Page 692 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

650 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

fit:) but the "form" (*xing), which one should transcend in order to attain the
Dao. The notion of "release from the form" (xingjie %M) first appears in
a *Mawangdui manuscript, the Shiwen + r.,~ (Ten Questions; trans. Harper
1998,385-411). Here "flowing into the form" (liuxing int }~) is said to produce
life, but "when flowing into the form produces a body (ti) ... death occurs."
The Shiwen thus distinguishes the rise of the form from the rise of the body,
saying that the generation of the form leads to life while the generation of
the body leads to death. To invert this sequence, one should cultivate one's
breath in order to fill one's form with the "culminant essence of Heaven and
Earth (tiandi zhi zhijing k±tP.zM~jh" The person who is capable of doing
this obtains "release from the form."
"Release from the form" is also often associated with "release from the
corpse" (or "from the mortal body," *shijie) as an instance of undergoing a
"metamorphosis" (*bianhua). The relation between these two notions is ex-
plicit in Taoist sources of the Han and Six Dynasties, where form is the locus
of refining after death. In the Way of the Celestial Masters (*Tianshi dao), the
designated place for this post-mortem purification is the Palace of Taiyin );:
~ or Great Darkness, which the *Xiang'er commentary to the Daode jing (ca.
200 CE) describes as "the place where those who have accumulated the Dao
refine their form" before they obtain rebirth (fusheng fU '1:.; Bokenkamp 1997,
102 and 135).
This type of release from the world, which is said to happen at midnight
(*Zhengao, 4.17a; *Wushang biyao, 87Ab; see Lagerwey 198Ib, 185), is contrasted
with the superior" ascension to Heaven in broad daylight" (bairi shengtian B B
n'J() or more precisely (as shown by several accounts in hagiographic texts)
"at midday" (see Yoshikawa Tadao 1992b, 176-85). The adept who ascends to
Heaven typically becomes a member of the celestial bureaucracy by rising to
one of the heavens distinguished in Daoist cosmography, i.e., to the celestial
domain corresponding to the state of realization attained at the time of death.
From there, he does not return to the human world; on the contrary, he can
continue his progress toward higher states and ascend to higher heavens. By
contrast, "release from the corpse" occurs by undertaking a descent to Great
Darkness, located in the tenebrous regions of the extreme north, which in
traditional Chinese cosmography is situated "below" instead of "above" (except
when the north is equivalent to the Center). The direction of the journey
undertaken to undergo "release from the corpse," in other words, is opposite
to the one followed to ascend to Heaven. These two ways of deliverance,
therefore, are distinguished by opposite but corresponding features: ascent
and descent, midday and midnight, light and darkness, Sun (ri B) and Moon
(taiyin A. ~~). Moreover, ascent to Heaven is the way of non-return to the
world: one continues one's spiritual journey ascending from one empyrean