A Commentary on the Five-Dipper Golden Chapter Precious Classic Spoken by the Lord Lao on High—and on the Principle of Repaying the Yin Debt
There is a popular account of repaying the yin debt: once a person is born, they owe the underworld some sum of money; if this debt is not repaid, their fortune will not easily improve—so one should repay the yin debt and luck will get better. This is the most vulgar of folk sayings, and there is even a bizarre name for it—the “skin debt,” said to be owed for buying one's human skin.
This talk is coarse and not worth dwelling on.
That being born into a human body unavoidably pollutes the environment, occupies earthly resources, preys on animals, and harms living creatures, contrary to Heaven's virtue of cherishing life and detracting from the virtue of Heaven and Earth transforming the ten thousand things—this can be conceded.
But to say that one is born already owing someone money for no reason, and must burn paper money to repay it, is pure trouble-seeking: do you want a few thunderbolts to “moved” you into sense?
Of course the above is banter. If it were truly useless, one would have expected it to have been abandoned by believers long ago; by the quarrelling habits of the charlatans of the marketplace, it would surely have drawn a storm of abuse.
Objectively speaking, when the rite of repaying the yin debt is performed with its principle understood and proper technique, it does have real effect—so much so that it spread with astonishing speed, until even Buddhism took one look, felt it could not be left behind, and launched its own yin-debt repayment rites to perform in various places.
So: is there any logic in this yin-debt repayment? And if so, what is it really about?
Looking first at the scriptures, one should consult the Daoist Five-Dipper Golden Chapter Classic of Receiving Life Spoken by the Lord Lao on High. On first reading, the content of the Receiving Life Classic is no solemn matter, and certainly not a scripture with a long history—clearly fabricated by later ages.
Among the effects it promotes, the phrase “for three lives ever in a male body” plainly does not sit well with the Daoist heart; the Dao Ancestor on High could never have said such a thing.
Looking again at its talismans, the Five Spirit Talismans are roughly designed and open to suspicion of exaggeration.
Thus the Seven Qi of the West Talisman claims: “This chapter's numinous talisman settles in the human lung. If a person's lung is afflicted, write it in cinnabar, burn to ash and take it—instant recovery.”
Again this talisman claims: “This chapter's numinous talisman settles in the human heart. If the heart is afflicted, write it in cinnabar, burn to ash and take it—instant recovery.”
The five talismans are largely similar in structure; what differs is the change in star numbers. For instance, the lung talisman takes only the number seven, matching Metal's number; the heart talisman takes the number nine, connecting to southern Li fire, and so can treat the heart; the spleen talisman totals fifteen, connecting to Earth among the five phases, and so can treat the spleen. Yet with designs of this sort, how could they produce “instant recovery” even if they have some power to dispel illness?
Are they making fools of three-year-olds?
Yet the content they construct, though coarse and not credible, does harbor an intention worth a look; from another angle, the picture becomes entirely different.
Switch to vernacular mode
Repaying the yin debt—more formally called repaying the emolument-treasury money—is broadly based on the scriptures.
The method of repaying the emolument treasury is to burn the corresponding yin wealth on the person's natal day. The classic also says that reciting scripture can convert money: for each recitation of the Five-Dipper Golden Chapter Precious Classic, ten thousand strings can be converted.
Is any of this sound? Analyze it and it becomes clear.
Jia and Yi nine, Bing and Ding three, Wu and Ji twelve, Geng and Xin seven, Ren and Gui five. Laid out, it is like this:
Bing–Ding three
Jia–Yi nine Wu–Ji twelve Geng–Xin seven
Ren–Gui five
What model is this? The answer: Five Zis Returning to Geng.
