Nourishing life養生
1Do not chase the immortals; tend the body well
神仙之事，未可全誣；但性命在天，或難鐘值。人生居世，觸途牽縶：幼少之日，既有供養之勤；成立之年，便增妻孥之累。衣食資須，公私驅役；而望遁跡山林，超然塵滓，千萬不遇一爾。加以金玉之費，爐器所須，益非貧士所辦。學如牛毛，成如麟角。華山之下，白骨如莽，何有可遂之理？考之內教，縱使得仙，終當有死，不能出世，不願汝曹專精於此。若其愛養神明，調護氣息，慎節起臥，均適寒暄，禁忌食飲，將餌藥物，遂其所稟，不為夭折者，吾無間然。諸藥餌法，不廢世務也。庾肩吾常服槐實，年七十餘，目看細字，鬚髮猶黑。鄴中朝士，有單服杏仁、枸杞、黃精、朮、車前得益者甚多，不能一一說爾。吾嘗患齒，搖動欲落，飲食熱冷，皆苦疼痛。見抱樸子牢齒之法，早朝叩齒三百下為良；行之數日，即便平愈，今恒持之。此輩小術，無損於事，亦可修也。凡欲餌藥，陶隱居太清方中總錄甚備，但須精審，不可輕脫。近有王愛州在鄴學服松脂，不得節度，腸塞而死，為藥所誤者甚多。
The affairs of the immortals cannot all be called false, but nature and lifespan rest with Heaven, and such a lot is hard to meet with. Living in the world, a man is bound at every turn. In his young days there is the labor of supporting his elders, and when he is grown the burden of wife and children is added. Clothing and food must be got, and public duty and private drive him along. To hope in the midst of this to hide his tracks in the mountain woods and rise clear above the dust — not one man in ten million comes to it. Add to that the cost of gold and jade and the furnaces and vessels it takes, which is even less what a poor scholar can manage. Those who study it are like the hairs of an ox; those who reach it are like the horn of the unicorn. Below Mount Hua the white bones lie thick as grass. What reason is there that it can be done? Weigh it by the teaching of the Buddha, and even a man who becomes an immortal must die in the end and cannot get free of the world. I do not want you to give your whole mind to this. But to cherish and nourish the spirit, to order and guard the breath, to be careful and measured in lying down and rising, to hold an even way between cold and warm, to keep a rein on food and drink, to take the medicines and herbs, and so to carry out to the full what was given you at birth and not be cut off young — in that I find nothing to fault. The ways of taking medicines do not put aside the business of the world. Yu Jianwu regularly ate the fruit of the pagoda tree, and past seventy his eyes could read small characters and his beard and hair were still black. Among the officers of the court at Ye there are very many who took a single thing — apricot kernel, wolfberry, Solomon's seal, atractylodes, plantain — and gained by it, more than I can tell one by one. I once suffered in my teeth. They shook as though they would fall out, and food and drink, hot or cold, all gave me pain. I saw in the Baopuzi the method for firming the teeth, that early in the morning it is good to click the teeth together three hundred times. I did it for some days and was cured at once, and I keep to it still. Small arts of this kind do no harm to a man's business and may well be practiced. If you would take medicine, the Taiqing fang of Tao Yinju has it all set down in full, but you must look into it closely and not be careless. Lately Wang Aizhou learned at Ye to eat pine resin, and failing to keep the measure he died of a blocked gut. Those who have been led wrong by medicine are very many.
2Nourishing life begins with weighing the danger
夫養生者先須慮禍，全身保性，有此生然後養之，勿徒養其無生也。單豹養於內而喪外，張毅養於外而喪內，前賢所戒也。嵇康著養生之論，而以傲物受刑；石崇冀服餌之征，而以貪溺取禍，往世之所迷也。
One who would nourish life must first weigh the dangers, keep the body whole and guard his nature. Only when there is this life can it be nourished. Do not vainly nourish what is not alive. Shan Bao nourished the inside and lost the outside; Zhang Yi nourished the outside and lost the inside. The worthies of earlier days warned of this. Xi Kang wrote a treatise on nourishing life, and for his scorn of others he was put to punishment. Shi Chong looked for the proof of medicines and herbs, and sank into greed and drew calamity on himself. These are the errors of ages past.
3Life must be cherished, but not cherished meanly
夫生不可不惜，不可茍惜。涉險畏之途，幹禍難之事，貪欲以傷生，讒慝而致死，此君子之所惜哉；行誠孝而見賊，履仁義而得罪，喪身以全家，泯軀而濟國，君子不咎也。自亂離已來，吾見名臣賢士，臨難求生，終為不救，徒取窘辱，令人憤懣。侯景之亂，王公將相，多被戮辱，妃主姬妾，略無全者。唯吳郡太守張嵊，建義不捷，為賊所害，辭色不撓；及鄱陽王世子謝夫人，登屋詬怒，見射而斃。夫人，謝遵女也。何賢智操行若此之難？婢妾引決若此之易？悲夫！
Life cannot but be cherished, yet it must not be cherished meanly. To walk a road of peril and dread, to meddle in matters of calamity and trouble, to harm one's life through greed, to come to death through slander and crookedness — these a gentleman counts a waste of a life. But to be struck down while acting in sincerity and filial duty, to be found guilty while walking in humaneness and right, to lose oneself and so keep the house whole, to give up the body and so save the state — these a gentleman does not blame. Since the years of disorder and scattering I have seen famous ministers and worthy gentlemen who, facing the worst, sought to live, and were not saved in the end, and took nothing but humiliation for it, and it makes a man burn. In the revolt of Hou Jing, lords and ministers and generals were killed and shamed in great numbers, and of the consorts and princesses and concubines scarcely one came through whole. Only Zhang Sheng, grand warden of Wu commandery, who raised a righteous force and did not prevail and was killed by the rebels, did not bend in word or in face. And Lady Xie, wife of the heir of the Prince of Poyang, climbed onto the roof and cursed them in her rage, and was shot with an arrow and died. The lady was the daughter of Xie Zun. How is it that the conduct of the worthy and the wise is so hard, and the resolve of maidservants and concubines so easy? What sorrow.