by Wang Chongyang

Wang Chongyang (王重陽, 1113–1170) was the founder of Quanzhen Daoism, the school of Complete Perfection — one of only two Daoist lineages to survive intact into the modern era. In 1160, after a series of mystical encounters with the immortals Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, Wang dug himself a grave in Zhongnan Mountain, built walls around it several feet high, hung a spirit tablet inscribed with his own name, and descended over ten feet into the earth. He called himself the Living Dead Person (活死人) and dwelt in this self-made tomb for more than two years before emerging to teach.

From within the tomb, Wang composed a cycle of thirty poems addressed to his friend Ning Bogong — each a meditation on impermanence, the illusory body, and the path beyond the dust of the world. Every stanza ends with the word 塵 (chén) — dust — and the first ten begin with the incantatory refrain "Living dead person, oh living dead person." The poems move from personal practice to cosmic vision, from the silence of the tomb to the radiance beyond the three realms. They are among the earliest and most concentrated expressions of Quanzhen inner alchemy in verse.

This is the first complete English translation. The source text is the Chongyang Quanzhen Ji (重陽全真集, Collected Works of Chongyang on Complete Perfection), preserved in the Daoist Canon (道藏) and digitized by the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org). Wang Chongyang was the master of Qiu Chuji (丘處機), whose Song of the Clear Sky also appears in this archive — student and teacher now together in English for the first time.

Preface to the Living Dead Person

When the Master first left worldly life, one day he suddenly dug himself a tomb. He built the mound several feet high, hung a square tablet above, and inscribed it: Spirit Tablet of Master Wang. Below the inscription, the pit dropped over ten feet deep. He dwelt there alone for more than two years, then suddenly filled it in.

Living dead person — Wang Zhe the strange!
Water and clouds, a joy all his own.
His Daoist name: Chongyang-zi, the Double Yang Master.
His epitaph: Buried Without Ground.

Born at the crossroads, never forgetting in heart —
a walking funeral, he hangs his own spirit tablet.
Not to deceive the masses or seek gain,
but so that all might know the reckoning to come.

From the Tomb of the Living Dead, Given to Ning Bogong

I.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
I buried the four false elements and made that my cause.
Sleeping my fill in the tomb, I am washed clean;
I shatter the void and trample the dust.

II.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
I speak not of karmic fruit, nor speak of cause.
In the tomb I am free, just as I wish;
I have claimed the ease beyond the six dusts.

III.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
today I tell you of the great cause.
To die alone in the tomb is a fine story;
sharing a pillow, sharing a coffin — all becomes dust.

IV.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
fire, wind, earth, water: know their cause.
In the tomb I daily take the true elixir;
I've traded my mortal frame for a single mote of dust.

V.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
to find death within life is the truest cause.
In the tomb, silence and genuine emptiness;
I've severed the common world and its dust.

VI.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
this madness of mine is my former cause.
In the tomb, here is the genuine message:
a white lotus rising from water — does it touch the dust?

VII.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
know that the five grains sustain the body's cause.
In the tomb I've seen through it all, clear as Zheng's principle;
eat soil, dine on mud — nourishment for dust.

VIII.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
sleeping by day, resting by night, I know my own cause.
In the tomb there dwells a true child;
how it laughs at the clay ball — dust wrapped in dust!

IX.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
empty, empty, and within the empty: empty cause.
In the tomb there is always a vision of true emptiness;
awaken to the empty of empty — cease to make dust.

X.

Living dead person, oh living dead person —
the living come with pearls and jade, asking my cause.
The realm within the tomb is the genuine household;
yet in the end, all who draw near dissolve to dust.

XI.

Heaven and earth, high and vast, sheltering humankind —
yet the human heart is cunning and trusts no cause.
Knowing only fame and profit as the body's treasure,
never awakening: the body itself is a thing wrapped in dust.

XII.

Think it through — the one who steps off the boat at the shore,
laughing, points at white clouds: there is the cause.
The cinnabar orange within is a priceless jewel;
naturally it shines, transcending the finest dust.

XIII.

If no one traffics in right and wrong,
far removed from all the causes of hell —
the spirit-things ascend beyond the three realms;
how could the immortal palace hold even flying dust?

