Glossary of Daoist TermsGlossary · 288

A small Daoist dwelling or place of practice; originally the term meant a thatched hut. Many early Quanzhen priests practiced in such huts (e.g. Wang Chongyang's Quanzhen An), and the term later also came to denote a temple headed by a female Daoist priest (kundao).

The eight three-line symbols — Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen and Dui — symbolizing heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake. Daoism uses the pre-celestial and post-celestial arrangements of the Eight Trigrams to lay out temples, ritual altars and models of alchemical practice, with the trigrams Kan and Li serving as especially central metaphors in internal alchemy.

The best-known group of immortals in popular belief: Li Tieguai, Han Zhongli (Zhongli Quan), Zhang Guolao, Lü Dongbin, He Xiangu, Lan Caihe, Han Xiangzi, and Cao Guojiu, whose membership was fixed in the Ming dynasty. 'The Eight Immortals cross the sea, each showing their own power' — spanning men and women, young and old, rich and poor, noble and humble, they typify the popularization of Daoism.

Written by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin, the Inner Chapters (20 scrolls) discuss immortality, the golden elixir, ingestion of herbs and minerals, talismans and registers, and guarding the One, summing up the theory of immortality-seeking Daoism in the Wei-Jin period; the Outer Chapters (50 scrolls) discuss Confucian statecraft and contemporary politics. Wang Ming's Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi is the standard edition.

'In carrying the soul and embracing the One, can you avoid separation?' Here 'the One' refers to the manifestation of the Dao, the primordial undifferentiated qi. Embracing the One (baoyi) means maintaining the unity of body and mind with the Dao without dispersal or separation; it later became the theoretical root of Daoist cultivation methods such as guarding the One (shouyi) and visualization (cunsi).

The seven stars of the Northern Dipper (together with two attendant stars, making nine stars in all) govern life, death and lifespan in the human world according to Daoism: 'the Southern Dipper records births, the Northern Dipper records deaths.' The Seven Sovereigns of the Northern Dipper are important stellar deities, with their own Northern Dipper Scripture and rites of paying homage to the Dipper; the ritual practice of Pacing the Dipper likewise takes the Northern Dipper as its pattern.

The Taishang xuanling beidou benming yansheng zhenjing, which became popular in the Song dynasty. It relates how the Seven Primordial Lords of the Northern Dipper govern each person's allotted destiny, and holds that worship and recitation can prolong life and avert calamity. It is the scriptural basis for the Rites of Worshipping the Dipper and for the cult of one's birth-star.

The transmission patriarchs retroactively recognized by Quanzhen Daoism: Wang Xuanfu (Donghua Dijun), Zhongli Quan, Lü Dongbin, Liu Haichan, and Wang Chongyang, representing the Zhong–Lü golden-elixir lineage. Paired with the Southern Five Patriarchs.

The birth-star or Lord of the birth-year determined by a person's birth-year stem and branch, held in Daoism to govern one's fate for life. Each of the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper presides over people born in a particular year (one's benming star); worshipping Taisui and paying homage to one's benming star in one's birth-year are common ways of extending life and averting calamity.

Abstention from Grains (Bigu): abstaining from the five grains, replacing them with ingested qi or medicines (pine and cypress, poria, etc.), on the belief that grain-qi breeds the Three Corpses and causes illness and premature death, and that abstaining from it lightens the body toward immortality. The Records of the Grand Historian records that Zhang Liang 'studied the way of abstaining from grains and lightening the body through daoyin' — a traditional practice of the Fangxian Dao and Daoist life-nourishing.

Bixia Yuanjun (Sovereign of the Azure Clouds), the 'Lady of Mount Tai' (Taishan Niangniang). A shrine was established after Emperor Zhenzong of Song obtained an image of a jade maiden during his feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai. She became the most widely worshipped goddess in North China during the Ming and Qing, presiding over childbirth and protecting women and children; the Bixia Temple at Mount Tai and the 'Niangniang temples' found throughout the region are her cult centers.

Pacing the Dipper (Bugang) is the sequence of ritual steps by which a priest treads the altar according to the positions of the Northern Dipper's seven stars or the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams, symbolizing flight through the heavens and the summoning and command of spirits; it derives from the Steps of Yu. It is the core bodily movement of jiao rites and ritual magic; "gang" refers to the handle of the Dipper.

The deity who presides over wealth. The Civil God of Wealth usually refers to Bi Gan or Fan Li, while the Martial God of Wealth is Zhao Gongming (Perfected Lord of the Mysterious Altar) or Guandi. Zhao Gongming was originally a plague deity and marshal of the Thunder Department; after the novel Investiture of the Gods he became fixed as the God of Wealth, and welcoming the God of Wealth on the fifth day of the first lunar month remains an important folk custom.

Repentance Rites are liturgies of worship and confession of sin performed to dispel calamity, such as the Precious Litany of the Jade Emperor's Pardon of Sins and Bestowal of Blessings, the Litany to the Three Officials, and the Litany to the Northern Dipper. Such litanies appeared in large numbers from the Song dynasty onward, under the influence of Buddhist repentance rites.

The phrase derives from the Daodejing: 'Deepening the roots and firming the base is the way of long life and lasting vision.' Daoism takes this as one of the ultimate goals of cultivation — namely, to extend one's years, become an immortal, and share the Dao's own longevity through practices such as nourishing life, alchemy, and accumulating merit. It is an important feature that distinguishes Daoism from other religions.

