your vital force:—then you may live for long. When your eyes see nothing, your ears hear nothing, and your mind knows nothing, your spirit will keep your body, and the body will live long. Watch over what is within you; shut up the avenues that connect you with what is external;—much knowledge is pernicious. I will proceed with you to the summit of the Grand Brilliance, where we come to the bright and expanding (element); I will enter with you the grate of the dark and depressing element. There heaven and earth have their controllers, there the yin and yang have their repositories. Watch over and keep your body, and all things will of themselves give it vigour. I main the (original) unity (of these elements). In this way I have cultivated myself for 1,200 years, and my bodily form knows no decay.” Add 1,200 to 2,679, and we obtain 3879 as the year BC of Kuang Chʽêng-tzŭ’s birth!
Laozi describes some other and kindred results of cultivating the Tao in terms which are sufficiently startling, and which it is difficult to accept. In his fiftieth chapter he says, “He who is skilful in managing his life travels on land without having to shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enter a host