Shangqing Huachen Sanben Yujue — Spoken by the Most High Lord of the Dao

This is a Shangqing (Highest Clarity) revelatory text preserved in the Daoist Canon, one of the family of practice-manuals — 三奔景, 握中訣, 登真隱訣, and their kin — that instruct the adept in visualizing the pole stars as living deities and "rushing" up to join them. Its date and exact place in the Shangqing corpus could not be confirmed from the sources at hand; the tradition itself traces such texts to the fourth-century revelations to Yang Xi, though this piece may be later. No catalogue headnote survives in the transcription used here, so no Daozang (DZ) number is given.

The text teaches the "Three Rushings" (三奔): visualization of the Assisting star (輔) and Supporting star (弼) that flank the fixed, unmoving star of the Northern Culmen, together with the Jade Dawn Sovereign (玉宸) beneath the Flower Canopy asterism. The adept faces north, burns incense, and calls each star down as a small deified child wearing a jeweled crown, silently reciting a spell to each in turn before being carried, in the vision, up into their company. A long closing discourse turns from ritual instruction to cosmology — brightness and darkness, the nature that both knows and does not know, and the sameness of all things in the one pneuma — before a final saying returns to the practice itself. The verse portions keep their original four-character line.

A note on one term: 兆 (zhào), literally an "omen" or "portent," is the text's customary way of addressing the practitioner — here rendered simply "you."

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

Translation

The Most High Lord of the Dao said: If you desire long life, you must hold the Nine Stars in visualization. If you desire to ascend to the Realized, you must know the Jade Dawn. If you desire to take flight, you must be diligent in the Three Rushings — that is, the Assisting and Supporting stars within the Dipper, beneath the Flower Canopy, at the Northern Culmen.

Before the two forms had taken shape in embryo, before the ten thousand transformations had opened, the Three Asterisms held their hidden splendor and the Three Pneumas swirled in mist; gathering into crystal and holding light, they congealed into three stars. The arrayed lights could not share in their function; sun and moon could not intrude upon their governance.

The Three Pneumas are the mysterious root to which the ten thousand numina return. Above, they raised the capital of the Great Sage, the Treasured Sovereign of the Three Realms; below, they spread the pivot and handle of the Three Asterisms; within, they form the Bright Hall, the Chamber of Caverns, and the Realized of the Mysterious Cinnabar, giving birth to the Realized Ones of the Three-as-One and to the spirits of the Crimson Child in the Yellow Court. By these comes life and death; by these, concealment and submersion; by these, transformation and passage; by these, flight and rushing; by these, long persistence — none of it but proceeds from this.

The star deep and bright, glowing beneath the Flower Canopy, is the unmoving star of the Northern Culmen. It is the divided essence of the Mysterious Sovereign, the Great Lord of the Dao of the Jade Dawn, the true star of the Jade Emperor. Shaded by the Flower Canopy, riding the chariot of the Dipper, it roams the Nine Heavens, receives the Nine Sages as guests, has a thousand Realized as ministers, dwells on the Mysterious Terrace, and holds rank in Jade Clarity.

The Assisting star is the spirit of the High and Supreme Jade Emperor, the essence of the Latter Sage Sovereign Lord of Great Peace of the Golden Palace. The Supporting star is the numen of the Jade Honored One, Heavenly Sovereign of Grand Subtlety. The Assisting star is called the Eight Effulgences; the Supporting star is called the Seven Dawns. These are the great spirits among the Sovereign's Nine Stars of the Northern Dipper: above they assist the Jade Emperor, below they comfort the common folk, foremost of the ten thousand pneumas among those who practice the Dao. They are the Realized of the Jade Emperor of Highest Clarity, granted the Seven Primes That Scatter and Fall and the Fire Bell of Flowing Gold, and they ride the carriage of the Eight Effulgences up to hold court before the Jade Dawn.

