Starting from Unvealing the Taoist Secret Art of Life Extension: The Seven-Star Lamp

Anyone who has read Romance of the Three Kingdoms knows that Zhuge Kongming lit the Seven-Star Lamp at Wuzhangyuan, saying “If the main lamp does not go out within seven days, my lifespan may be extended by one ji.” Later, Wei Yan hurried in to report military news, accidentally knocked over the main lamp, and the life-extension failed—so Kongming ultimately died. Although Romance of the Three Kingdoms is only a work of fiction, novelists of ancient times differed from modern ones: most adapted things that existed in reality and applied artistic embellishment to turn them into brilliant stories.

Just as the magnificent “Nine-Curves Yellow River Formation” in Investiture of the Gods existed in reality, so too does the “Seven-Star Life-Extension Lamp.” The ancients said, “The Southern Dipper records births; the Northern Dipper records deaths.” It is said that the registers of life and death are controlled by the Southern and Northern Dippers, which is why the cult of the Northern Dipper arose. Like other cultures, Chinese culture has a cult of the sun or moon god, but what distinguishes it from all others is the cult of the Northern Dipper, of which Daoism has inherited a great deal.

In the Daoist scripture Yunqi Qiqian (Seven Slipcases of the Cloudy Charter), section on Receiving Life and Mandate, it says: “While in the womb, the Three Primitives nurture and the Nine Qi transform; the Five Planets become the five organs, and the seven stars of the Northern Dipper open the seven orifices. The Seven Stars descend as boys to guard the body. The qi of the Seven Stars congeals into a single star above the head, three feet from the crown. When a person does good, that star shines large and bright; when they do evil, the star is dim and small. Accumulated good brings blessings; accumulated evil brings disasters. When the starlight fades and dies, the body dies too.”

Among the folk there is a saying: everyone is a star in the sky, and if a meteor falls, it means someone has died. This is actually a misunderstanding that confuses the virtual star with the real star.

The Seven Stars here in fact correspond to the Seven Po within the body. The character po (“魄”) is quite vivid: it is composed of “white” (bai) and “ghost” (gui). In antiquity, gui did not mean a modern spirit or ghost, but described something “secret and unfathomable.” Bai corresponds to the metal color of the west, which matches the number seven—this is the intent of the character's structure.

The scripture further says: “The Seven Stars descend as boys to guard the body.” This shows that the Seven Stars protect the body. In later ages there were many views that treated the Seven Po as wholly evil, which is actually wrong and groundless.

The qi of the Seven Stars congeals into a single star three feet above the head—this is the origin of the folk saying “there are spirits three feet above your head.” Bright and great light represents good; dim and dark light means bad. Those who habitually do good accumulate blessings; those who habitually do evil accumulate disasters—this is the same principle. If the light vanishes completely, the person dies.

Why does doing good easily bring blessings? Because the more virtuous one is, the more that light shines; it then actively improves one's field of qi, and luck grows better and better. If one habitually does evil, one is dimming one's own light, so luck grows worse and worse.

Some people misunderstand this and think that evil-doers must die faster. That does not match reality, so it is a mistaken view; the theory has problems.

In fact, these words have a deeper meaning that requires some insight to grasp. The real situation is quite complex: doing good deeds makes one happy and full of spirit; doing bad deeds makes one depressed, uneasy in heart, and low in spirit. This is the change between light and dark.

This rests on the fine tradition of conscience education in China. In most cases people can form clear judgments of good and evil, right and wrong, so the principle holds.

But if one takes evil to be good, that too can make the light shine brightly—typical of some extremist organizations. They have built their own state and hold great wealth, yet they wage war everywhere, believing what they do is right and that all who do not believe their creed should be slaughtered. For them this becomes a “bright” cause, and thus they too possess their own luck.

This is the worst thing in the world.

People often ask why they always seem unlucky, why their fate is always so poor. If good people easily gain blessings, why are there so many cases of good people without good reward? Some cannot figure it out, so they comfort themselves with the fallacious talk of karma. Though their actual lives hardly improve, they find some consolation for the mind.

Although I think this consolation has some meaning, on the whole I do not favor chasing it too hard, because it often evolves into a poisonous idea—such as a hatred of the rich, always thinking the rich are bad and that almost no one succeeds through honest hard work, that they must have done something shady. Over time the mind twists further, and one teaches the next generation the same way, producing an increasingly deformed psychology.

Thus another odd situation forms: the poor grow poorer because psychologically they are unwilling to work hard, believing effort is useless, and further believing that wealth and status equal sin. In fact, many people in this world succeed through effort and enjoy a better quality of life.

When you actively despise the world, the world despises you in return; when you despise others, they naturally despise you.

Daoism speaks of leaving the world, but does not avoid entering it—and far less does it hate the world. From a Daoist view, such world-hating behavior can only be described in four words: “Far from the Dao.”

The right approach is to do more positive things that make yourself and others happy; naturally the light shines more brightly. At least most people around have a good side. If you can make your starlight shine more and inspire others, you will surely yourself gain immeasurable blessings.

So what does all this have to do with the Taoist secret art of life extension, the Seven-Star Lamp? In fact, among Daoists the Seven-Star Lamp life-extension rite has a fairly popular but non-technical name: worshipping the Dipper (baidou).

The strictest requirement of worshipping the Dipper is that the seeker's heart must be upright. The brighter one's starlight, the stronger the response. Under the influence of traditional Chinese culture, the best way to brighten one's starlight is to start with oneself, be kind to others, and feel happy in body and mind; the light then radiates. Combined with Dipper-worship, this brings inconceivable gains.

Now for Dipper-worship itself—if subdivided, there are many distinctions.

