Min Yide闵一得

Style & Daoist names

originally named Tiaofu, courtesy names Buzhi and Xiao Gen, sobriquet Lanyunzi, Min Xiaogen

Period

Qing

Dates

1758 — 1836

School

Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism, Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen

Role

Patriarch of the Longmen LineageInternal Alchemy MastersHistorian of Daoism

Birthplace

Wuxing (present-day Huzhou, Zhejiang)

Life

Min Yide, style name Xiaogen, was a native of Huzhou in Zhejiang, the eleventh-generation patriarch of the Longmen Lineage in the Qing and the effective founder of the “Yunchao (Cloud Nest) branch” of Longmen at Mount Jingai. Born into a family of scholars, he studied the Confucian classics in his youth and entered the Daoist order in middle age at Chunyang Palace on Mount Jingai, studying under Gao Dongli and Shen Yibing, among others, and also learning the “Xizhu Xinzong” (Western India Mind Lineage, a form of star-ritual magic) from a Daoist of Mount Jizu in Yunnan; he presided over Mount Jingai for several decades. He compiled the eight-scroll Jingai Xindeng (金盖心灯, Lamp of the Mind at Mount Jingai), providing biographies for the Longmen lineage from Qiu Chuji onward — the single most important document for the history of the Longmen Lineage (though scholars consider much of its genealogy to be a later construction). He also compiled the Gushu Yinlou Cangshu (古书隐楼藏书, Collected Books of the Hidden Tower of Ancient Texts), an anthology of over thirty works, containing a large body of Qing-dynasty alchemical scriptures and methods as well as his own writings such as the Tianxian Xinchuan (天仙心传, Mind Transmission of Celestial Immortality) and the Guankui Bian (管窥编, Compilation of Views Through a Tube). He advocated the Dual Cultivation of Nature and Life with the aim of “healing the world” for the benefit of humankind, promoting an engaged, this-worldly Daoism of salvation. In his later years Min Yide enjoyed enormous renown and was a central figure of Jiangnan Daoism in the mid-Qing.

Contributions & Influence

• Compiled the Jingai Xindeng, establishing the narrative of the Longmen Lineage's genealogy
• Compiled the Gushu Yinlou Cangshu, preserving Qing-dynasty alchemical literature
• Promoted the study of “healing the world,” advancing the this-worldly engagement of the Longmen Lineage
• Incorporated the Xizhu Xinzong, expanding the ritual repertoire of the Longmen order

Works

• Jin'gai Xindeng (Lamp of the Mind of Mount Jin'gai)
• Gushu Yinlou Cangshu (Collected Books from the Hidden Tower of Ancient Texts) (compiler)
• Tianxian Xinchuan (Mind Transmission of Celestial Immortality)
• Guankui Bian (Limited Perspectives)
• Elucidating the Subtleties of Returning to the Source
• A Recorded Account of Patriarch Lü's Discourse of the Three Nuns on Healing the World