The method is this. At the hour the stars appear, spread a mat facing north, burn incense, bow nine times in your heart, sit level with your hands joined, close your eyes, and visualize the three stars each sending forth a pneuma of purple light and jade color, pouring down into your body — as when the sky clears after rain, the moving clouds return to their four quarters, and wind and mist withdraw into the mountains, one body sharing a single radiance, penetrating everywhere without exception, reaching within to the Five Viscera, and roaming above through the Muddy Pellet, the pupils of the eyes, and the root of the tongue in their several places — the purple pneuma of light circling and wrapping nine-fold around. Swallow the qi-fluid twenty-seven times, clack your teeth nine times, and silently intone this spell:

The Jade Emperor, lofty and real —
the Three Mysteries look up to his divided essence.
Left Assistant, Right Support,
the central pole of the Purple Palace.
Flowing essence through mystery and void,
cavern-empty, nine times turning.
Winnowing and refining form and vessel,
golden bones and green sinews.
The Three Sovereigns descend to receive me,
joining form, rushing together.
A cape of massed kingfisher-green treasure,
numinous, numinous, a flying skirt.
Wearing the Scattering-and-Falling talisman,
a belt of the Flowing Bell at my waist.
Sun and moon flank me as guards,
dragon and tiger wing the wheel.
The carriage of Eight Effulgences, jade-bright,
raising the emblem of the Seven Dawns.
Ascending to the utmost Jade Effulgence,
a minister of the Jade Emperor.

Visualize within the three stars a purple light of jade color, illuminating the boundless without limit, so that stars, asterisms, and the ten thousand things become undifferentiated, one. Think of the three stars as vast as the red sun, purple radiance reaching the eight directions. Within the light hanging down from the Left Assisting star there is an infant, its head crowned with the Precious Cap of Heaven's Dawn, wearing embroidered robes of purple splendor; riding the pneuma, it comes streaming down and arrives before your face. Clack your teeth nine times, and silently call out: "Honored Spirit of the Left Assisting Palace, the Jade Emperor's Venerable Spirit, the Latter Sage Sovereign Lord of Great Peace of the Golden Palace." In your heart think the character Nie [聶] twice, then intone this spell:

The Sovereign Star, primordial essence,
the hall of the Latter Sage.
Sovereign Lord of Great Peace,
king of Highest Clarity.
Lord who examines the ten thousand Realized,
subtly calling forth yin and yang.
Grant your servant the instructions of the Dao,
bestow on your servant the wondrous formula.
Heaven's tassel, robe of jade,
crowning the head with mysterious light.
Below, answer this sincere vow —
grant me lodging in the Purple Chamber.

[Visualize] the Honored Spirit of the Right Supporting Palace — the Jade Emperor of the Cinnabar-Jasper Jade Chamber, Jade Sovereign Lord of Grand Subtlety — its form and dress as before. Clack your teeth, silently call out, and in your heart think the character [ ] three times, then intone this spell:

Honored Sage of Grand Subtlety,
governing the pivot and mechanism of all.
Supporting and assisting the mysterious constant,
scattering open the ten thousand numina.
Flowing essence into the Muddy Pellet,
refining and congealing the hundred bones.
Loosing the placenta, severing the root,
seven generations of ancestors fly as immortals.
The corpse-knots are cut off and ended,
bestow on your servant feathered regalia.
Dragon robe and embroidered skirt,
together returning through eternal kalpas.

Think of the Assisting and Supporting Sovereign Realized standing to your left and right, floating within the light, rising above your head. Next think of the Honored Star of the Jade Dawn beneath the Flower Canopy, its purple pneuma flowing with light, pouring down into the two Sovereigns and into your own body. Look up and see the Jade Emperor's boundless precious crown, his robe of red brocade and jade, his form like that of an infant, holding the jade seal in his hand, a nine-colored round light illuminating heaven and earth through and through. Clack your teeth, silently call out: "Most Sage, Most Realized, of the Jade Capital and Golden Palace, Jade Emperor Sovereign on High of the Jade Dawn Purple Palace." In your heart think the character Qi [器] three times, then intone this spell:

Through ten thousand kalpas, opening and closing,
the Honored One, the Jade Emperor.
Dragon robe, phoenix seal,
none dares not to be his minister.
Utmost Realized, nameless,
Highest Sage, spontaneous and self-so.
Below, receiving this humble one,
the Three Effulgences float the carriage.
Riding the same chariot as the Sovereign,
into the Heaven of the Jade Dawn.
Pull your servant free of life and death,
open passage across the Nine Mysteries.
The Sovereign's grace, this servant's heart,
without before or after.
Let my form fly to Jade Clarity,
directing the primal pneuma of Heaven.

