Zhao Bichen赵避尘

Style & Daoist names

courtesy name Shunyi, styled Yizi, also Qianfeng Laoren (Old Man of the Thousand Peaks), Founder of the Qianfeng School

Period

Late Qing to Republican era

Dates

1860 — c. 1942

School

Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism, Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen, Qianfeng (Thousand Peaks) School

Role

Internal Alchemy MastersFounder of the Qianfeng School

Birthplace

Changping (present-day Changping, Beijing)

Life

Zhao Bichen, styled the "Old Man of a Thousand Peaks" (Qianfeng Laoren), was a native of Changping, Beijing, and a Republican-era Neidan master, founder of the Qianfeng (Thousand Peaks) School. He claimed to have visited more than thirty teachers, receiving transmissions from Liu Mingrui, the Chan master Liaokong, and the Chan master Liaoran, among others, while also inheriting the Longmen and Wu-Liu traditions. Around 1933 he began openly taking disciples in Beijing and wrote Xingming Fajue Mingzhi (Clear Directions on the Methods of Nature and Life, 1933), which used vernacular language and diagrams to lay out in detail the "sixteen steps" of Neidan practice — laying the foundation, refining the essence, the celestial circuit, and so on — the first work of the modern era to publicly disclose alchemical oral instructions on a large scale, breaking through the traditional taboo on "transmission by word of mouth alone"; he is said to have had several thousand disciples. His methods circulated widely in Republican-era and contemporary qigong circles, and were also translated abroad (such as Charles Luk's English translation). He died around 1942.

Contributions & Influence

• Wrote Xingming Fajue Mingzhi, the first systematic public disclosure of Neidan oral instructions
• Founded the Qianfeng School, promoting the popularization of Neidan methods
• His methods, translated into English, spread to the West and influenced overseas Neidan practice

Works

• Xingming fajue mingzhi (性命法诀明指, Clear Directions on the Methods of Nature and Life)
• Weisheng shenglixue mingzhi (卫生生理学明指, Clear Directions on Health and Physiology)