Ordinary forms usually involve simple worship: requesting blessings from the Nine Emperors, inviting the Seven Lords of the Northern Dipper, or lighting the Seven-Star Lamp for blessings and longevity. These operations also range from standardized to non-standardized. Professional rites are often led by a master and involve relatively simple liturgies with many different purposes—dispelling malign influences, eliminating disasters and curing illness, praying for blessings, and so forth. There are also forms like the Dou-mu method for praying for rain and summoning thunder—derived liturgies. Life-extension jiao rites can be more complex: for example, the Yin-fu school's life-extension jiao uses the Northern Dipper life-extension altar, a joint Southern–Northern Dipper life-extension jiao liturgy. Other schools regularly use rites such as the Pure Jiao of Northern Dipper Life-Extension, the Warding-off-Calamity Rite of Northern Dipper Life-Extension, the Life-Extension Rite of the Northern Dipper, the Repentance-Lamp Rite of Northern Dipper Life-Extension, the Precept-Presenting Rite of the Northern Dipper Life-Extension Jiao, and the Dao-altar Rite of Northern Dipper Life-Extension—all belonging to the Northern Dipper family.

Besides these, there are various folk practices combining local customs. For instance, in Sichuan there is a ritual called “Jieshou Shou” (Receiving Dragon Longevity). The basic sequence is: first install the incense and blessing spirits; then remove defilement and honor the stove; then move into the core rite of inviting the spirits to descend and bestow blessings and longevity. First the Buddhas are invited, then the gods of the Three Primitives and Eight Temples, then the lineage masters honored by the ritual master; wine and offerings are presented, and blessings are bestowed on the client household.

Within this, the lamp liturgy is in fact the legendary Seven-Star Lamp life-extension art—only heavily wrapped inside the liturgy, with the secret parts mostly transmitted orally.

As for life-extension Dao altars, though many masters perform them, the results differ enormously. Typically among life-extension work, nine masters in ten have little effect or none; the remainder are the more skilled. They can usually keep a critically ill person alive a while longer; if done properly and timed well, living several more years is not hard—but achieving “extending life by one ji” as novelists describe is extremely difficult.

People may ask: how can such standards be measured? For a normal person, no one knows when they will die—so how does anyone know whether life was extended?

These rites mainly target the critically ill: for example, someone with late-stage cancer who has already received a critical notice. After treatment, if the patient lives a while longer—long enough to settle final affairs and spend a short time more with family—or if someone given little time by the hospital far exceeds expectations, these count as credible results; anything beyond that naturally does not.

Given such standards, do these life-extension arts actually work? From real-world experience, across schools, it can be confirmed that these life-extension methods are useful when the believer cooperates and the master works conscientiously.

For example: once an elderly person had a brain tumor that had metastasized and was growing wildly in the brain; the person was already in a coma, and the doctors said they would not last many days. Their children happened to be believers and came to seek help. I told them clearly that life could not truly be extended indefinitely, but living a while longer—and waking to settle affairs and spend a short time together—was possible. We then used a simple Seven-Star Lamp method. After the patient woke, the tumor still pressed on the nerves so they could not leave the bed, but they had strength to eat. The believer came and said it looked like recovery; I told them clearly it was temporary and to prepare final affairs promptly. The father lived another two months before dying. The doctors were astonished: with so many brain tumors, how could the old man be so energetic and live so long?

Why use a simple approach rather than a full professional Dao altar hoping for a longer life?

Because cancer is very hard. I once spent a short time in a hospital researching this illness and learned the condition of cancer patients. The pain is unbearable; in severe cases even Demerol does not help. Amid such torment, all the theories of modern science are useless if they cannot resolve the pain. Precisely because of this suffering, many patients will spend any amount on treatment—yet often with little effect—and then seek folk remedies everywhere. (Here I must also sternly condemn those charlatans who claim they can cure cancer and deceive patients: you will regret it in the end.) In fact, sometimes death is not a release in vain. After all, once a person dies the hun and po can still reincarnate; in a sense they still exist. One should not think that because a hard drive is formatted, it is still one's own. The worst outcome is successful life extension at the cost of unrelieved illness—truly a fate worse than death. If you have the chance, go see a hospital for yourself; without real contact, one never truly understands.

Ordinary people think extending life is always good, but distinctions must be made. For a minority, what is extended is not life but suffering. From a humanitarian standpoint, the question is how better to care for them while alive; such life-extension should ideally be pursued only within certain limits.

Occasionally there are cases where life extension must not be performed.

For example: once a believer came saying her father was ill and asked whether there was a way to extend his life, adding she would even trade her own lifespan if possible. Swapping lifespans is not something orthodox methods handle—life-extension is about bestowing blessings, entirely different from heterodox witchcraft; the side effects of witchcraft life-swaps are severe, and we will not dwell on them. But because her sincerity was great, I agreed to try, telling her that life extension did not require swapping lifespans. She had always been a good believer, so I did not think much further. During the work we hit a problem: several invited gods declined to preside, and things were difficult. We tried another method—consulting which god would preside via spirit projection—but on projection, the paper came back completely blank, with no name. I immediately sensed something wrong and checked the yin and yang; afterward it was found that when her father was young, during the era when sent-down youth returned to the cities, he held power over return and not only abused many women but was involved in forcing people to their deaths—buried by the times and never pursued. Later, speaking privately with her father, he was very startled, admitting he had regretted those acts for a long time. But even so, life extension could not be performed.

So when Kongming's life extension in Romance of the Three Kingdoms fails at Wei Yan's hands, one may well call it Heaven's will. Though it is fiction, the meaning is worth pondering.