Think of the Three Sovereigns raising you up, and floating together through the nine-colored light and emptiness, you at once see the carriage of the Eight Effulgences, treasured jade and kingfisher-green cloud, drawn by nine dragons. Rising together with the Sovereigns, you attend within their chariot; a hundred million carriages and ten thousand mounted riders go straight forward, rushing up into the midst of the Jade Dawn, and by this you forget your form. Practice this diligently for five years, and the Latter Sage will descend as Realized; for seven years, ride together to the Jade Dawn and roam freely through the ten thousand heavens.

The Most High Lord of the Dao said: Before the Three Pneumas had divided, all was chaos without image, lodged in dark obscurity, not to be known by the mind — a single emptiness and void. Emptiness, through vacancy and stillness; stillness carried to its utmost becomes brightness. This brightness does not arise from anything born — one does not know how it comes to be so. What is called brightness is what now knows and perceives the mysterious. Brightness establishes substance; darkness contends with it and takes it away.

Where brightness prevails, there is yang; where darkness prevails, there is yin. Steamed, it becomes water; slackened, it becomes earth; congealed, it becomes metal; hastened, it becomes fire; welling up, it becomes wood. Scattered, it becomes the ten thousand things; flowing, it becomes transformation; condensed, it becomes region and place. The hundred treasures of heaven and earth — these you are able to possess of yourself.

What "you" are is what is done. The class of motion communicates its feeling — humans and beasts each have knowledge. The class of stillness communicates its form — the ten thousand things each have image. Motion and stillness are never separate; person and thing serve each other as substance and function.

Therefore life has nature, and nature is able to know. Originally there is no knowing — it is only because of this that it is called knowing. When form returns to the constancy of nature, there is no ending and no beginning. Heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things are of a kind; each by its root and seed receives its nature, which is no-nature.

Humans and beasts differ; wood and stone are distinct. The five flavors have not changed since antiquity; the single pneuma constantly transforms in the present. The sage penetrates the Dao, and so arrives without traveling, and is bright without seeing. The multitude are benighted about the Dao, and so drift and flow without return, taking the real to be a thief. They do not know that the ten thousand things are one thing, that Heaven and humanity are one pneuma, but dwell only fixed within their formed bodies and rooted, each clearly distinct.

The Dao has no life and death. Splitting kindling scatters its brightness — it may be compared to planting grain: one seed nourishes ten thousand; this year's grain is not last year's grain, and yet it has never ceased to be grain. So too with people and things: the eyes of a person now see with the eyes of the ancients — the seeing is only the capacity to see, and it is not that the ancients' seeing has come into the eyes of a person now. Its seed is firm, its kind is fixed; pneuma and flavor do not overstep one another, and its brightness is constant. What is called constant brightness is that the substance of brightness is originally bright — it is not that one single brightness never changes.

This is why the multitude have remembering and forgetting, life and death, and the ordinary and the sage are suspended far apart. When the utmost principle is made manifest, transformation is seen; if one can attain the real and forget the feeling, passing repeatedly through life and death without changing one's own nature, then creation and transformation are attained by oneself. And yet, being one together with heaven and earth, where is there to escape to? When one reaches the point of being one substance with the Dao, then person and beast, thing and self, fortune and misfortune, are no longer to be debated.

The sage is cut off within the domain of the Dao; the Realized reaches its utmost in the land of spirit. Through the Rarefied and the Subtle there is no contention; with utmost virtue, one shares the same light. Know that what I have spoken is the Dao of the Three Rushings; once undertaken, it is accomplished. It is to be transmitted only to one of mysterious, outstanding capacity who has the makings of a Realized Person. The pledge-gift is three rings of cinnabar jade and one length of mysterious-cloud brocade; the covenant follows the statutes of Highest Clarity.

