Original Text of the Lingcheng Essence Classic

In the universe there are great correspondences and conjunctions, with qi and fortune as master; in mountains and rivers there is true disposition, with momentum and form as foremost.

Earthly fortune shifts, and heavenly qi follows it; heavenly fortune turns and revolves, and earthly qi responds.

Heavenly qi moves above, and human action responds; human action moves below, and heavenly qi follows.

There is gathering discourse, traveling discourse, seated discourse — then qi gathers at the dragon; there are the authority star, the honored star, the heroic star — then qi gathers at the momentum; there are covering lead, embracing the embryo, riding the embryo — then qi gathers at the den; there are gathering the lapels, gathering the hall, gathering the pass — then qi gathers at the configuration.

When yin is supreme and meets yang, it stops; when yang is supreme and meets yin, it settles. The masculine dragon requires the feminine dragon to manage it; the feminine dragon requires the masculine dragon to crowd around it.

For great earth without form, look at its grandeur of qi; for small earth without momentum, look at its spirit. Where water takes form, the mountain stops; where the mountain takes form, the water stops.

To recognize qi in the great parent, look at the honored star; to recognize qi in the guest-child richness, look at the master star; to recognize qi where it first meets and contends, look at the conception-concealment star; to recognize qi in gestation and nurture, look at the embryo-breath star; to recognize qi in transforming killing into authority, look at the solution star; to recognize qi in meeting extinction yet generating life, look at the grace star.

To distinguish the life and death of the dragon, you must divide the three yin and three yang; to distinguish the life and death of the den, you must recognize that yang is more and yin is less.

The dragon has variant forms — sometimes halting in place or held fast; the den has variant patterns — then it is the falling official or the usurping official.

Star forms have the primary and the attached — the appropriateness of adjoining, lining, and pasting must be distinguished; the disposition of the den has the manifest and the obscure — form, qi, and shadow should be examined in detail.

If the canopy tent does not open, the dragon does not nest; if the ringed halo does not cover, the den does not settle; if the throat is not constricted finely, qi does not gather; if the mud-ball is not full, qi is not abundant.

The five stars never leave the water and earth bodies; the nine stars often carry Fu and Bi along with them. The earth star does not lean; all five phases may clash; fire and wood cannot be increased; how can water and earth adhere?

Sitting settled, sitting prosperous, sitting as killing — this is called the sitting method; preserving the embryo, protecting the embryo, breaking the embryo — this is called the working method.

Pressing against the living and beside the qi, it becomes shedding the shell and borrowing the embryo, or the child entering the mother's womb; shedding killing and connecting to life, or borrowing the mother to nourish the child, or using the child to save the mother.

A submerged water buffalo — its qi rises upward as it blows, so ride its qi; a dragon emerging from its cave — its qi goes straight as it expels, so ride its excess. Qi whose essence and brilliance are exposed outside is like a flower — bury its skin; qi whose essence and brilliance brew inside is like fruit — bury its bone.

Qi has empty and solid; the method is to cast the solid into the empty and ride the solid from the empty. Qi has earlier and later; the method is that what arrives first is poorly gathered, and what arrives later is gathered after.

Borrowing the city wall and the host — you must carefully examine the supporting backdrop; going to the facing and hoeing the dragon — you should carefully examine the bright hall.

To locate the den, seek three stillnesses and one movement. To recognize qi, you need a hundred deaths and one life.

In burial by method, the method lies within the form; in burial by grasping the meaning, the meaning lies beyond the form.

The nobility and baseness of the dragon are distinguished by its pattern; the orthodox and residual of the dragon are distinguished by its ancestry; the greatness and smallness of the dragon are distinguished by its trunk. Therefore, among the same dragon discuss the pattern; among the same pattern discuss the ancestry; among the same ancestry discuss the trunk.

