Liu Zi Jue: where the Six Healing Sounds come from

Author: Raymond Hackland · Last reviewed: 18 October 2026 · Reading time: about 6 minutes

In short

• What this is: Liu Zi Jue (六字诀), the “six-character formula”, is a Qigong breathing method in which each out-breath is shaped by one of six Chinese syllables. In the West it is often called the Six Healing Sounds.
• What the evidence says: The earliest surviving description is in a text traditionally attributed to the Daoist scholar Tao Hongjing (died 536), though its date and authorship are debated. The method kept changing over the centuries until a standard form appeared in China in 2003.
• What it means for your practice: There has never been one single “original” Liu Zi Jue. The organ and Five Phases correspondences are traditional theory, not anatomy, and they are worth knowing as part of the practice’s heritage.

What tradition says

This section separates documented history (what surviving texts say) from traditional accounts (what cannot be dated or checked).

Documented: the earliest surviving description. The method first appears in the Yangxing yanming lu (養性延命錄), “Records on nourishing life and extending one’s years”, in a chapter on breathing practices. The passage reads, in our translation: “Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, gently and drawn out; this is called the long breath. There is one way of breathing in, and six ways of breathing out … chui, hu, xi, he, xu and si” [1]. Each out-breath is assigned a purpose, and later in the chapter most of them are paired with an organ. The text asks that the breath be audible, following each character as it is breathed out [1].

Uncertain: who wrote it, and when. The surviving edition in the Daoist Canon names “the recluse Tao of Huayang”, that is Tao Hongjing, as its compiler [1]. Tao Hongjing was the leading Daoist scholar of his time, as well as a physician and pharmacologist; he died in 536 (sources give his birth as 451 or 456) [2, 3]. The Chinese Health Qigong Association follows this attribution [4]. Scholars are more cautious. The text is a collection of excerpts from more than thirty earlier works, many of them lost. A 2006 study by Michael Stanley-Baker weighs Tao Hongjing against the Tang physician Sun Simiao as compiler, and dates the surviving compilation to the early or mid Tang dynasty, roughly 627–763 [3, 5]. The safest wording is: first recorded between the 6th and 8th centuries. The text itself says the method “comes from the scriptures of the immortals” [1]. Those older sources cannot be dated. A much older precursor can be dated, though. The Zhuangzi, a classic of early Daoism, mentions people who practise “blowing and puffing (chui xu, 吹呴), breathing out and breathing in, spitting out the old and taking in the new”, and who stretch like bears and birds, all for the sake of a long life [11]. That chapter was written more than 2,000 years ago. It names breathing with words such as chui and xu that return among the later six sounds, but it is not yet the six-sound method. The passage is even a little dismissive: such practitioners of daoyin, it says, are only after a long life.

Documented: a method that kept changing. According to the Chinese Health Qigong Association’s own history of the method [4]:

• The early text pairs the sounds with organs quite differently from today: hu and chui for the heart, xu for the lungs, xi for the spleen and he for the liver [1, 4]. The Tang physician Sun Simiao kept this pairing.
• A Buddhist meditation manual of the Sui dynasty (581–618) already used the pairing that is standard today. In the Tang dynasty, the Daoist author Hu Yin reassigned the sounds: si for the lungs, he for the heart, xu for the liver, hu for the spleen, chui for the kidneys, and xi for the gallbladder.
• A Song-dynasty text gives the most detailed instructions in the tradition, including that the sound should be so soft that not even your own ears hear it.
• Until the Ming dynasty, Liu Zi Jue was a breathing practice only. Movements first appear in Ming-era texts, along with a popular verse that links the sounds to the four seasons.
• In the 20th century, Ma Litang developed his own widely known version.

Even the oldest wording varies between editions: the Daoist Canon text says chui dispels “wind” and hu dispels “heat” [1], while the version quoted by the Association has them the other way round [4].

Documented: the 2003 standard form. In 2003, China’s General Administration of Sport launched four newly compiled “Health Qigong” sets, including Liu Zi Jue, and promoted them nationwide [6]. How these Health Qigong sets came about is told in our introduction to Qigong. The accompanying book was published by People’s Sports Publishing House and announced in January 2004 [7]. The sets were compiled by the Health Qigong Management Center [7, 14, 15], founded in 2001 [16]; the Chinese Health Qigong Association was founded in 2004 [14], and many English-language sources credit the form to it [17]. The Association acknowledges that pronunciation, mouth shapes, voicing, organ pairings and order had all been disputed [4]. The research group for the standard form settled on xu (liver), he (heart), hu (spleen), si (lungs), chui (kidneys) and xi (the “triple burner”), practised in that order [4, 8]. Beginners voice the sounds to learn the mouth shapes; the overall aim of the standard form is to breathe out without sound [8].