The Most High Lord of the Dao said: What is cultivated in other paths does not reach to the Jade Emperor. Only at the Emperor does it reach its utmost. The Jade Emperor is the father and mother of the ten thousand numina of heaven and earth. Now, if one preserves in visualization the Realized One of one's own first birth, the spirit of one's embryonic origin, the root returned to its beginning, going back to the start of life, one may still attain the Dao — how much more so one who has the power to embrace heaven and earth, skillfully carve the myriad forms, and command yin and yang in carrying out the Dao and its Virtue. Only the Three Rushings of the Jade Emperor are the Dao of the Most High: the Jade Emperor pours his essence into the Lord of the Bright Hall; the Latter Sage penetrates the spirit of the Chamber of Caverns; Grand Subtlety sits on a golden couch at the heart of the Mysterious Cinnabar; and above, this connects to the Realized of the Jade Dawn, the Supreme Ultimate, the Jade Pass, and the Purple Palace.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Shangqing shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The scripture alternates ritual and cosmological prose with short four-character verse spells; the verse portions are kept as verse, line for line, and the prose as prose. Several sentences of the closing philosophical discourse are dense and elliptical in the original; they were rendered as literally as English allows rather than smoothed into a looser paraphrase.

Before the claim below was written, a translation-status check was performed: the two local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western translation (Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud survey) were searched by Chinese title, pinyin, and component terms, and turned up no entry for this text. Two web searches were run, for the Chinese title and for a probable romanization, and found no published English translation of this scripture, only general reference material on Shangqing cosmology and unrelated Daoist texts. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Shangqing Huachen Sanben Yujue. We state this as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty.

A note on the text. In two places the transcription used for this translation leaves a blank where a talismanic character to be visualized should stand — once naming the character 聶 explicitly, and once leaving the space blank without a character supplied; the blank is kept as a gap in both the translation and the source text below rather than filled in. One further character, 脆, appears where the sense calls for a pledge-gift (贄); it is translated by sense, and the source reading is left unaltered.

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

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Source Text: 上清華晨三奔玉訣

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

太上道君曰：子欲長生，當存九星。子欲升真，當知玉晨。子欲飛騰，當勤三奔。謂華蓋下北辰斗中輔弼也。二儀寄胎，萬化未開，三辰韞秀，三氣氤氳，聚晶含光，凝為三星，列曜不得參其用，日月不得干其政。三炁玄根，萬靈所歸，上基三境大聖寶皇之都，下布三辰樞紐之柄，中為明堂、洞房、玄丹之真，以生三一真人，赤子黃庭之神，以之死生，以之隱淪，以之變通，以之飛奔，以之長存，莫不由此也。華蓋之下端深明煥者，北辰不動之星也。是為玉宸玄皇大道君之分精，為玉帝之真星也。廕華蓋，乘斗車，游九天，賓九聖，臣千真，居玄臺，位玉清。輔星即高上玉皇之神，太平金闕後聖帝君之精。弼星即太微天帝玉尊之靈。輔曰八景，弼曰七晨。是為帝尊北斗九星之大神，上輔玉皇，下撫元元，萬炁之先行道之者。為上清玉帝之真，給以豁落七元、流金火鈴，乘八景之輿，上朝玉宸也。

其道以星出時，施席北向燒香，心九拜，平坐接手，瞑目思三星各出紫光玉色之氣，下注兆身，如天清霽，行雲四歸，風煙斂岳，一體同輝，莫不周極，內徹五臟，上游泥丸目瞳舌根分段之間，紫炁光旋，匝繞九重。咽炁液三九過，叩齒九通，陰呪祝曰：

玉帝高真，三玄仰分，左輔右弼，中極紫宸，流精玄虛，洞空九回，淘鍊形器，金骨綠筋，三帝下接，合形同奔，積翠寶帔，靈靈飛裙，佩服豁落，腰帶流鈴，日月俠衛，龍虎翼輪，八景琅輿，建章七晨，上極玉景，玉帝之臣。

