五品仙人
The Five Ranks of Immortals [part II]
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The following appendix entry is a write-up from a collection of notes taken over several years at Five Immortals Temple [2] during lectures by the residing abbot Li Shifu. It is by no means comprehensive or all-encompassing, but more intended to provide an overview to deepen the reader’s understanding of the concept of Immortality from a Taoist perspective.
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The Human Immortals [ren xian 人仙], for instance, are able to live for a very long time in this dimension, such as 800-year-old Peng Zu [彭祖], and Methuselah in the Bible. In order to reach the Human Immortal rank, one has to protect one’s Essence, Qi and Spirit. One would still engage in normal lifestyle activities such as bearing children and having a family. Within the five different ranks of immortals, two of them exist on the same time plane as humanity, namely the Earth Immortals and the Human Immortals. Both immortals potentially could be practitioners of external alchemy, through which they may have transformed their tendons and bones. They are visible to people since their time and space is identical. They are the material for legend which commoners gossip about. They possess Gong, powers and skills, such as to suddenly jump from one spot to a distant place. Moreover, they are exempt from the suffering of illness and disease, because their muscles, bones and tendon have already been altered into something else. In terms of great Gongfu, they are the best; these are the Human Immortals. In history Peng Zu was the oldest recorded living being in Chinese history to be aged eight hundred and he was also a Daoist. He was able to change the Yin and Yang method. He mixed external medicine with internal cultivation, i.e. the method to change the Qi of Yin and Yang was fused with the method of ingesting medicine. He took self-made medicine for longevity purposes, thus, he lived for such a long time. But a Human Immortal, whether or not he lives to be one thousand years old, will perish one day. A Human Immortal still has to sublimate and ascend in order to evade ultimate cessation of life.
The Earthly Immortal [di xian 地仙] comes from external alchemy, including Qi-practices, yogic and Daoist exercises including longevity, whereas a Human Immortal originates from internal alchemy. Earth Immortals engage in physical external practices, yet the Human Immortals dispenses with those. The Earthly Immortal cultivates the outside through external forms and movements and relies on external supplementation such as medicine, while the Human Immortal cultivates the inside through stillness, tranquility and quiescence cultivation. They purely depend on breathing techniques and grasping techniques, such as picking and tonifying, i.e. picking Yang to tonify Yin & picking Yin to tonify Yang [2]. Besides they may also resort to taking medicine to supplement their practices, since there are numerous medicines for longevity and to regulate the internal organs. They manage to live for a long time by preserving and protecting their original Qi. Both ranks have in common to get rid of desires and to safeguard the center.
[1]More information can be found on fiveimmortals.com.
[2] This expression should not be mistaken to be male-female dual cultivation.
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Post-Scriptum: This article will appear in the appendix of Purple Cloud Press’ forthcoming publication of 《The 49 Barriers of the Cultivation of the Dao》 by Xing De, a manual for refining Inner Nature based on Liu Yiming’s 50 Barriers
