Shi Tai石泰

Style & Daoist names

Dezhi, Xinglin (Apricot Grove), Cuixuanzi, Shi Xinglin

Period

Northern Song and Southern Song

Dates

1022 — 1158

School

Southern Lineage of the Golden Elixir (Nanzong)

Role

Second Patriarch of the Southern Lineage of Internal Alchemy

Birthplace

Changzhou (present-day Changzhou, Jiangsu)

Life

Shi Tai, styled Dezhi, with the sobriquet Xinglin (Apricot Grove) and also called Cuixuanzi, was the second patriarch of the Southern Lineage of internal alchemy. According to the Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Who Embodied the Dao through the Ages and other sources, he was a native of Changzhou, who helped people with medicine and refused payment, asking only that they plant an apricot tree; over time these formed a grove, giving him the sobriquet Xinglin. Tradition holds that when Zhang Boduan was passing through Binzhou en route to exile for his offense, Shi Tai rescued him, and Zhang Boduan thereupon transmitted to him the way of the golden elixir. His birth and death years are given in Daoist texts as 1022–1158, a span of 137 years, an evident exaggeration that scholars generally doubt. His work Returning to the Source (Huanyuan pian), eighty-one pentasyllabic quatrains discussing internal-alchemy cultivation, states that "the medicine is taken from the pre-celestial qi, the fire is sought in the essence of Great Change," advocating essence, qi and spirit as the medicine, in a simple and direct manner, and is an important elixir scripture of the Southern Lineage. He transmitted his teaching to Xue Daoguang.

Contributions & Influence

• Second patriarch of the Southern Lineage, continuing the way of Zhang Boduan
• Wrote Returning to the Source, expounding internal alchemy in simple verse instructions

Works

• Returning to the Source

Legends

Legend holds that he rescued Zhang Boduan while he was being exiled and thereby received the transmission of the Dao, that he planted apricot trees that formed a grove, and that he lived more than 130 years. These are legendary material.