存三星中紫光玉色，洞照無極，星辰萬物，渾然為一。思三星大如赤日，紫芒八達，左輔垂光中有嬰兒，首建天晨寶冠，紫繡華衣，乘氣縱來，臨兆面前，叩齒九通，陰呼：左輔神宮玉皇尊神，金闕後聖太平帝君。心思聶字二過，呪曰：

帝星元精，後聖之堂，太平帝君，上清之王，主校萬真，微呼陰陽，賜臣道訣，丐臣妙方，天纓玉衣，首建玄光，下副願誠，得棲紫房。

〔存〕右弼神宮丹瑤玉房玉皇尊神，太微玉帝君，形服同前，叩齒陰呼，心思 字三過，呪曰：

尊聖太微，總統樞機，弼佐玄常，萬靈散開，流精泥丸，鍊凝百骸，解胞斬根，七祖仙飛，尸結斷絕，錫臣羽儀，衮衣繡裳，永劫同歸。

思輔弼帝真在兆左右，浮立光中，高過頭上。次思華蓋下玉宸尊星紫炁流光，下注二帝及兆身內，仰見玉帝無極寶冠，紅錦玉衣，形如嬰兒，手執玉璽，九色圓光照徹天地，叩齒陰呼：玉京金闕至聖至真玉宸紫宮玉皇上帝。心思器字三過，呪曰：

萬劫開闔，玉帝之尊，龍衣鳳璽，罔敢不臣，極真无名，上聖自然，下接小兆，三景浮軿，與帝同輦，玉宸之天，拔臣生死，開濟九玄，帝恩臣心，无有後先，飛形玉清，指揮天元。

思三帝擭兆起，浮行九色光空之中，即見寶玉翠霞八景之輿，駕御九龍，與兆同升，侍帝車中，億乘萬騎，直造上奔玉宸之中，因以忘形。勤之五年，後聖降真，七年同御玉宸，游騁萬天。

太上道君曰：三炁未分，混沌无像，寄在杳冥，不可意知，一虛空矣。空以虛靜，靜極則明，明非從生，不知由然。所謂明者，今知覺玄，明以立體，暗相奪焉。明勝為陽，暗勝為陰，蒸則為水，緩則為土，結則為金，急則為火，涌則為木，散為萬物，流為變化，凝為區域，天地百寶，即汝所能自有。汝者所為也，動類通其情，人畜各有知；靜類通其形，萬物各有像；動靜未嘗離，人物相體用。故生有性，性能知，本无知，因謂之知、形返性常，不終不始。天地萬物類也，各以根種，受其无性。人畜殊，木石異，五味不易於古，一炁常化於今。聖人通道，故不行而至，不見而明。衆人昧於道，故遷流不返，以真為賊。不知乎萬物一物，天人一炁，但以結形固根分明而居。道无生死，析薪散明，譬之植穀，一以滋萬，今歲之穀非前歲之穀，而未始非穀。人物亦然，今人之目視古人之目，視能視而已，非古之視來今人之目也。其種堅，其類定，氣味不相踰，而其明常。所謂明常，蓋明體本明，非一明而不易也。是以衆人有憶忘死生，凡聖懸隔。至理彰矣，變化見矣，能得其真而忘其情，屢死生而不易其己性，則造化為我得矣。雖然與天地俱矣，安所逃哉。及乎與道同體，人畜物我福禍，无復議也。聖絕於道域，真極於神鄉，以希夷而無競，與至德而同光。知吾言三奔之道，舉則成矣，以傳有真人之玄挺者。脆用丹玉之環三，玄雲之錦一，盟如上清之科。

大上道君曰：他道所修，未及玉帝也。至帝而極矣。玉帝者，天地萬靈父母也。今存我始生之真，胎元之神，根本復先，歸於生初，猶可得道，况力擁天地，巧雕衆形，役陰陽而行道德。唯玉帝三奔為太上之道，玉帝流精於明堂之君，後聖通洞房之神，太微坐金床於玄丹之心，上關玉宸太極玉關紫宮之真。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 上清華晨三奔玉訣, revision of 14 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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