KNOWLEDGE PATH

Quanzhen and Internal Alchemy

Connect Quanzhen's teachers and institutions with internal cultivation, while keeping patriarchal ancestry, precept transmission, and alchemical teaching distinct.

Key terms: Quanzhen · Wang Chongyang · Qiu Chuji · Ma Yu · Tan Chuduan · Liu Chuxuan · Wang Chuyi · Hao Datong · Sun Bu'er · Seven Perfected · Longmen · Dragon Gate · Neidan · Lü Dongbin

Learning path

Begin with Wang Chongyang and the formation of Quanzhen, then use Qizhen to identify his seven disciples without confusing them with other groups called Seven Perfected.
Compare the disciples' contributions: Ma Yu and Liu Chuxuan in leadership, Tan Chuduan in teaching and calligraphy, Wang Chuyi in court contact, Hao Datong in lineage memory, and Sun Bu'er as a teacher in her own right.
Follow Qiu Chuji's leadership and distinguish it from later Longmen lineage structures.
Connect precepts and temple life with the religious aims of cultivation.
Read internal-alchemical terminology alongside the remembered teaching authority of Lü Dongbin.

Core entries

15 entries

Traditions and Lineages

3 entries

Quanzhen Dao

Quanzhen Dao is a major Daoist tradition that took shape in northern China under the Jin, founded by Wang Chongyang and developed by disciples including Ma Yu and Qiu Chuji. It combines cultivation, precepts, sacred learning, and communal religious life, with many lineages and an extensive temple network.

Longmen Lineage

The Longmen lineage is an important branch of Quanzhen Daoism that traditionally honors Qiu Chuji as its patriarch. Later Longmen accounts place particular emphasis on the transmission of precepts, while Wang Changyue's early Qing teachings were influential in shaping that tradition. A lineage's retrospective ancestry and the date of its institutional formation are different questions.

Qizhen (Seven Perfected in Multiple Contexts)

Qizhen, or Seven Perfected, can name different groups in Daoist writing. The Northern Seven of Quanzhen are a familiar example, but Southern-lineage, Maoshan, and Northern Dipper contexts use the same expression differently.

People and History

8 entries

Wang Chongyang

Wang Chongyang (1112–1170), originally named Zhongfu and later Zhe, founded Quanzhen Daoism during the Jin. After cultivating in the Guanzhong region, he taught in Shandong and organized communities whose disciples included Qiu Chuji. His teaching joined inner cultivation, ethical discipline, and engagement with Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist writings; accounts of immortal instruction belong to Quanzhen religious biography.

Qiu Chuji (丘处机)

Qiu Chuji (1148–1227), also written with a variant Chinese surname character and known as Changchunzi, was an important early Quanzhen master and disciple of Wang Chongyang. His journey to meet Chinggis Khan and his later leadership in Yanjing are documented; his status as a Longmen patriarch developed further after his death.

Ma Yu

Ma Yu, also known as Ma Danyang, was an early Quanzhen leader and a disciple of Wang Chongyang. His support for the first Quanzhen community and his leadership after Wang's death place him among the tradition's Seven Perfected.

Tan Chuduan

Tan Chuduan was a Jin-period Daoist, a disciple of Wang Chongyang and one of the Seven Perfected of Quanzhen. Also known as Changzhenzi, he is revered as an ancestral teacher of the Nanwu branch.

Liu Chuxuan

Liu Chuxuan (1147–1203), known as Changshengzi, was a Jin-period Quanzhen Daoist and a pupil of Wang Chongyang. He is counted among the Northern Seven Perfected and remembered in connection with the Suishan lineage.

Wang Chuyi (Yuyangzi)

Wang Chuyi (1142–1217) was a Jin-period Quanzhen Daoist, counted among the Northern Seven and commonly known as Yuyangzi. His connection with Wang Chongyang, mountain communities, and the Jin court can be studied separately from later idealized austerity stories.

Hao Datong

Hao Datong was a Jin-period Daoist and one of the Seven Perfected of Quanzhen. A disciple of Wang Chongyang, he is associated with the Huashan branch and remembered by the religious name Guangningzi.

Sun Bu'er

Sun Bu'er (1119–1182) was a Jin-period woman of the Quanzhen tradition. Later genealogies place her among the Seven Perfected of the North and associate her with the Qingjing lineage and writings on women's inner alchemy. Her biography, lineage status, and textual attributions must be distinguished.

Temples and Geography

1 entry

Daoist Temples

Gongguan is a collective term for Daoist religious sites where deities may be honored, clergy may live and study, liturgies may be held, and community affairs may be organized. The names gong and guan have distinct histories; their present-day use does not establish a uniform rank or function for every site.

Cultivation and Health

2 entries

Xing and Ming

Xing and ming originally refer broadly to a person's nature and life. In Daoist inner-alchemy writings they often frame the relation between mind or spirit and embodied vitality. Some authors associate xing with spirit and mind, ming with qi and body; traditions differ on whether either has priority or how both should be cultivated together.

Neidan

Neidan, or internal alchemy, comprises Daoist cultivation traditions that treat the person as a furnace and vessel, using alchemical language to discuss essence, qi, spirit, inner nature, life, and return to the Dao. These traditions became increasingly systematic from the Tang and Song onward, but their stages, bodily models, and interpretations differ.

Deities and Immortals

1 entry

Lü Dongbin

Lü Dongbin, also called Lü Yan, Lü Chunyang, and Lüzu, is an influential Daoist immortal in writings and worship from the Song onward. He later became one of the Eight Immortals and a patriarch in Quanzhen lineages. The historical identity of the person behind early Lü Yan accounts remains uncertain, and later dream, sword, and teaching stories accumulated over centuries.