Wang Changyue王常月

Style & Daoist names

originally named Ping, sobriquet Kunyangzi, seventh-generation Precept Master of the Longmen lineage, Lofty Scholar Embracing the One (bestowed by the Shunzhi Emperor)

Period

Late Ming–early Qing

Dates

c. 1594 (alternatively 1522) — 1680

School

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

Role

Patriarch of the Revival of the Longmen LineagePrecept Master (Lüshi)Great Master of Precept Transmission

Birthplace

Lu'an, Changzhi (present-day Changzhi, Shanxi)

Places of activity

White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan), Beijing, Wudang Mountains

Life

Wang Changyue, a native of Changzhi in Shanxi, was the patriarch of the early Qing revival of the Quanzhen Longmen Lineage. According to his own account, he traveled widely in his youth seeking out eminent masters, and at Mount Wangwu met Zhao Fuyang, from whom he received the Longmen precepts, becoming the seventh-generation precept master of Longmen. In the twelfth year of the Shunzhi reign (1655) he arrived in Beijing, and the following year, by imperial order, opened an ordination platform at the White Cloud Temple, successively conferring the Precepts of Initial Perfection, the Precepts of Medium Ultimate, and the Great Precepts of Celestial Immortality — the “Three Altars of Great Precepts” — on more than a thousand recipients; Emperor Shunzhi bestowed on him a purple robe and honored him as “National Preceptor.” During the Kangxi reign he traveled south to confer ordination at Nanjing, Hangzhou, Huzhou, Wudang, and elsewhere, and his disciples spread throughout the north and south, including Tan Shoucheng and Zhan Tailin among others emerging from his school; the Longmen Lineage thereby became the mainstream of Quanzhen Daoism in the Qing, and the White Cloud Temple became the ancestral court of Longmen. He wrote the Heart Methods of the Dragon Gate Lineage (also called the Platform Scripture of the Jade Garden), emphasizing the keeping of precepts as the foundation of cultivating the Dao, advocating “rigor and precision in precept practice,” and rebuilding the institution of the Quanzhen public monastery. He died at the White Cloud Temple in the nineteenth year of the Kangxi reign (1680) and was posthumously granted the title “Lofty Gentleman Embracing the One.”

Contributions & Influence

• Publicly conferred the Three Altars of Great Precepts at the White Cloud Temple, reviving the Quanzhen public monastery
• Rebuilt the precept-master lineage and ordination system of the Longmen order
• Traveled south to confer ordination, spreading the Longmen Lineage throughout the Jiangnan region
• Wrote the Heart Methods of the Dragon Gate Lineage, making the precepts the core of cultivating the Dao

Works

• Heart Methods of the Dragon Gate Lineage (Platform Scripture of the Jade Garden)
• Precepts of Initial Perfection
• Bojian (Mirror of the Almsbowl) (attributed transmission)

Legends

Accounts of his early travels in search of the Dao, his meeting with Zhao Fuyang and receiving of the precepts, and his birth year, vary widely between sources and are largely colored by legend.