Xue Xian Bian Zhen Jue — Attributed to Zhang Wumeng

This is a short alchemical treatise of the Daoist Canon, attributed by the canon's own headnote to Zhang Wumeng (張無夢), a Daoist master said to have lived at Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang around the tenth and eleventh centuries, in the early Song dynasty. Its subject is the "technique of the Golden Liquor" (jinye 金液), the elixir art said to grant long life and turn aside death, and its whole argument is polemical: that the lead, mercury, and cinnabar of the alchemical classics are not the common minerals sold and dug in the ordinary world, but cosmological principles reached only through a secret transformative process.

The text unfolds as a short preface naming its authorities — the Zhouyi Cantong Qi ("Token for the Kinship of the Three, in accordance with the Book of Changes") and a companion work it calls the Jinbi — followed by five short chapters, each titled "Discerning" (bian 辨) some element of the art: the True, the Treasure, Quicksilver, Mercury, and a closing General Discernment that draws the argument together through further citations, from a figure it calls Lord Tao and from the classics of change. A final verse, the "Song of Mother and Child," restates the teaching in five-character lines, each stanza followed by a short prose gloss in the manner of a mnemonic for students.

One distinction runs through the whole text and asks something of English. Classical Chinese has two words for the liquid metal: the everyday shuiyin 水銀, literally "water-silver," and the older, more literary gong 汞, the word of the alchemical classics, which the Cantong Qi personifies as the "Fair Maiden." The text argues, at length, that these are not the same thing — that mistaking the market's shuiyin for the classics' gong is exactly the error that keeps students of immortality from the true art. This translation keeps the distinction the only way English allows: shuiyin 水銀 is rendered "quicksilver," the common word, and gong 汞 is reserved for "mercury," the coded substance the text is actually about.

Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, printed in full below the translation. To our knowledge, this is the text's first complete published English translation.

Translation

Whoever wishes to return to the root and recover the uncarved block, to bring back the soul and restore the primal source, to attain long life and secure the foundation — for such a one there is nothing beyond the technique of the Golden Liquor (jinye). Whoever attains this technique flourishes; whoever loses it perishes. For this is the utmost marvel of the True Persons, not something the hasty ways of the ordinary world can glimpse. Without accumulated cultivation and long practice, and an utmost sincerity that calls forth its response, it cannot be attained.

Its essentials lie entirely within the Jinbi and the Cantong Qi. Without a Perfect Man's oral transmission of their secret depths, one is as lost as a boatless traveler trying to cross a dark sea. Lord Zuo once met an accomplished one, who transmitted to him the secret essentials; only then did he know that the utmost Way is exceedingly easy, and the utmost words are very few. This is a mechanism of Heaven, and it truly must not be shown openly. Now I set forth briefly what I have attained, as the five chapters of "Instructions for Discerning the True," to make clear what is genuine in this matter and what is not.

Discerning the True

Long ago the Yellow Emperor, Xuanyuan, went to Mount Emei and asked the True Person Baiyu (White Jade) about the Way of the True One. The True Person said: "As for attaining long life and ascending as a winged immortal — that comes only through the golden elixir. As for preserving the bodily form and turning death aside — that is the way of the True One." For this reason the immortals of old kept it secret.

The True One is lead. Outwardly it is black, partaking of the North; it belongs to Kan (the trigram of Water), and Kan is Water, whose number is one. Within, it is white; the white belongs to the West, to Dui (the trigram of Metal), and Dui is Metal, whose number is four. If one cultivates this according to its principle, yin is exhausted and yang is born — this is the essence of Metal transforming into the One, and the Green Dragon receiving the tally. The Green Dragon's place is the East, the trigram Zhen; Zhen is Wood, whose number is three. This, then, may be called the Way of the Three-and-One.

Hence the Cantong Qi says: "When the root is set right, cultivate it and cultivate it again; when the trunk stands, it still cannot yet be grasped." The One is thereby veiled, so that ordinary people cannot know it. The Golden Liquor makes this clear: the method of the elixir requires, first of all, that its root be set right. "The root set right" means what is substantial — carrying the True One through to its completion, and so attaining its principle.

Discerning the Treasure

Gold is the True One itself; through transformation one draws out its True One. Within the True One are feeling and nature; feeling and nature are the white of lead. Transformed further, this may be called cinnabar-and-mercury.

