The Master of Embracing Simplicity [bao pu zi 抱朴子]
Excerpt Chapter 17: Ascending & Wading [登涉]
Part 2
Great Taboos
凡六癸为天藏,六己为地户也。又曰,避乱世,绝迹於名山,令无忧患者,以上元丁卯日,名曰阴德之时,一名天心,可以隐沦,所谓白日陆沈,日月无光,人鬼不能见也。又曰,求仙道入名山者,以六癸之日六癸之时,一名天公日,必得度世也。
Commonplace the Six Gui [1] are the Heavenly Storage, [while] the Six Ji [2] are the Earthly Door. It is also said to avoid the disorderly world, to sever off one’s traces in the famous mountains [and] to make [one] be without worry and suffering, employ the Upper-Prime [3] Ding-Mao [4] day, and the time called Secret Virtue [Yin-Virtue]; one [of its] names is Heavenly Heart. [One] may Secretly Submerge, the so-called Bright Sun’s-Immersion-In-Land , the sun and moon are without radiance, [and] people and ghosts are unable to see and meet [i.e. to live in seclusion].
It is also said in order to seek the Dao of Immortality enter famous mountains, making use of the days of the Six Gui and the time of the Six Gui. One [of its] names is Heavenly Ruler day, [and] one certainly ought to be delivered from the world.
[1]10th Heavenly Stem
[2] 6th Heavenly Stem
[3] There are three important festive days in China, the Upper-Prime [shang yuan] on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Middle-Prime [zhong yuan] on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month and the Lower-Prime [xia yuan] on the fifteenth day of the tenth lunar month.
[4] Ding is the fourth Heavenly Stem and Mao is the fourth Earthly Branch.
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