Nature and Principle in Islam

1. 卷首・本經The Root Classic

   Chapter 3 · The microcosm: how body and nature come to light

   第三章　總述小世界身性顯著之由

   In the vast darkness the essence moved, and the first ancestor was born. [...] they conceived, and the branches of descendants multiplied. [Daoxing tuiyuan jing] At first there is only a point: this is the seed. It is stored in the father's spine and given into the mother's womb. It inherits the Former Heaven and wondrously unfolds the Latter Heaven. The embryo begins to transform, dividing into the clear and the turbid. From these two energies come four humours, black, red, yellow and white, wrapped layer upon layer in order. The four roots rise and sink, and inner and outer take shape. The red becomes the heart; the yellow, its envelope; the black, the body; the white, its vessels. When body and heart are fixed, the openings are born: liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys; eyes, ears, mouth, nose. When body and openings are complete, spiritual life is born. [Yanzhen jing; Daoxing tuiyuan jing; Gezhi quanjing] Spiritual life, as a thing, contains the ten thousand natures. It is present with the seed and born with the embryo. It follows the transformation of the form and sets its mechanism working; it waits for the body to be complete, then shows its traces. [Daoxing tuiyuan jing] The child draws in energy and blood through the navel into the stomach, and firmness begins: this is the mineral nature, on which the hundred members rely. From the stomach into the liver, and growth and nourishment arise: this is the vegetal nature, on which absorbing and transforming rely. From the liver into the heart, and the living nature is formed, on which movement relies. From the heart it rises to the brain, and awareness is complete: this is the perceiving nature. The five senses without, the five faculties within, every capacity relies on it. All this is formed in four months. In the fifth month sinews and bones: firmness appears. In the sixth, hair: the growing nature appears. In the seventh, the openings: the living nature appears. [Yanzhen jing; Gezhi quanjing] Forty days after birth, love and aversion, speech and laughter: the energy nature appears. Growing up, keeping the rites and using understanding well: the root nature appears. When practice is complete and inquiry thorough, when principles are clear and things transformed, and the spirit answers everywhere: the virtuous nature appears. When the virtuous nature appears, the Root Suchness is complete. This is called returning to the root; this is called going back to the origin. What a born human can do is here complete. [Daoxing tuiyuan jing; Yanzhen jing]

   溟漠運精，元祖誕降。髭乳感孕，支裔衍生。〔道行推原經〕初惟一點，是為種子。藏於父脊，授於母宮。承繼先天，妙演後天。胚胎兆化，分清分濁。本其二氣，化為四液。黑紅黃白，層包次第。四本升降，表裏形焉。紅者為心，黃者其包，黑者為身，白者其脈。身心既定，諸竅生焉。肝脾肺腎，眼耳口鼻。體竅既全，靈活生焉。〔研真經〕〔道行推原經〕〔格致全經〕靈活為物，包備萬性。與種俱存，與胎俱生。隨厥形化，而運其機。俟其體全，而著其跡。〔道行推原經〕子吸氣血，由臍入胃，而堅定啟，是為金性，百體資之。由胃入肝，而長養生，是為木性，吸化資之。由肝入心，而活性成，是為生性，運動資之。自心升腦，而知覺具，是為覺性。外之五官，內之五司，一切能力，皆所資之。是諸所有，四月而成。五月筋骨，為堅定顯。六月毛髮，為長性顯。七月豁達，為活性顯。〔研真經〕〔格致全經〕生四十日，愛惡言笑，為氣性顯。長遵禮節，善用明悟，為本性顯。功修既至，窮究既通，理明物化，神應周徧，為德性顯。德性既顯，本然乃全。是謂返本，是謂還原。生人能事，至此而全。〔道行推原經〕〔研真經〕

   ✦AIThe phrase 髭乳感孕 is uncertain in reading and sense and is left untranslated here.

   Scan, p. 124–126Transcribed from the scan by AI (Claude), checked as described on the About page. Share

Chinese: transcribed by AI (Claude) from the CADAL scans on Wikimedia Commons (public domain), checked against the zh.wikisource text (CC BY-SA); Books 1–5 also collated with the 1923 photoreprint (CADAL, Commons), and the Root Classic with the Chinese printed in Murata, Chittick and Tu (2009); punctuation is editorial. Books 1–5 keep the notes of Hei of Qingyuan (清源黑氏, Hei Mingfeng), a later commentator, apart from Liu Zhi's text. Arabic: Nūr al-Ḥaqq (Ma Lianyuan), al-Laṭāʾif, as printed in Murata, Chittick and Tu, The Sage Learning of Liu Zhi (2009), pp. 103–153 (public domain text; taken from the book's text layer and checked against the page images by AI, page by page; not yet proofread by a person). Characters: Unihan (Unicode licence), cjk-decomp (Apache-2.0), the Kangxi Dictionary (public domain) via Wikisource (CC BY-SA). The English and the term mappings marked AI were written by AI (Claude). Murata's translations are in copyright and are cited, never reproduced. How this text was established.