Intermediate Refinement · Source Text Edition¶

This edition presents the complete source texts of Intermediate Refinement in their original order, with editorial annotations.

Editorial note: "On Refinement" defines Intermediate Refinement as "refining the heart" (liàn xīn) — directing attention not at outward behavior (as in Cultivation, xiūxíng) nor at perception (as in Elementary Refinement), but at the heart-mind itself. The eight methods form a coherent progression: from establishing basic stillness, to active governance, to cognitive expansion, to integration, to purification, and finally to transcendence of the heart altogether.

Intermediate Refinement: its purpose is to refine the heart — through stilling, stopping, governing, rectifying, emptying, settling, purifying, and resolving the heart — to dispel the heavy mists that cloud the heart-mind, making the inner state transparent and pure, achieving the goals of transcending the mundane, going beyond the ordinary, resolving the heart, and surpassing the conventional. It also lays the foundation for the nature-refining work of Advanced Refinement.

— Lifechanyuan Corpus · Cultivation Practice · "On Refinement"

II. The Eight Methods¶

1. Still the Heart (静心)¶

All things are exhausted in movement and born in stillness. Stillness is the abode of the spirit. Stillness gives rise to wisdom; movement gives rise to confusion. Without peace and stillness, it is impossible to reach far. In the worldly world, desires for pleasure and profit, conflicts between self and other, temptations and misguidance, power and scheming, swords and shadows, dangerous rapids and treacherous shallows — a hundred thousand forms — if you illuminate them all with stillness, it is like the sun in an open sky: the mist and haze are swept away, everything is clear, and harmony can be sought.

How to still the heart: do not be self-deprecating; do not think yourself always right; do not be arrogant; do not make vows; do not become angry; do not give way to passion; do not owe heaven, others, the earth, or yourself; do not crave strange tastes; do not harbor eccentric habits; do not practice scheming; do not act strangely; do not insult the divine; do not speak ill of others; do not discuss worldly affairs; do not talk of ordinary social customs; do not boast of your own abilities; cultivate few desires; moderate your labor; be careful with words; refrain from killing. Do all this and the heart will be still.

Editorial note: Still the Heart enumerates twenty-four specific methods — a density of instruction comparable to the entire twenty-three guidelines of Elementary Refinement, all directed at a single goal. These twenty-four items span cognitive states (no arrogance, no self-deprecation), interpersonal conduct (no speaking ill of others, no discussing worldly affairs), and behavioral disciplines (few desires, moderate labor, refraining from killing). The opening axiom — "stillness is the abode of the spirit" — establishes stillness not merely as a peaceful feeling but as the precondition for the spirit's presence. Still the Heart is the prerequisite for all seven subsequent methods: without it, none of the deeper work can begin.

2. Stop the Heart (止心)¶

The sea of suffering is boundless; turn back and the shore is there. Life is finite; desires are boundless. What is sought is like food — it has no end. Desire is like a demon — it disturbs the emotions, obscures the Buddha-nature. If your sight is not set high at this point, you will fall into the demonic state. Once in the demonic state, mists thicken on all sides; the celestial realm is impossible to see; the life you were given is wasted. Therefore, stop when stopping is right — withdraw bravely at the crucial moment.

Editorial note: The fundamental philosophical tension in Stop the Heart is that desire has no natural terminus: satisfying one desire does not eliminate the capacity for desire — it only redirects it toward a new object. "What is sought is like food — it has no end." Stopping therefore cannot be passive (waiting for desire to exhaust itself); it must be active — a deliberate intervention at the moment when "stopping is right." The image of "turning back while the sea is still crossable" presents this not as defeat but as wisdom: recognizing the demonic state before entering it, and choosing differently.

3. Govern the Heart (治心)¶

The spirit gives birth to me; the heart brings death to me. The heart is master of the body, commander of the spirit. When the heart moves, the spirit grows dim; when the heart is still, the spirit is clear; when the heart races, the spirit is lost. Once the heart stirs, all troubles are invited. For a hundred illnesses there are medicines; but illness of the heart is difficult to treat. "Therefore, one who excels at governing life first governs the heart: when the heart is about to become restless, calm it; when it is about to turn evil, stop it; when it is about to seek and grasp, release and suppress it; when it is about to become turbid, clear and settle it." Over time, things will no longer disturb the heart, and the spirit will rest at ease within. The spirit being vigorous, clear, and peaceful is the key to connecting with the negative universe and mobilizing the energy of the negative universe.