Traditional theory: organs and Five Phases. In the standard form, the first five sounds are each linked to one of the five zang organs and to one of the Five Phases (wood, fire, earth, metal, water). The sixth, xi, goes with the triple burner (san jiao, 三焦), one of the six fu organs of Chinese medicine, which the classics call an organ “with a name but no form” [12]; it stands outside the five-phase pairing of the zang organs. The Association grounds this partly in a Qing-dynasty text that links speech sounds made at the throat, tongue, molars, front teeth and lips to the Five Phases [4]. For the first five sounds, the practice order follows the “generating” cycle of the phases, starting with wood and spring, and xi closes the sequence [4, 8]. In Chinese medicine, these “organs” are functional systems rather than anatomical ones: Zhang Mingliang and Ma Ling describe the triple burner as a division of the body by function [8]. Classically, the three burners are the chest, the upper abdomen and the lower abdomen, through which qi and fluids move [8, 12]. They are a different concept from the three dantian of neidan, or inner alchemy: the lower below the navel, the middle in the chest and the upper in the head, behind the point between the eyebrows [13]. Some teachers connect the two. Read this as traditional theory, not as a statement about anatomy.

Wider context. Liu Zi Jue belongs to daoyin, the old Chinese tradition of guiding the breath and stretching the body. Historian Livia Kohn traces it from early medical manuscripts of the Han dynasty to modern Qigong [9].

What science says

This article carries the Tradition only label because its subject is history and traditional theory. The evidence here is textual: what surviving documents say, and how historians date them. The organ and Five Phases correspondences have not been tested scientifically, and are probably not testable as stated. Clinical research on Liu Zi Jue is a separate topic. It is mostly small trials in people with chronic lung disease, and a 2020 review of these trials points to methodological weaknesses [10]. We cover that research in a separate article: Qigong and tai chi: what systematic reviews say.

Where popular claims go beyond the evidence

• “Thousands of years old.” The six-sound method itself is first recorded somewhere between the 6th and 8th centuries. Breathing practice named with chui and xu is older: the Zhuangzi mentions it more than 2,000 years ago [11]. So the roots are old, but the six-sound method itself does not go back “thousands of years” on the documentary record.
• “Each sound vibrates its organ.” The pairings have changed several times in history [4]. They describe a traditional system of thought, not measured acoustic effects on organs.
• “There is one authentic original form.” The sounds, their pairings, their order and their voicing have varied for centuries. The 2003 standard form is one carefully researched modern version, not the restoration of a single original.

How this relates to the Six Healing Sounds, Qigong and neigong

Label for this section: Tradition only (documented history and traditional theory).

Resonance Heritage Qi is a personal, music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue: connected to it, not a replacement for the traditional form or for study with a teacher of that tradition. Knowing the history helps keep that connection honest. Voiced breathing has precedent in the earliest text [1], while the standard form aims at silent exhalation [8]; a music-assisted, voiced approach is a modern interpretation within a long history of variation.

Liu Zi Jue belongs to daoyin, the old Chinese tradition of guiding the breath and stretching the body [9]. Today it is usually taught as Qigong, and the 2003 “Health Qigong” set is a modern, officially standardised version [6]. Practitioners often also use the broader term neigong, “internal work”, for practices that cultivate breath, posture and attention from the inside. These are traditional and overlapping categories, and their boundaries have shifted over time, just as the sounds and their organ pairings have [4].

The organ and Five Phases correspondences are traditional theory, not anatomy [8], and we present them as heritage, not as evidence. Nothing in this history shows a health effect. Whether the practice has measurable effects is a separate question for clinical research, which so far consists mainly of small trials [10].

Try it gently (optional)

1. Sit comfortably and breathe in quietly through your nose.
2. Breathe out slowly through the mouth while shaping the first syllable, xu, without pushing.
3. Try it once with a soft voice, then once as a silent, shaped breath. Notice the difference.
4. Rest with a few natural breaths. Never force the breath; stop if you feel dizzy or uncomfortable.

