Lu Shizhong路时中

Style & Daoist names

styled Dangke, self-styled Wushang Zhenren and Yutang Zhenren (Perfected Man of the Supreme, Perfected Man of the Jade Hall)

Period

late Northern Song to early Southern Song

Dates

? — ?

School

Tianxin Zhengfa (Correct Method of the Celestial Heart)

Role

Patriarch of Daoist Ritual MethodsTransmitter of the Correct Rites of the Celestial Heart

Birthplace

unknown (one account gives Xuzhou)

Life

Lu Shizhong, courtesy name Dangke, an important transmitter of the Tianxin Zhengfa system in the late Northern and early Southern Song, dates of birth and death unknown, active roughly in the first half of the twelfth century. The thirty-chapter Great Rites of the Jade Hall of the Supreme Mysterious Origin and Three Heavens that he transmitted claims to derive from the "Perfected of the Jade Hall" and the methods of the Northern Culmen Bureau for Expelling Evil, expanding the Tianxin Zhengfa tradition descending from Rao Dongtian into a new line called the "Great Rites of the Jade Hall," whose content includes investigation and summoning, healing, exorcism and refinement-and-salvation, and which explicitly makes internal refinement and visualization of spirits the basis of ritual practice. Lu Shizhong's writings reflect the general tendency of the new Southern Song Daoist ritual methods to "practice external rites through internal refinement," and had much interchange with the Shenxiao and Qingwei traditions. He also transmitted the Correct Lineage of the Supreme Three Heavens Jade Hall's Jade Text of Gaoben Inner Effulgence.

Contributions & Influence

• Expanded Tianxin Zhengfa into the new "Great Rites of the Jade Hall" line
• Incorporated internal refinement and visualization of spirits into methods of exorcism and summoning
• Transmitted the Jade Text of Gaoben Inner Effulgence, preserving Song-dynasty methods of visualizing spirits

Works

• Supreme Great Rites of the Jade Hall of the Mysterious Origin and the Three Heavens
• Supreme Jade Book of the Inner Effulgences of Gaoben, Orthodox Lineage of the Three Heavens' Jade Hall

Legends

He claimed to have received his methods from the divine being "Perfected of the Jade Hall" — this belongs to the legendary lore of Daoist ritual traditions.