of the Daoist Canon, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
靈寶大煉內旨行持機要
面束拜九禮， 或三拜 焚香 或未拜先焚，臨期再焚亦可。 白齋意， 至此大略啟白上聖師真，即白來意事情畢。 再三拜，退案平坐，調神正黑，誦大經九過。 或《生天經》或《生神九章》，或青玄號。 每一過，引黑一口，直入丹田。 原本如此，今恐丹字當為身序，直入身田遍滿於中。 即水府， 經云：兩部水王對生門，即水部。 聚九黑之光，結一嬰兒， 此造化正在兩腎中問，一點明，即此處也。 狀與己身。向外盤足端坐，餘光遍覆天地， 非身外之端也，乃壺中造化也。 形神光明。須臾，五臟五色之氣，如雲而自下，乘載嬰兄昇騰，從夾脊雙關，上入泥丸宮，倏忽化為寶珠。 即黍米珠也。 嬰兒化為元始，五臟雲氣化為五色獅子，元始於寶珠之內，坐五色獅子之上，百千萬億寶光，洞煥諸天諸地，瑩徹表裹。次存三十二天，萬聖千真，浮空而來，咸入寶珠之中，齊到帝前，如聽法狀。元始放眉問白毫相光，下照鄧都九幽諸獄， 自臍下也。 泥丸宮及二光中，皆見寶珠。二珠中皆見三十二天，萬聖千真，護從元始，與前寶珠無二。二光中皆見救苦天尊，光明照耀，輝映十方。所有鄧都諸獄，乘天尊道力，威光朗耀，昭一破重昏，化為淨土。次存兩腎而下，皆幽陰之所，即獄也。獄門一開，北帝與冥官獄吏，列班朝禮於都門之外。 鄧都在水部之後，腰腎脊骨之問。 朝禮畢，即有十方飛天神王，駕龍車，金童玉女栩衛其側，手執元始符命，在帝之前。面承道旨，垂光而下，逕入鄧都諸獄，應諸罪魂並皆赦宥，繼時出獄，集於鄧都宮前。次存華池森羅掙泓，次存寶珠中萬聖千真，齊誦丹陽大呎。次存元始天尊勃命，降赤龍，奮鼓霧池之浪，下灌束井，如瀑布。急存舌為赤龍，撥動華池，候口中神水滿溢，左顧嚥之入水府前，即天河也。急存水府前，大海汪洋，無邊無際，一切罪魂入浴祥風和黑，暖然如春，薰蒸表裹，無不欣慶。頓省貪瞋，皈心正道，浴畢。
元始勃金童玉女，各執淨衣，不知其數，賜諸罪魂。衣畢，寶珠中千真萬聖，同聲誦念，《度人經》、隱語靈篇。太一天尊，十方天尊，隨誦隨步，浮雲而下。太一以甘露法雨，遍灑諸魂，即得身心清凍，咽喉寬潤。十方天尊，各持金盂玉匙，貯以甘露玉膏，虛空散哺，諸魂享此法食，食飽滿訖。次存脊骨為昇天大法橋，接至朱陵絳宮，下通水府，金童玉女，手執嬸幢，飛香散花，引諸亡魂，升橋。至朱陵火府中，有長生大君、 帝者服。 司馬大神、 星冠服。 韓君丈人、 白玉冠青服皂綠。 司命司祿延壽益算，度厄尊神 星冠服 監度諸魂，入火冶中，炎火鍊度。諸魂．一從火鍊，并衣天衣，有百千火龍，自火冶中垂光焰躍， 出載諸亡魂，歷十二重樓，飛空而上，直至玉清境。面拜元始，致身寶光中。兆即冥心湛然，物我兼忘，寂然勿問，亡者去住何地，稍掛一絲，不成究竟，無緣超度。切在秘密，閉口行持。
此法乃壺中之造化也，非包天裹地，妄外求玄之說。切不可輕示非人，恐為惑慢，生不信心，則師資皆鈴遭於玄憲也。慎之！慎之！
Source Colophon
The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 靈寶大煉內旨行持機要, revision of 13 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.
🌲