Note carefully: Metal is the mother of Water; the mother conceals the child in her womb. Water is the child of Metal; the child is stored within the mother's womb. This says that Metal and Water contain and gestate each other, kept hidden away as a treasure in its case within the mother's belly, until, through transformation, lead is born, arising in answer to its season.

Discerning Quicksilver

Quicksilver is not what is drawn today from cinnabar. It is, rather, the lead-white cultivated within the Palace of Water, and it is also called "lead-mercury."

Note carefully: Lord Tao's Technique of Reverting to Gold says: "The black one is quicksilver — but not the quicksilver of the ordinary world." Moreover, whoever claims that quicksilver in general can be made into the golden elixir speaks out of ignorance; whoever says that cinnabar can prolong one's years does not know the Way at all. Confounded by the words of those who, not knowing the Way, speak recklessly, one departs daily further from the truth.

Discerning Mercury

Mercury is another name for the Fair Maiden; cinnabar is the utmost treasure within lead. What the scriptures call "cinnabar-and-mercury" — this is the true instruction.

The text goes on to say: "Lead's having cinnabar-and-mercury is like a person's having feeling and nature. Feeling and nature, in a person, are not things from outside; cinnabar and mercury, in lead, are not some foreign kind. If one draws in an outside thing to serve as feeling, then nature cannot unite with it; if one substitutes quicksilver for mercury, then lead cannot be made intimate with it." It also says: "The red marrow flows and becomes mercury." Mercury is one that toys with a bright pendant — this shows that mercury does not enter from outside; it is born of itself, through the intercourse of Qian and Kun, receiving qi and coming to life. Hence the scripture says: "The sage is not born for nothing; above, he observes, and the celestial tally is revealed." The celestial tally is a token: Heaven's qi descends, Earth's qi answers — this is yin and yang's intercourse, the Flowing Pearl descending. The Flowing Pearl is also called mercury!

It also says: "Cinnabar's flowing mercury is the father; Wu-and-Ji's yellow gold is the mother." This being so, the quicksilver within cinnabar cannot be called mercury. What students today call "the red marrow" is simply the essence within lead. When the Perfect Men call mercury "quicksilver," this is only a name given by resemblance. Later people, not understanding this, go on to call the quicksilver within cinnabar "mercury" — a grave error indeed! By this account, then, "lead-mercury" is the Fair Maiden.

As for the phrase "the Fair Maiden above the River" — that refers to ordinary, common quicksilver, not to what comes from the place of cinnabar.

General Discernment

Lord Tao said: "The reason the ancients borrowed the images of the Book of Changes to make their scriptures is that they held the utmost Way to correspond with Heaven and Earth — as when the Most High first divided the one qi into the Two Modes, and the Two Modes, once distinguished, gave rise to the Three Powers; causing Qian and Kun to turn, so that the manifold kinds of things found their constancy, and Kan and Li to act, so that Metal and Water stood side by side. This is the pivot of the Way."

Men are capped and women have their hair pinned up; male and female find each other; qi mingles and bodies unite, answering change without limit — this is the working of the Way. The sun and moon revolve; cold and heat keep their seasons; nourishing fluids moisten and enrich, spreading their transforming influence in constant flow — this is the proof of the Way. Yin extends as yang withdraws; yang acts while yin lies hidden; one going, one coming, feeling advancing to join with nature — this is the returning of the Way. This, then, clearly divides the one qi, taking Heaven as model and Earth as image, moving of itself from action into union with non-action. How could this be brought about by borrowing some other, foreign thing?

So one knows: it is a single substance in transformation that becomes male and female, becomes Metal and Water, becomes Earth and Wood, becomes feeling and nature, becomes Dragon and Tiger. Though issuing from one source under different names, each must join with its own kind; where there is error or deviation, there is no mingling at all. Hence the Cantong Qi says: "To plant grain, use millet; for a brooding hen, use her own eggs." This makes clear that lead and quicksilver cannot serve in each other's place.

Moreover, feeling is apportioned out of nature, and nature is bound up with feeling; feeling and nature depend on each other, returning to the principle of what is spontaneously so — this is called transformation proceeding from its own true kind, beginning and end following from each other. Thus one knows: true mercury is lead's feeling and nature; primal qi is the root and foundation of a person. The Way of the Three-and-One — cultivating feeling to join it with nature — can bring one back to the root and restore the uncarved block! The technique of the Golden Liquor — nourishing mercury with gold — can bring back the soul and restore the primal source. So it is that the two matters of Dragon and Tiger are rooted in a single substance.