Editorial note: "The spirit gives birth to me; the heart brings death to me" establishes the most important hierarchy in Intermediate Refinement: the Greatest Creator → spirit (líng) → heart (xīn) → body (shēn). The heart is the middle layer — connecting upward to spirit, governing downward the body. When the heart "moves" (becomes attached, disturbed, active in desire), the chain is broken. The four-part governance method (calm · stop · release · settle) precisely maps onto four arising disturbances (restlessness · evil inclination · grasping · turbidity) — it is a prescriptive, not merely descriptive, framework. "For a hundred illnesses there are medicines; but illness of the heart is difficult to treat" underscores why governing the heart is prior to all other forms of life management.

4. Rectify the Heart (正心)¶

Before governing the heart, first rectify it — a heart that is not rectified will produce a proliferation of evil thoughts. First, to rectify the heart: read the Bible — without reading the Bible, affairs cannot be understood. Second, read the Buddhist Sutras — without reading them, principles cannot be comprehended. Third, read the Quran — without reading it, sincerity of heart is difficult to achieve. Fourth, read the Tao Te Ching — without reading it, the path is unclear. Fifth, study science — without understanding science, everything is confused.

Editorial note: The five knowledge resources cited here — Bible, Buddhist Sutras, Quran, Tao Te Ching, and science — are presented not as alternatives to choose from but as a complementary ensemble: understanding affairs · comprehending principles · achieving sincerity · clarifying the path · clearing superstition. No single tradition accomplishes all five functions. This five-fold framework represents the widest ecumenical gesture in the eight methods, and implicitly makes a point about the heart's orientation: a heart anchored to only one tradition is itself a form of fixed view — which is exactly what the next method (Empty the Heart) will address. Rectifying points the heart in a broad, multi-source direction before cognitive expansion begins.

5. Empty the Heart (虚心)¶

Looking across five thousand years, those with truly empty hearts are as rare as morning stars. People cling to their own prejudices, preconceptions, false views, deluded views, and single-hole-in-the-wall views — insisting they are right, refusing to admit error — squandering life after life, exhausting the patience of the Greatest Creator. As they say: the road to heaven is right there and they don't take it; there is no gate to hell and they bash their way in. They brew their own bitter wine and drink it, then blame the Greatest Creator for being unjust.

Those who suffer most — from hardship, poverty, punishment, setback — are the ones who most need to empty their hearts. But in fact, the opposite is true: the wiser and more knowledgeable a person is, the more humble and open they become; the more ignorant, the more stubborn, intractable, reactionary, and cruel — further from the Tao, unlikely to become a celestial being, and perhaps not even able to be born human in the next life.

How to empty the heart? First, understand that the heart's capacity varies. Some hearts are so small not even a needle can be inserted; others are so vast they can contain the whole universe. The more solid and full the heart, the smaller its capacity; the more empty, the greater the capacity. Think of the heart as a room. If this room is empty, it is useful — it can become a bedroom, a study, an office, a gym, a storage room... it can become whatever is needed. But if this room is already packed with chaotic clutter, it is nearly useless — you cannot put more things in, nor make it into anything useful. If you want to make it useful again, you must remove what is unnecessary — no matter how precious or valuable it seems to you, decisively clear it out, throw it away.

Only in the state of emptiness can wisdom be attained; only then can you truly understand that the universe contains the Thousand-Year World, the Ten-Thousand-Year World, and the Elysium World; only then can you find the path to higher LIFE spaces.

Editorial note: Empty the Heart is the most philosophically developed of the eight methods — the longest in original text and the most epistemologically dense. The "heart-as-room" (xīn rú shì) analogy is not a moral exhortation ("you should be humble") but a structural analysis: fixed views mechanically reduce the heart's capacity for new information, regardless of the content of those views. The paradox the text identifies is striking: those who have suffered most are also those whose fixed views are often most entrenched — the very people who most need to empty the room are often the most reluctant to do so. "The more ignorant, the more stubborn" — Xuefeng is pointing at a genuine psychological phenomenon: certainty can be inversely correlated with understanding. The items one considers most precious are often the most costly to keep.

