Retreat Rites of the Qingwei Tradition清微斋法
- Author / transmission
- Anonymous (Qingwei tradition)
- Period
- Yuan · Compiled by Qingwei priests of the Yuan dynasty, roughly the late 13th to 14th century, possibly connected to the lineage of Huang Shunshen.
- Canon division
- Zhengyi Section
- Collected in
- Zhengtong Daozang, Zhengyi Section
- Category
- Ritual Protocol (Keyi)
- Fascicles
- 2 juan
Synopsis
The Qingwei Zhaifa (Retreat Rites of the Qingwei Tradition) is a Yuan-dynasty ritual manual of the Qingwei school in two fascicles, recording the procedures and essential instructions for internal cultivation used in performing the Yellow Register Retreat, the Rite of Refinement and Salvation (liandu), and other ceremonies. The Qingwei school arose at the end of the Southern Song with the aim of "convergence at the origin" (huiyuan), merging the talismans and registers and Thunder Rites of the Shangqing, Lingbao, Daode, and Zhengyi traditions, with particular emphasis on internal cultivation; this work embodies the Qingwei retreat rites' characteristic of "taking internal cultivation as the basis and talismanic methods as the application" — before performing a retreat, the priest first visualizes the transformation of the spirit and the fusion of primordial qi, and the setting of the altar, the invitation of the deities, the presentation of memorials, the rite of refinement and salvation, and the feeding of hungry ghosts are all accompanied by internal visualization. The pantheon described in the text is organized around the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning, the patriarch Wei Huacun, and the Qingwei patriarch Huang Shunshen, making this a direct source for understanding the Qingwei school's ritual, internal cultivation, and pantheon, to be cross-referenced with the Qingwei methods collected in fascicles 1 to 55 of the Daofa huiyuan (Corpus of Daoist Ritual) and with the Qingwei Xianpu (Genealogy of the Immortals of the Qingwei Tradition).
Key Ideas
- Qingwei retreat rites combined with internal cultivation
- Visualization of the transformation of the spirit runs throughout the ritual
- Ritual features drawing on the convergence of the four traditions
- The Qingwei pantheon and its patriarchs
Structure
Two fascicles: the first a general discussion and ritual sequence, the second the various liturgical texts.
Editions
- Zhengtong Daozang edition
- Zhonghua Daozang, vol. 41
Full Text & Online Resources
Related scriptures
Genealogy of the Immortals of the Qingwei Tradition, Corpus of Daoist Ritual (Daofa huiyuan), Jade Mirror of LingbaoRelated figures
Huang Shunshen, Wei Huacun- 任继愈主编《道藏提要》
- 卿希泰主编《中国道教史》第三卷