According to the Secret Method of the Three Heavens: the five Zis are Jia-Zi, Bing-Zi, Geng-Zi, and Ren-Zi. Starting the five Zis on the Earthly Branch palm, stop whenever one meets Geng; each then obtains its number and returns to its place. For example, Jia-Zi has the na-yin of Metal in the Sea: from Jia to Geng—that is, from Zi to Wu—the number is seven; hence western Metal's number is seven. Bing-Zi has the na-yin of Water below the Ravine: from Bing to Chen, the number is five; hence northern Water's number is five. Wu-Zi has the na-yin of Thunderbolt Fire: from Wu to Geng—that is, from Zi to Yin—the number is three; hence southern Fire's number is three. Geng-Zi has the na-yin of Earth on the Wall: from Geng to Geng, original Geng unmoved—that is, from Zi to Zi, original Zi not leaving—the number is one; hence central Wu–Ji Earth's number is one. Ren-Zi has the na-yin of Mulberry Wood: from Ren to Geng—that is, from Zi to Shen—the number is nine. Hence eastern Wood's number is nine.
The Five Zis Returning to Geng also relates to inferring the na-yin natal qi-numbers—a method used specifically in Daoism. To elaborate in detail would expand too far; it is not pursued here.
So how do the Earthly Branches fit in? They arise like this: Zi, Chen, Shen form one group as one, two, three; Hai, Mao, Wei form one group as four, five, six; Yin, Wu, Xu form one group as seven, eight, nine; Si, You, Chou form one group as ten, eleven, twelve.
Zi Hai Yin Si
Chen Mao Wu You
Shen Wei Xu Chou
This makes the pattern hard to see. Transform it a little:
If one strings together the sequence of Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, and expands it according to the “walking by remaining angles” of traditional numerology, one discovers this interesting pattern.
This pattern was not drawn according to the ancient right-to-left writing habit; later one could not be bothered to fix it, so simply flip it horizontally 180 degrees into the ancient habit:
Though the Chinese characters are reversed, this does not affect observing the direction of the Earthly Branch flow. One can interestingly see that its direction runs from Xun to Qian. Qian is the Heaven Gate; Xun is the Earth Door—so hidden here is actually the meaning of “open the Heaven Gate, close the Earth Door.”
Repaying the emolument treasury must be done on the natal day. But why can it only be done on the natal day? Because on that day the numbers of Yi principle contained can act precisely upon the person's own natal yuan-chen—in practice this is a method of strengthening the force of the person's natal stems and branches.
What natal-day stems and branches means—which stems and branches they match—most essays on yin-debt repayment online have not even clarified this; one can only sigh. It is not pursued here; a small hook is left for those with heart to research and discover.
Burning the money to repay the emolument treasury is less like burning paper and more like lighting a lamp for the yuan-chen—in itself it has an effect of flourishing one's yuan-chen. The operational principle of this method is the joining of Yi numbers.
So the number of scripture recitations is likewise tied to this. Converting directly at ten thousand, the result again rests on a single number—and thus number can join qi to achieve the aim of flourishing and changing fortune, often with unexpected effect.
Here something rather interesting appears: though the Five Spirit Talismans above look crude, if one strictly follows the method of repaying the emolument treasury, the yuan-chen will necessarily shine in correspondence, and the talismans' effect will also be strengthened.
From this one can see: though the scripture's own claims are bizarre and flow among the vulgar, a small method of rapidly raising fortune that already contained deep meaning—though it does not look brilliant—was hidden inside this worldly scripture that everyone passes along. The compiler of the classic truly took a great deal of pains.
By this account, the Five-Dipper Golden Chapter Classic of Receiving Life Spoken by the Lord Lao on High, though only a lower-grade scripture fit for promoting among believers who cannot dig deeply and lack rationality, is nonetheless among the fine works of the lower grade, once its principle is understood.
A further note:
Buddhism also imitated Daoism and fabricated its own Receiving Life Classic, attributing it to the Tang dynasty. It too is not recognized by orthodox Buddhist authorities and should be counted as market-place invention.
There is even a method of repaying the yin debt according to the sixty jiazi of birth. Its number-theory is groundless: broadly it sets the recitation count by whatever is set, and those with many repay more treasury money, those with few repay less—the amount correlating with the number of scriptures read. There are also treasury officials registered under sixty treasuries, with many omissions, fewer than sixty, a chaotic mess. Relying only on mass paper-burning and scripture-recitation to seek verification, the rest is almost useless—surely something temple altars of the marketplace did casually, not worth discussing.