Baopuzi (The Master Who Embraces the Uncarved Block)
The Baopuzi 抱朴子 by Ge Hong: the fourth-century encyclopedia of Daoist practice — the source of this site's taixi definition and its economy-argument for guarding the One.
What the book is
The Baopuzi — titled from its author’s self-chosen name, “the Master Who Embraces the Uncarved Block” (抱朴守质: holding to simplicity, guarding the unadorned) — is the fourth century’s great consolidation of Daoist practice knowledge. Ge Hong composed it in two halves with deliberately different registers:
- The inner chapters (内篇, 20 juan, 畅玄 through 袪惑): alchemy, breathing, visualization, diet, amulets — the esoteric curriculum. Here sit the two passages this site builds on: the Shizhi (释滞, juan 8) chapter’s definition of taixi — “one who has attained taixi can breathe without nose or mouth, as in the womb, then the Dao is complete” — and the Dizhen (地真, juan 18) chapter’s ranking of shouyi above the thousands of visualization methods: “knowing the One completes the ten thousand affairs.”
- The outer chapters (外篇, 52 juan as received): essays on government, scholarship, and conduct — ending with the Zixu (自叙), Ge Hong’s partial autobiography, the basis of every later biography of him.
Why it matters for sitting practice
Three reasons:
- It is the earliest encyclopedia of the practices themselves. Before the Baopuzi, the sitting and breathing methods this site covers are scattered in sayings and dialogues; after it, they are a catalog — numbered, compared, ranked. The book marks the tradition’s transition from aphorism to curriculum.
- It is honest about its own limits. Ge Hong repeatedly distinguishes what he has practiced from what he has heard, and notes that the essentials are secret, oral, and cannot be written. A knowledge base built on documented text should respect a source that documented what it could not write.
- It argues economy. The Dizhen chapter’s “one method instead of thousands” is the tradition’s own principle of parsimony — and the warrant for this site’s focus on a small set of core practices rather than the full visualization library.
The dating and text, stated plainly
The received text descends from a Song-era collation (the Siku Quanshu editors record the chaotic count discrepancies across all prior bibliographies — inner chapters counted at 20, 21, or 10 juan in different catalogs; outer at 50, 51, 52, 30, or 20). This page uses the received numbering: inner 20, outer 52, with the author’s own count (50) noted. The chapters this site quotes — Shizhi and Dizhen — are intact and multiply attested. The book is not scripture in the devotional sense; it is one practitioner-scholar’s compilation, and this site treats it as such: a witness, not a canon.
Uncertainty preserved: juan numbering varies across the tradition’s bibliographies; Ge Hong’s authorship of the inner chapters is secure, the fine transmission details are documented as imperfect.
Its composition date is pinned at Baopuzi Composed (c. 314–320s CE).
Sources
- Baopuzi, received text: inner chapters 20 juan (畅玄 through 袪惑); outer chapters 52 juan as received (Ge Hong's own preface counts 50); Siku Quanshu catalog note records the count discrepancies across bibliographies
- Jin shu, biography of Ge Hong