6. Settle the Heart (定心)¶

Settled stillness without dispersal is the settled heart. Once you have understood Lifechanyuan's path beyond time and space, you should concentrate your will with singular focus, without mental scatter. Even when dealing with the ten thousand complex affairs of ordinary life, it is merely following the conditions as they transform — "When wind blows through sparse bamboo, the wind passes and the bamboo retains no sound; when geese cross a cold pool, the geese leave and the pool retains no reflection." When events arise, the heart responds; when events pass, the heart is empty.

The Twelve States of the Settled Heart:

The seven emotions — joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hate, desire — move the heart not. Right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and ugliness, fine and poor — confuse the heart not. Temptation, coercion, cunning, and deception — disturb the heart not. Success and failure, gain and loss, fortune and disaster, merit and fault — disorder the heart not. Benevolence, righteousness, ritual, wisdom, trust, enmity, illness, death — bewilder the heart not. Warmth and cold, pain and itch, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy — vex the heart not. Solitude, loneliness, gloom, and worry — cling to the heart not. Spirits, ghosts, Buddhas, demons, and all manner of unseen beings — bind the heart not. Laws, precepts, regulations, and ordinances — restrict the heart not. Self, others, ancestors, and descendants — attach to the heart not. Fame, profit, status, beauty, and treasure — hook the heart not. Empty and full, clear and turbid, pure and defiled — stagnate in the heart not.

When the heart is truly settled, one enters samādhi (deep meditative absorption). In samādhi, one is near to Buddhahood. Spiritual powers become available; transformations become possible; the dharma-body is prepared. One may "ascend to the nine heavens to grasp the moon; descend into the five seas to seize turtles."

Editorial note: The Twelve States are presented in twelve parallel couplets — the most literary passage in the eight methods. Each line follows the formula "category — [verb] the heart not," and together they constitute an exhaustive taxonomy of potential disturbances: emotional states, evaluative judgments, social pressures, outcomes, ethical categories, sensory experiences, existential states, supernatural forces, institutional rules, relational identities, material attachments, and metaphysical categories. The comprehensiveness is deliberate — the twelve pairs try to account for every class of thing that might "hook" the heart. The two Chan Buddhist images (bamboo and wind, geese and pool) are the most explicit borrowing from Chan in all eight methods, and they capture the target state precisely: not the absence of sensation, but the absence of residue.

7. Purify the Heart (净心)¶

Water has a source; a tree has a root; a person has a heart; the heart has spirit (líng); the spirit has a divine force (shén); the divine force has a master; the master has an origin. In the positive and negative universe together, there is no water without a source, no tree without a root, no person without a heart, no heart without spirit, no spirit without divine force, no divine force without a master, no master without an origin.

When the source is turbid, the water is murky. When the root rots, the tree dies. When the heart is polluted, the person is lost.

The heart comes from the spirit; heart and spirit share the same frequency, resonating as one. The spirit is like a great transmitter — ceaselessly broadcasting messages from the divine force into every corner and space of the universe. The heart is like a small receiver — continually receiving signals from the cosmic spirit. But if the heart is polluted and impure — like a rusted receiver — it cannot receive the instructions from the spirit. Even what it receives is intermittent, fragmented, full of static and noise, with too much interference and incomplete signals. Then you will have no direction, and your life will be one of constant change and instability. This is what I mean when I say: "When flowers bloom, butterflies naturally come; when the heart is still, meaning flows of itself; when the body is pure, illness naturally departs; when the heart is pure, celestial beings naturally arrive."

The Fifteen Factors That Pollute the Heart:

To blaspheme the Greatest Creator — the heart is not pure. To harbor evil thoughts — the heart is not pure. To be obsessed with delusions — the heart is not pure. To pursue greed without stopping — the heart is not pure. To seek opportunistic advantage — the heart is not pure. To deceive and manipulate — the heart is not pure. To speak carelessly and recklessly — the heart is not pure. To insult the divine and the Buddha — the heart is not pure. To be unfilial to parents — the heart is not pure. To contend, kill, seize, and rob — the heart is not pure. To harbor ambiguous or devious thoughts — the heart is not pure. To neglect bodily purity — the heart is not pure. To cheat and swindle — the heart is not pure. To be without compassion — the heart is not pure. To fail to understand what is right — the heart is not pure.

When the heart is not pure, it is difficult to make the heart still. When the heart is not still, it is difficult to become a celestial being.