The coming and staying of the dragon are distinguished by the configuration; the partial and upright of the dragon are distinguished by the hall; the true and false of the dragon are distinguished by the seat. Therefore, among the same dragon discuss the configuration; among the same configuration discuss the hall; among the same hall discuss the seat.

Inauspicious stars are not without mixture and confusion — as long as there is embryo and transformation; auspicious luminary though heroic and towering must also have essence and spirit.

Hills and valleys change and shift, mountains and rivers change color — creation truly has its own times; controlling mountains and rivers, stirring the dragon spirit — the workings also truly have their methods.

If the earth has no essence and qi, take the stars' qi as essence and qi; if the earth has no fortune and misfortune, take the stars' qi as fortune and misfortune.

To use the Earlier Heaven to govern dragons, you should fully understand the four dragons' heavenly stars.

To use the Later Heaven to arrange the configuration, you especially should examine the three-plate trigram examples.

Use the dragon to determine the den — you must examine the yin and yang of the entry path; use the water to determine the facing — you must look at the yin and yang of the returning path.

At the head entering and the hand beginning — this is how dragon and vein are distinguished; dividing the metal and dividing the meridian — this is how coming and sitting are separated.

Dragon veins have forward and reverse; riding qi naturally must be distinguished; the five phases have inversions — each working has its own method.

The dragon-den has no shifting by feet or inches; receiving qi differs by ear or waist; dividing the metal has the ingenuity of shifting; the qi line has no divergence by a hair's breadth.

When riding qi, avoid the central qi, hence take three-seven to set the coffin; when dividing metal, ride the prosperous qi, also taking three-seven to add to the facing.

If the vein is not straight but the qi is straight, why fear receiving a straight arrival; if the qi is not oblique but the coffin is oblique, that is called upright penetration and upright reception.

The dragon takes the vein as master; the den takes the facing as noble. Water is fixed by the facing; the facing is divided by the configuration.

On the coming path look at the four births; beneath the sitting look at the center extinction; within the configuration look at the three combinations; above the facing look at the double metal.

To control killing, nothing surpasses riding the prosperous; to shed killing is precisely to support the upright; following the killing transforms it into authority; retaining the killing precisely greets the official.

Guest water and guest sand can still be invited to gather qi; true husband and true wife still dislike meeting halfway on the road.

Yin uses yang to approach; yang uses yin to respond — joined, they are truly kin of one family; mountain fortune gathers mountain, water fortune gathers water — divided, they also mutually generate prosperity.

The host has host qi — within it should be kept secret by the five phases; the hall has hall qi — outside it should observe the four tendencies.

The dragon is earthly qi — one should bore inward at the solid places of bone and vein and pour it in; water is heavenly qi — one should bore outward at the empty places on the facing side and draw it out.

In heaven images are formed; on earth shapes are formed — the same qi. Hence in celestial method the sun is honored, while in terrestrial method Lianzhen is master — both take the fire star as the origin of all phenomena;

Images hang fortune and misfortune; forms divide disaster and blessing — the same domain. Hence in star method the year star is virtue, while in terrestrial method Tanlang is noble — both take the wood star as the flower of all phenomena.

In the Earlier Heaven one yin and one yang are matched as master — hence among the four dragons' heavenly stars, only take the mutual match: yin meets yang, yang joins yin.

The Later Heaven divides yin and divides yang, with utility as master — hence among the eight directions' sitting and facing, you may borrow for matching: sitting yang, receive yin; sitting yin, receive yang.

Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven — the earlier as substance and the later as function — it is precious to understand their changes; the two qi of yin and yang — yang is not base and yin is not noble — it lies in what is fitting and appropriate.

The earth uses the upright positions of the eight directions to fix the map of the kun (earth) way — hence it takes due zi and wu as the earth plate, placed within to correspond to the earth's solidity.

Heaven uses the twelve divisions of the celestial equator to fix the stations of the orbital degrees — hence it takes ren-zi and bing-wu as the heaven plate, placed outside to correspond to heaven's emptiness.