Sources

1. Tao Hongjing (attributed). 養性延命錄 Yangxing yanming lu, juan 2, chapter 4 (服氣療病篇). Daoist Canon (Zhengtong Daozang) text, digital edition: Kanripo, KR5c0235. https://www.kanripo.org/text/KR5c0235/002
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Tao Hongjing. Biography, accessed 18 October 2026. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tao-Hongjing
3. Klassieke Chinese Teksten. 養性延命錄 Yangxing yanming lu: text description and literature (summarising Stanley-Baker 2006), accessed 18 October 2026. https://www.klassiekchineseteksten.nl/tekst/Yangxing-yanming-lu
4. Chinese Health Qigong Association, 2016. 健身气功·六字诀功法源流 (Health Qigong Liu Zi Jue: origins of the method). Health Qigong Management Center, General Administration of Sport of China, published 20 December 2016. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5407/c781291/content.html
5. Stanley-Baker M, 2006. Cultivating Body, Cultivating Self: A Critical Translation and History of the Tang Dynasty Yangxing Yanming Lu. MA thesis, Indiana University. Catalogue record: https://books.google.com/books/about/Cultivating_Body_Cultivating_Self.html?id=_jMeAQAAMAAJ
6. Health Qigong Management Center, General Administration of Sport of China, 2017. “我要上全运”——健身气功无锡滨湖区海选 (news report, 17 April 2017, with background on the 2003 sets). https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5406/c798212/content.html
7. Health Qigong Management Center, General Administration of Sport of China, 2004. 四种健身气功图书正式出版发行 (Four Health Qigong books officially published; news, 13 January 2004). https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5401/c666461/content.html
8. Zhang Mingliang, Ma Ling, 2016. 健身气功·六字诀养生撷萃 (Health Qigong Liu Zi Jue: essentials for nourishing life). Health Qigong Management Center, published 11 November 2016. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5407/c775164/content.html
9. Kohn L, 2008. Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/chinese-healing-exercises-the-tradition-of-daoyin/
10. Xiao L, Duan H, Li P, Wu W, Shan C, Liu X, 2020. A systematic review and meta-analysis of Liuzijue in stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies 20:308. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-020-03104-1
11. Zhuangzi (莊子), chapter 15 “Ke yi” (刻意). Chinese text, Wikisource, accessed 18 October 2026. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/莊子/刻意
12. Nanjing (難經, Classic of Difficult Issues), difficulties 25 and 38. Chinese text, Wikisource, accessed 18 October 2026. https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/難經
13. Pregadio F. Cinnabar Fields (Dantian). The Golden Elixir, accessed 18 October 2026. https://www.goldenelixir.com/jindan/dantian.html
14. Xinhua, 20 May 2004. 促进健身气功健康发展 中国健身气功协会成立 (Chinese Health Qigong Association founded). Republished by the Health Qigong Management Center, 27 May 2004. https://www.sport.gov.cn/qgzx/n5401/c666481/content.html
15. Health Qigong Management Center, General Administration of Sport of China (ed.), 2003. 健身气功·六字诀 (Health Qigong Liu Zi Jue). Beijing: People’s Sports Publishing House (人民体育出版社). ISBN 9787500924326. Catalogue record: http://www.queshu.com/book/11392322/
16. Lü Shiming 吕实明, 2021. 健身气功·八段锦的编创与推广 (The compilation and promotion of Health Qigong Baduanjin). China Sports Daily, republished by the General Administration of Sport of China, 11 January 2021. https://www.sport.gov.cn/n20001280/n20745751/n20767239/c21422641/content.html
17. Chinese Health Qigong Association, 2021 (earlier edition 2008). Liu Zi Jue: Six Sounds Approach to Qigong Breathing Exercises. London: Singing Dragon. ISBN 9781839971990. Publisher page: https://uk.singingdragon.com/products/liu-zi-jue

Source quality note: [1] is the primary text, read in a digital edition of the Daoist Canon. [4], [6], [7] and [8] are published by the Health Qigong Management Center; [4] is written by the Chinese Health Qigong Association and [8] by Zhang Mingliang and Ma Ling. They represent an official view of the history. [3] and [5] reflect academic doubts about dating and authorship; we verified [5] through its catalogue record and a published summary, not the full thesis. [9] is checked through the publisher’s description only. [10] is cited only for the state of clinical research. [11] is a primary text, read in the Chinese original. [12] is a classical medical text, also read in the original; [13] is a reference article by a scholar of Daoist alchemy. [14] is a news agency report and [16] a retrospective republished by the General Administration of Sport; [15] is a catalogue record of the 2003 book, which we have not seen; [17] is checked through the publisher’s page only.