Quicksilver holds no proper place among the Five Phases; cinnabar is not the true pairing of Dragon and Tiger. Hence it is said: "Mixed kinds of different sorts — how could they unite and dwell in a single body?" This, then, is plainly not the same as the world's cinnabar and quicksilver!

It is also said: some claim one should use lead, others that one should use quicksilver. The text goes on: if quicksilver were taken as the ruling substance, could Qian and Kun be established? Could hard and soft be told apart? If one must mix in lead to bring it about, then how could Metal and Water arise at all? How could reversion and return proceed? How, then, could transformation proceed from its own true kind? Must one not plant grain with millet? The songs and instructions handed down from antiquity praise only lead's efficacy; they say nothing of quicksilver's subtle excellence. Given this, how could one still use the world's cinnabar and quicksilver? If one insists on taking quicksilver as the ruling substance, merely borrowing lead's qi to complete it — how is that anything but discarding the root to keep the twig? And how, then, could one fail to cultivate the treasure within gold?

By all this it is fully clear that the "quicksilver" and "gold" of the classics are not the world's quicksilver and common gold. Mercury is not the world's mercury; its purport reaches far, and its reckoning runs deep. As for the principle by which the Five Phases generate and overcome one another, this too lies beyond what students of the present age can know.

The Jinbi and the Cantong Qi draw upon the Book of Changes' sixty-four hexagrams, together with the calendar-stations of the months, the dark moon and the full moon, the two quarter-moons, the twelve double-hours, the pitch-pipes and calendar, the stars, the four directions, and the meanings of sun and moon — each matched in its place, taken as a fixed standard. Their meaning is hidden and hard to fathom; without a Perfect Man's oral transmission, one can scarcely exhaust their deep principles. As for the workings of the yang cauldron and the yin cauldron, and the names "cinnabar-sand" and "gold-sand," these teachings are widely current, yet hard to settle in the end. Hence the Cantong Qi says: "Three and five together with one — the utmost essence of Heaven and Earth — can be given by word of mouth, but hardly transmitted in writing."

Heaven is nothing but what-is-so-of-itself; where what-is-so-of-itself comes together and is attained, this becomes Heaven and Earth. Outwardly one should be tranquil and plain, practicing non-action; inwardly one should cultivate and labor, practicing action.

Song of Mother and Child

One mother gives birth to two children (the Way gives birth to yin and yang) —
one son and one daughter.
The son is the ancestor of yin (yin at its utmost gives birth to yang);
the daughter is the mistress of yang (yang at its utmost gives birth to yin).

Yin comes and yang goes again,
yet neither loses the root ancestor (the two qi secretly mingle and join, returning to each other, never leaving the source).

The spleen grinds and the food dissolves of itself;
together they return to Sovereign Earth (the qi of the spleen's central palace: when the spleen moves, food is digested).

Students of this Way are as many as hemp stalks;
the deluded have been so from of old until now.

They see the Dragon and do not know the Dragon;
they meet the Tiger and do not know the Tiger.
The Dragon is not in the Qi River to the east;
the Tiger is not among the tribes to the west (to the one who knows, it is right before his eyes; to the deluded, it is a thousand miles off).

Seek at the single source,
and you will know your own organs as clearly as daylight;
seek in the east and in the west,
and you will have eyes yet be as good as twice blind.

Yin lies within yang's womb, yang lies within yin's belly;
the man is white, the woman is red again —
by their nature they become husband and wife (the man's white is yin essence, and becomes bone and marrow; the woman's red is yang essence, and becomes blood and flesh — this is the principle of what is so of itself: the woman is Li, the man is Kan).

Sow hemp and reap only hemp; sow millet and reap only millet.
Face lead and fail to know lead,
and your empty hands will earn only bitter toil (a sparrow does not give birth to a phoenix; a fox or a hare does not suckle a horse — if one refines the reverted elixir with some other substance, in the end nothing at all is accomplished).

Hazy, hazy, and dim, dim again —
how hard, then, to glimpse these two things?
Dark, dark, and obscure, obscure again —
the Three Natures keep each other's company (the Sage of Chaotic Origin said: "Hazy and dim — within it there is a thing; dark and obscure — within it there is an essence. That essence is truly real; within it there is a token. The Three Natures are Metal, Water, and Earth. These three things are of themselves a single household; beginning and end, they share one source.").

