高上玉皇心印妙經

The Heart Seal Scripture (Xinyin Miaojing, 心印妙經) is a short Daoist text on the cultivation of the Three Treasures — spirit (shen, 神), vital breath (qi, 氣), and essence (jing, 精). It is catalogued as DZ 0013 in the Zhengtong Daozang (正統道藏), the Ming-dynasty Daoist Canon compiled in 1445, and attributed to the Jade Emperor (玉皇), the supreme deity of the Daoist celestial hierarchy.

The scripture is one of the five texts recited daily by initiates of the Dragon Gate (Longmen, 龍門) lineage, the largest monastic Daoist order in China, founded by Qiu Chuji in the thirteenth century. Despite its brevity — fewer than four hundred characters — it compresses the entire framework of Daoist inner alchemy into twenty-five couplets of paired four-character phrases. The Three Treasures must be unified: essence joins spirit, spirit joins qi, qi joins the authentic. When the union is complete, the practitioner attains the inner elixir, the body becomes light, and the bones dissolve into jade.

The text is saturated with echoes of the Dao De Jing. The "mysterious female" (玄牝) of Chapter 6, the "continuous and unbroken" (綿綿) thread of the same chapter, the "deep root and firm stem" (深根固柢) of Chapter 59, and the "forced naming" (強名) of Chapter 25 all appear here, woven into an alchemical context. The Heart Seal is the Dao De Jing distilled into a liturgical instrument — meant not for study but for chanting, ten thousand times, until the wondrous principle becomes clear of itself.

This is a Good Works Translation from Classical Chinese. The source text is from the Kanripo digital edition (KR5a0013) of the Zhengtong Daozang, Hanfen Lodge typeset edition. This is the first freely available English translation of this scripture.

The supreme medicine has three grades:
spirit, qi, and essence.

Dim and vague,
dark and obscure.

Preserve the void, guard what exists —
in a moment, it is accomplished.

The revolving wind merges and blends;
in a hundred days, the practice becomes luminous.

Silently face the Supreme Emperor;
in twelve years, fly and ascend.

Those who know awaken easily;
those in darkness find it hard to practice.

Tread upon heaven's light;
through breathing, nurture clarity.

Come forth from the mysterious, enter the female —
as if gone, as if present.

Continuous and unbroken:
secure the stem, deepen the root.

Each person has their essence;
essence unites with spirit.

Spirit unites with qi;
qi unites with the authentic.

Without attaining the authentic,
all is merely forced naming.

Spirit can enter stone;
spirit can make the body fly.

Enter water without drowning;
enter fire without burning.

Spirit depends on form to be born;
essence depends on qi to be full.

Neither withering nor declining —
pines and cypresses, ever green.

Three grades, one principle —
too wondrous to be heard.

When gathered, they become something;
when scattered, they return to nothing.

The seven apertures connect to one another —
each one luminous.

The sacred sun, the sacred moon
illuminate the Golden Court.

Once attained, forever attained —
naturally the body becomes light.

Supreme harmony overflows;
the bones dissolve into cold jade.

Obtain the elixir and there is luminosity;
without it, there is ruin.

The elixir is within the body —
neither white nor blue.

Chant this ten thousand times,
and the wondrous principle will naturally become clear.

Colophon

The Heart Seal Scripture (高上玉皇心印妙經, Gaoshang Yuhuang Xinyin Miaojing) is catalogued as DZ 0013 in the Zhengtong Daozang (正統道藏, Ming Daoist Canon, 1445). It is attributed to the Jade Emperor and belongs to the Dongzhen (洞真, "Cavern of Perfection") division of the Three Caverns classification. The text is one of five scriptures in the daily liturgy of the Dragon Gate (Longmen) lineage of Quanzhen Daoism.

The Three Treasures (三寶, sanbao) — spirit (神, shen), vital breath (氣, qi), and essence (精, jing) — are the fundamental substances of Daoist inner alchemy (內丹, neidan). Their cultivation, refinement, and unification constitute the path to immortality. The scripture teaches that essence must unite with spirit, spirit with qi, and qi with "the authentic" (真, zhen) — a term for the original, undifferentiated state of the Dao.

Key allusions to the Dao De Jing: "dim and vague" (恍惚, Ch. 21), "the mysterious female" (玄牝, Ch. 6), "continuous and unbroken" (綿綿, Ch. 6), "deepen the root, secure the stem" (深根固柢, Ch. 59), and "forced naming" (強名, Ch. 25). The "revolving wind" (迴風) is a standard inner alchemy term for the circulation of qi through the body's energetic pathways. The "Golden Court" (金庭) refers to an interior landscape — the luminous space behind the forehead in Daoist meditation anatomy. The "hundred days" and "twelve years" are traditional markers of alchemical progress.

This is the first freely available English translation. No existing English translation was consulted or used as a source. The translation was derived independently from reading the Classical Chinese source text.

Good Works Translation from Classical Chinese by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, April 2026, with AI assistance (Claude, Anthropic).

Other Daoist texts in the Good Work Library: Classic of Purity and Stillness · Song of the Clear Sky · Poems of the Living Dead · The Scripture of the Northern Dipper

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Source Text: 高上玉皇心印妙經

Classical Chinese source text from the Kanripo digital edition (KR5a0013) of the Zhengtong Daozang (正統道藏, Ming Daoist Canon, compiled 1445), Hanfen Lodge (涵芬樓) typeset edition. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

上藥三品　神與氣精
恍恍惚惚　杳杳冥冥
存無守有　頃㓨而成
迴風混合　百日功靈
黙朝上帝　一紀飛昇
知者易悟　昩者難行
履踐天光　呼吸育清
岀玄入牝　若亡若存
綿綿不絶　固蔕深根
人各有精　精合其神
神合其氣　氣合其眞
不得其眞　皆是强名
神能入石　神能飛形
入水不溺　入火不焚
神依形生　精依氣盈
不凋不殘　松柏青青
三品一理　妙不可聽
其聚則有　其散則零
七竅相通　竅竅光明
聖日聖月　照耀金庭
一得永得　自然身輕
太和充溢　骨散寒瓊
得丹則靈　不得則傾
丹在身中　非白非青
誦之萬徧　妙理自明

Source Colophon

Classical Chinese source text of the Gaoshang Yuhuang Xinyin Miaojing (高上玉皇心印妙經), from the Kanripo digital corpus, identifier KR5a0013. The Kanripo text is derived from the Hanfen Lodge (涵芬樓) typeset edition of the Zhengtong Daozang (正統道藏, "Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era"), originally compiled 1445, reprinted by the Commercial Press (商務印書館) in 1923–1926. DZ number: 0013.

The Kanripo corpus is maintained by the Kanseki Repository project and is freely available under open-access terms. The text preserves variant characters from the Daozang woodblock tradition: 㓨 for 刻, 黙 for 默, 昩 for 昧, 岀 for 出, 蔕 for 蒂, 眞 for 真, 强 for 強, 徧 for 遍.

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