Descriptions of practices here are historical and educational, not personal instruction or health advice.
Life
Zhang Boduan, styled Ziyang, came from Tiantai in present-day Zhejiang during the Northern Song. After passing the civil examinations he served as an official, was sent to the southern frontier, and later moved to Guilin and Chengdu. Around 1069, the sources say, he was taught inner alchemy by a Daoist master, and in 1075 he completed the Wuzhen pian, a cycle of poems on cultivating both inner nature and life force. He was also learned in Chan Buddhism and sought to unite the Three Teachings. Later tradition honored him as Ziyang Zhenren and the patriarch of the Southern Lineage of inner alchemy.
The system
- Inner alchemy: the body as furnace, essence, breath and spirit as the 'ingredients' (a symbolic system).
- Dual cultivation of nature and life (xing ming shuang xiu).
- Harmony of the Three Teachings, with Chan insight completing the alchemical work.
Key works
- Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality, 1075)
- Jindan sibai zi (Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir)
Where to start
- Fabrizio Pregadio, trans., Awakening to Reality: The 'Regulated Verses' of the Wuzhen pian (Golden Elixir Press).
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