When feeling unites, there is no need of the many drugs (do not use the eight minerals and five metals and their mixed kinds);
when qi joins, there is no need of words (when qi is of one kind, it unites of itself — not something sought through sacrificial rites).
If lead can hold itself in check,
it is just like a wildcat crouched over a mouse (knowing lead, knowing mercury; knowing water, knowing silver — when the Way is not mixed with foreign things, it is like a wildcat crouched over a mouse: that is to say, it is easy).

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Meditation and Inner Alchemy shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The preface and the five "Discerning" chapters — dense, largely unbroken prose in the source — are rendered here in short paragraphs for readability, with nothing omitted or reordered; the closing "Song of Mother and Child" keeps the source's five-character verse as lines, with its own interlinear glosses (夾註, marked 〔 〕 in the transcription) set beneath each stanza as italicized parenthetical notes.

Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed: the local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western-language translation (Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud survey of Daoist texts in Western languages) were searched under the Chinese title, its variants, and the author's name, and returned no entry for this text; web searches under the Chinese title, the author's name Zhang Wumeng, and the pinyin title returned only the Chinese source itself, on Chinese Wikisource and the Chinese Text Project, and no English translation, partial or complete. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Xue Xian Bian Zhen Jue. We state this as the limit of our search, not as a certainty. The text's Daozang catalogue number could not be confirmed from the sources available and so is not given here.

A note on terms. The distinction between shuiyin 水銀 ("quicksilver") and gong 汞 ("mercury") is explained above and held throughout; every occurrence of "mercury" below is the technical, coded substance the text is defending, not the common metal. One clause in Discerning Mercury — describing mercury as "one that toys with a bright pendant" (弄明璫) — resisted confident parsing and is rendered literally as a good-faith best effort. "The red marrow" (赤髓) and "the Flowing Pearl" (流珠) are the source's own further code-names for mercury, kept as given. The trigram names Qian, Kun, Kan, Li, Dui, and Zhen are kept as the Book of Changes gives them, glossed with their associated element at first use, since the text itself glosses them the same way.

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

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Source Text: 學仙辨真訣

Classical Chinese text of the Zhengtong Daozang, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above. 〔 〕 marks small-type interlinear notes as formatted in the transcription.

夫欲歸根復朴，返魂還元，長生固本者，莫出於金液之術。此術得之者昌，失之者亡，則是真人至妙，非人間造次所能窺也。非積修累行，至誠有感，則不可得。其要並在《金碧》《參同》之中，非至人口授秘奧，則茫然若無航而濟瞑海也。左公曾遇達者，授其密要，方知至道極易，至言甚要。此天機也，固不可顯。今略述所得為《辨真訣》五篇，用明是非之實也。

辨真

昔軒轅至峨嵋山，問白玉真人真一之道，真人日：『夫長生飛仙，則唯金丹，守形卻死，猶真一也。』故古仙秘焉。真一者，鈆也，外黑，稟北方，屬坎，坎為水，其數一。其內白，白屬西方兌，兌為金，其數四。若修之合理，陰盡陽生，便是金精化一，青龍受符。青龍之位，為東方震，震屬木，其數三，則可謂三一之道也。故《參同契》云：『初正則修修，榦立未可持。』一者以掩蔽，俗人莫能知。金液明此，則明為丹之法，先須其初正。初正者，則是實，真一而終之，得其理也。

辨寶

金者，即真一也，造化而取其真一。真一之中，情性也，情性即鉛白也，變化則可謂砂汞矣。謹按金為水母，母隱子胎，水者金子，子藏母胞。此言金水自相含孕，韞櫝於母腹中，須造化而生鉛，應氣候而生也。

辨水銀

水銀者，非今朱砂中所出者也，並是於水宮之中修鉛白也，亦謂之鉛汞。謹按陶君《還金術》云：『黑者水銀，非世間水銀也。』又凡言水銀可以為金丹者，人妄也；言朱砂可駐年者，殊不知道也。以不知道惑妄人之言，則去真日遠矣。

辨汞

夫汞者，姹女之別名，砂者，鉛中之至寶。經所謂砂汞者，此真訣也。下文云：『鉛之有砂汞，猶人之有情性，情性於人，非外物也；砂汞於鉛，非雜類也。若引外物為情，則性不可合，以水銀代汞，則鉛不可親。』又云：『赤髓流為汞。』汞者弄明璫，此明汞非外入也。自乾坤交媾，受氣而生，故經云：『聖人不空生，上觀顯天符。』天符者，信也，天氣降，地氣應，是陰陽交媾，流珠下也。流珠亦謂之汞矣！又云：『丹砂流汞父，戊己黃金母。』是則朱砂中水銀，不可謂之汞也。今學人赤髓，則鉛中之精也。至人謂汞為水銀者，蓋是倣像之名耳。後人不曉，便謂朱砂中水銀為汞，深為謬矣！據此言之，則鉛汞是姹女也。夫言河上姹女，則是尋常水銀，非丹砂之所。

