Prayer for the fast at the last prime下元齋詞

Such a year, such a month, such a day. The opening petition is as the ritual code prescribes. I bow and consider that the teaching rests upon wondrous use, so that it does nothing and there is nothing it does not do, and that the Way lies in diligent practice, so that one does not weary of it and there is no weariness. If one can hold up and keep the Three Treasures, one can surely save and guard the myriad living. Only by leaning on the root and stock of what is well planted does one first see the threshold of what was formed whole. So it is said, "A great man dwells in what is thick and not in what is thin. He abides in the fruit and not in the flower." Though dusty service binds your servant's body, the cloud garment hangs upon his will. Great completion is what he looks to, and reaching upward is the term he sets. Always he leans on the poems of Guo Pu and blends the five minerals with care, and he wishes that among the lives written by Ge Hong one name of his own might be entered. So he looks up in reverence to the Way that goes before the Lord of Heaven. How should he lag behind other men? Hearing the tale of the old man whose axe handle rotted, he holds light and shade twice as dear. Reading the words of Baopuzi, he does not let loyalty and good faith be chipped away. But roosting low and burdened by the world, he holds the army tally deep in his grasp. Gain and loss in governing and in punishment are hard to balance, and heavy and light in reward and penalty go wrong easily. In secret he thinks on his faults, and he cannot make them good by careful cultivation. Still more, he has undeservedly taken the honor of a true rank, and he fears that he fails the charge of the dark code. So at the three primes and the eight seasons he makes open offering and prays from afar. He looks only to bring his strength to the ninth story, and he has never let the work fail for one basket of earth. Now the officer of heaven knocks at the season of the Yingzhong pitch, and the officer of waters takes up the dark reins. The count of the moon draws toward the full, and the day stands at the full moon. Looking up, he casts himself on the numinous ground and reverently sets out the jeweled altar. He readies the rite on tables of jade and dishes of fine stone, and he pours his thought toward the golden terrace and the silver gate. He hopes for a stirring that reaches through on this good evening, and for help that saves in a time of peril. I humbly beg the Three Most High Honored Ones and the host of saints of the ten directions to bend down the gaze of the dark mirror and let this red sincerity be fulfilled. Let the kingfisher carriage return soon to Chang'an, and let the imperial wind be shaken out again as at the true beginning. Let those whose hands shape the age accord forever with the teaching of virtue, and let those who bear the tally and the axe put away their arms together. Let wave and billow lie quiet in the four seas, and let mist and vapor open wide in the nine wilds. Let there be generals who yield up their merit beneath a tree, and none in the grass who beg for their lives. Down to the wing that soars and the scale that leaps, the foot that walks and the beak that breathes, let all climb together into the land of benevolence and long life, and let none tread the road of darkness and confusion. Let your servant bind the bond of the Way deeply, and set out his fasting wish from afar. Let him look to the Three Pure Ones on an open road, and draw one watering for a good field. At this time he pillows his head on the spear of Yue Shi, and is kept for a time from lying high at ease. On another day he will grasp the sleeve of Fuqiu. How should anyone wonder that he comes late? Your servant so-and-so cannot bear the fullness of the earnestness he pours out, the words he casts, his reverent petition and his fearful urgency. This he submits with respect.