XIV.

There is one who wanders free and at ease,
dim and silent, alone knowing the cause.
Preserve the spirit, nurture the vast, perfect the true nature;
the bone and body of the mortal frame — for now, a muddled dust.

XV.

When a person can spread the Way, the Way draws near;
the human Way has always been the highest cause.
If you sweep the dark clouds all away,
the moon of the heart opens wide, illuminating all the dust.

XVI.

Wind and moon for neighbors — that too is a person;
water and clouds for companions — finding the true cause.
Then take the phoenix-crane home to Penglai Isle;
once gone, there is no reason to fall back to dust.

XVII.

Suddenly you recognize the one standing on the shore —
no deliberation, no argument can explain that cause.
What is it, exactly, that becomes the song?
Within the song, you see through the motes in the beam of dust.

XVIII.

I lament the people of this world:
what cause did your former life create on the road here?
I fear your nature goes astray, the way back lost,
and returning, you spin round and round into grey dust.

XIX.

Born from womb, from egg, from moisture, from transformation —
deluded, how can you know the cause of the four false elements?
You are a lump of clay, a clod of earth;
gathered, you form a body — scattered, you become dust.

XX.

Wine and lust, dazed and bewildered, tormenting humankind —
using this murky evil, you push along the cause.
In time you'll lose your footing and spin through the wheel,
content to sink beneath the springs, dust below dust.

XXI.

The outsider doesn't recognize the one within the wrapping;
call him out the door and discover this cause.
Bright moon, clear wind — don't laugh at me:
this time, like you, I've left the red dust far behind.

XXII.

What a joke — the foolish and deluded, living in vain as men,
everyone saying "provide for the family" is the cause.
Family is the fire that burns the body;
dry out the mud ball and it crumbles into dust.

XXIII.

I now would urge the people of this world:
just the right time to pursue the Dao's fruition as your cause.
Awaken even slightly to this, know this one thing,
and before the wind you scatter a whole pile of dust.

XXIV.

Those of yang should not cling to those of yin —
all are damaged by the yin's corruption of good cause.
Refine and take the pure yang, the body's seven treasures;
on the road of no-birth, no dust is born.

XXV.

Sitting idle and silent, I watch ordinary people,
each one boring deeper, seeking paths without a cause.
Just like fish in water, fish loving water —
knowing only the dust-body, body plunging into dust.

XXVI.

In this world, the wheel turns for all alike:
each allotted their spirit-nature, each their cause.
A hundred years, the great limit — from birth to death;
the five aggregates all return to dust beneath the dust.

XXVII.

Riding the green ox in calm, the ancient sage —
from the white ox's branch and leaf this cause emerged.
Confucian, physician, master: the three teachings formed,
breaking open delusion's soil, lest it fall to dust.

XXVIII.

Born and dying, ten thousand upon ten thousand —
good fruit, good cause — between them, yet more cause.
Jealousy, strangeness, greed, boasting of wealth and rank:
I share with you now a different dust.

XXIX.

Who recognizes this one here amid the marketplace,
acting through non-action, letting be the cause?
White clouds receive and guide, following wind and moon —
slipping free from toil, departing from the world's dust.

XXX.

Coming and going, people watching people,
the human heart calculating, each debating cause.
The three luminaries beyond the dust see all things clear:
they illuminate your body's form — nothing but earthen dust.

Colophon

Wang Chongyang (王重陽, 1113–1170), born Wang Zhe (王嚞), was the founder of Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism. He composed this cycle of poems from within his self-dug tomb in Zhongnan Mountain between approximately 1160 and 1163. His seven disciples, the Seven Perfected (七真), would go on to establish Quanzhen as one of the most influential Daoist movements in Chinese history. Among them was Qiu Chuji (丘處機, 1148–1227), who famously crossed Central Asia to meet Genghis Khan and whose own meditation poem, the Song of the Clear Sky (青天歌), also appears in this archive.

Source text: 重陽全真集 (Collected Works of Chongyang on Complete Perfection), Volume 2, as preserved in the Daoist Canon (道藏). Digitized text accessed via the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org). This is a Good Works Translation by the New Tianmu Anglican Church — the first complete English translation of these poems.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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