通辯

陶君云：『古人所以假易象而為經者，謂至道與天地配合，如太上始分一氣為二儀，二儀判然後有三才，俾乾坤運而品彙貞，坎離用而金水并，此道之樞也。』男冠女笄，牝牡相得，氣交體合，應變無窮，此道之用也。日月運矣！寒暑節矣！滋液潤澤，施化流通，此道之驗也。陰伸陽屈，陽用陰潛，一往一來，推情合性，此道之返也。此乃明剖一氣，以法天象地，自有為合於無為者也。豈假他物成之乎？則知一物變化，而為之牝牡也，為之金水也，為之土木也，為之情性也，為之龍虎也。雖同出異名，須與類合，如其差謬，不相涉入矣！故《參同契》云：植禾當以粟，伏雞用其子。此明鉛與水銀不相為用也。且情分於性，性紐乎情，情性相依，還返自然之理，是謂變化由其真，，終始自相因矣！是知真汞者，鉛之情性也，元氣者，人之根本也。三一之道，修情合性，則可以歸根復朴矣！金液之術，以金養汞，可以返魂還元。則所以龍虎二事，本乎一物者也。其水銀不在五行正位，朱砂非龍虎之配合，故日：雜類不同種，安能合體居。此則不同人間朱砂水銀，明矣！又日：或云用鉛耶，或云用水銀耶，下文云若以水銀為主，乾坤其可立乎？剛柔其可分乎！必雜鉛而為之，則金水何由而生？還返何由而行？又焉得變化由其真歟？植禾當以粟歟！古來歌訣，唯讚鉛之功效，不說水銀精妙，驗此又安得用人間朱砂水銀乎？必以水銀為主，但假鉛氣而成，何得遺本存末乎？又焉得不修金中寶乎？據此足明水銀與金，非人間水銀與常金也。汞非人間之汞，其旨遠，其籌深，至於五行相生相殺之理，並非時人學者所能知也。其《金碧》《參同》引用《周易》六十四卦，并月節度數，晦朔兩弦，十二辰，律曆星辰，東西南北，日月之義，各有所配，以為憑准，其義隱而難曉，非至人口授，難可盡其奧理。其陽鼎陰鼎之用，丹砂金砂之名，其說廣傳，卒難究議，故《參同》云：三五與一，天地至精，可以口訣，難以書傳。天者，自然也，自然合得，則為天地也。外當恬憺作無為，內當修行作有為也。

子母歌

一母生兩子〔（道生陰陽）〕，一男復一女，男是陰之宗〔（陰極生陽）〕，女是陽之主〔（陽極生陰）〕。

陰來陽復往，不失本宗祖〔（二氣潛交合相返，不離本源也）〕。

脾磨食自消，相將歸后土〔（脾中宮之氣，脾動則食消）〕。

學者亦如麻，迷者自今古。

見龍不識龍，逢虎不識虎，龍不在東淇，虎不在西虜〔（知者目前，迷者千里）〕。

若向一源求，昭昭知臟腑，若向東西求，有目如雙瞽。

陰在陽之胞，陽在陰之肚，男白女還赤，自然為夫婦〔（男白陰精為骨髓，女赤陽精為血肉，自然之理，為離女坎男也）〕。

種麻只收麻，種黍只收黍，向鉛不識鉛，白手成辛苦〔（𪈏雀不生鳳，狐兔不乳馬，若以他物修鍊還丹，終無成功）〕。

恍恍復惚惚，二物何難覩，杳杳復冥冥，三性自親侶〔（混元日：『恍兮惚，其中有物；杳兮冥，其中有精。其精甚真，其中有信。三性者，金水土也。此三物自為一家，終始同其源。』）〕。

情交無眾藥〔（不使八石五金雜類）〕，氣合無言語〔（氣同自合，非于祭際而求得也）〕，若能鉛自拘，亦如狸伏鼠〔（知鉛知汞，知水知銀，其道不雜，如狸伏鼠，言易也）〕。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Zhengtong Daozang edition of this text (article 學仙辨真訣, revision of 12 September 2020), 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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