Editorial note: The transmitter-receiver analogy (líng as transmitter, xīn as receiver) reframes purity as an epistemic condition rather than a merely moral one. A polluted heart doesn't just make you a "bad person" — it degrades the signal quality of the guidance you receive from higher LIFE levels. This makes purification not an ethical obligation imposed from outside but a practical necessity for any practitioner who wants clear direction. The fifteen polluting factors span five domains: divine relationship (blasphemy), cognitive states (evil thoughts, delusion, greed), communicative acts (deception, reckless speech), relational duties (unfilial conduct, lack of compassion), and bodily conduct (physical impurity). The closing chain — "not pure → not still → cannot become celestial" — loops Purify the Heart back to Still the Heart (Step 1), revealing that the eight methods are not merely linear but mutually reinforcing.

8. Resolve the Heart (了心)¶

The spirit gives life to me; the heart brings death to me. When the heart is alive, the nature is extinguished; when the heart is extinguished, the nature is revealed. Resolving the heart (liǎo xīn) means, on the foundation of giving one's whole heart (jìn xīn), reaching a state of no-heart. Though the physical body remains in the world, the heart is already free of even a speck of dust. Going further, one achieves the state of no-form: no self-form, no other-form, no form of all living beings, no form of lifetime. One transcends the desire-realm and the form-realm and enters the formless realm (wúsè jiè). This lays the foundation for the nature-refining work of Advanced Refinement.

On how to achieve resolving the heart and no-heart: the Taoist text Song of No-Heart (Wúxīn Sòng) can serve as a helpful guide.

The Taoist "Song of No-Heart" (无心颂):

One can only laugh at one's heart — so stubborn, so crude. Drifting along, accepting whatever things may bring. Not practicing cultivation, yet not making evil. Never having benefited others, yet never benefiting oneself.

Not holding to precepts, not following taboos. Knowing nothing of ritual and music, practicing nothing of benevolence and righteousness. Ask what one is capable of — nothing whatsoever. Hungry, eat; thirsty, drink.

Tired, sleep; awake, move about. Hot, wear a single layer; cold, pile on the quilt. No thought, no deliberation — what worry is there? What joy? No regret, no scheming — no thought, no intention.

Life and death, glory and disgrace — merely way-stations on a journey. Even birds dwelling in the forest can manage this. What comes — do not forbid it; what leaves — do not stop it. Neither avoiding nor seeking; neither praising nor condemning.

Not disliking the ugly and evil; not admiring the good and beautiful. Not hurrying toward the quiet chamber; not fleeing the noisy marketplace. Not speaking ill of others; not praising oneself. Not favoring the honored and eminent; not slighting the lowly and young.

Friend or foe, great or small, inner or outer. Grief and joy, gain and loss, reverence and contempt, frugality and ease. The heart sees no duality — serene and even throughout. Not the first toward fortune; not the beginning of disaster.

Respond when stimulated; rise again when pressed. Fear not the sword's edge; why fear the tiger or the rhinoceros? Named as things are named — why be bound by any label? The eyes do not go to forms; sounds do not enter the ears.

Whatever has form is all delusion and falsity. The forms of male and female are not fixed entities. Body and form: no heart — neither contaminated nor stuck. Free and at ease — nothing can burden or encumber.

Wondrous awareness, perfectly luminous — illuminating inside and out. Encompassing the six extremes; no near, no far. Light — yet not light; like the moon reflected in water. How can one choose or reject? How can it be compared to anything?

To comprehend this wondrous function — utterly beyond all else. If asked what this is founded upon: it is just this, and nothing more.

Editorial note: Resolve the Heart is the pivot of the entire three-tier refinement system. Elementary Refinement culminates in jìnxīn (giving one's whole heart — discharging all human relational duties); Intermediate Refinement culminates in liǎo xīn (the heart finally resolving — becoming free of all attachments). The sequence is essential: first complete (jìn), then resolve (liǎo). "When the heart is alive (shēng), the nature is extinguished; when the heart is extinguished (miè), the nature is revealed" — the heart's activity (shēng: stirring, clinging, operating) is exactly what occludes the original nature. Cessation of attachment (miè) is not destruction but uncovering. The Song of No-Heart is cited not as a rule to follow but as a literary description of an arrived state — one that no longer requires effort, defense, or management. "Hungry, eat; thirsty, drink" — not as a practice, but as the natural expression of a heart that has nothing left to defend or pursue.

— Lifechanyuan Corpus · Cultivation Practice · "Intermediate Refinement"

III. Version Links¶

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