The Audience Ritual is the core rite within a jiao in which the priest leads the assembly in an audience before the Celestial Worthies and the submission of a memorial, comprising the Morning, Noon, and Evening Audience rites (the "Three Audiences"), modeled on the etiquette of an imperial court audience.

The practice of believers travelling to famous Daoist mountains and temples such as Wudang, Mount Tai and Miaofeng Mountain to burn incense and fulfil vows. Pilgrimage associations (xianghui) organized such trips during the Ming and Qing — an important form combining belief in Daoist sacred sites with popular society.

A concept of causality put forward in the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping jing): the good or evil deeds of earlier generations bring blessings or misfortunes that are borne by later generations, and the blessings or misfortunes suffered by people today also derive in part from what earlier generations bequeathed. It was used to explain why good people meet with misfortune and evil people receive good fortune, and it circulated in China earlier than the Buddhist doctrine of karmic retribution, making it a core concept of early Daoist ethics.

The god who guards a city and administers judicial affairs in the realm of the dead, the role usually held by a deceased loyal and virtuous official. From the Tang and Song onward he was incorporated into the Daoist pantheon; Emperor Hongwu of Ming standardized his enfeoffment, and City God temples were established in every prefecture, subprefecture, and county. In Daoist liturgy it is common to 'dispatch documents' to the City God to report ritual proceedings.

A philosophical current in Sui and Tang Daoism developed from the phrase 'mystery upon mystery' in the Daodejing, with Cheng Xuanying and Li Rong as its representative figures. Drawing on the Buddhist Madhyamaka method of 'twofold negation,' it holds that one must negate both being and non-being, and then negate the negation itself, arriving at the state of twofold mystery (chongxuan) that adheres to neither extreme.

Written by Wang Chongyang, it sets out fifteen discourses — on dwelling in a hermitage, wandering as a cloud, studying scriptures, compounding medicines, building temples, choosing companions of the Dao, sitting in meditation, subduing the mind, refining the nature, harmonizing the five qi, merging nature and life, the sagely way, transcending the Three Realms, methods of nourishing the body, and departing the mundane world. It is the founding program of the Quanzhen teaching.

Ordination (chuanjie, Transmission of Precepts) is the rite by which a Quanzhen priest formally leaves the family and receives the precepts. A precept master transmits the Precepts of Initial Perfection, the Precepts of Medium Ultimate, and the Great Precepts of Celestial Immortality (together the Three Altars of Great Precepts) at a public monastery. This became the established institution after Wang Changyue publicly conferred ordination at the White Cloud Temple in the early Qing. Only a priest who has received the ordination certificate is a fully qualified Quanzhen Daoist.

Visualization (Cunsi): a meditative technique of closing the eyes to inwardly observe, imagining the various body-gods, the sun, moon and stars, or the descent of immortals and perfected beings. The Shangqing school placed particular emphasis on it; both the Scripture of the Yellow Court and the Perfect Scripture of the Great Cavern take visualization as their core, and it was the principal contemplative practice in Daoism before the rise of internal alchemy.

Attributed to Qiu Chuji, it lays out the methods of internal alchemy directly through nine diagrams and nine formulas, including harmonizing yin and yang, gathering and dispersing water and fire, uniting dragon and tiger, the five qi returning to the origin, and the three flowers gathering at the crown. It is a representative text of Quanzhen alchemy.

The highest of the Daoist Thirty-six Heavens, encompassing all the heavens, without superior and without exterior; it is where the Dao resides and where the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning dwells. A 'Golden Immortal of the Great Canopy Heaven' refers to the highest grade of immortal who has attained this realm.

A collective term for Daoist lineages whose primary practice is alchemy — external or internal — as opposed to the talismanic schools. It traces its origins to Fangxian Dao, Wei Boyang, and Ge Hong, and from the Song dynasty on the Southern and Northern Lineages of internal alchemy constituted its mainstream.

Dantian (Cinnabar Field): the site of internal alchemical refinement within the body, generally divided into the Upper Dantian (the Niwan between the eyebrows), the Middle Dantian (the Crimson Palace below the heart), and the Lower Dantian (the Sea of Qi below the navel), with the Lower Dantian serving as the principal 'cauldron and furnace.' The term first appears in the Scripture of the Yellow Court and the Baopuzi.

The supreme category in Daoist philosophy and religion. The Daodejing states, 'The Dao that can be told is not the constant Dao,' meaning the ultimate reality and fundamental law that exists prior to heaven and earth, is formless and nameless, engenders the myriad things, and operates ceaselessly. Daoism made it the object of religious worship, regarding it as the source of all deities and of cultivation; through cultivating the Dao a person can unite with the Dao and attain perfection.

A text of some five thousand characters attributed to Laozi, divided into the Dao chapters and the De chapters across eighty-one sections. It is the foundational scripture of Daoist philosophy, venerated by the Daoist religion as the Daode zhenjing and placed first in the Taixuan section of the canon. Commentaries include those of Heshang Gong, Wang Bi, and the Xiang'er Commentary; the Guodian bamboo slips and the Mawangdui silk manuscripts are its earliest known versions. It is the most widely translated of all Chinese texts.

Compiled at the turn of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, in 268 scrolls, it gathers the thunder rites, talismans and incantations, methods for summoning generals, healing, and rainmaking of the Qingwei, Shenxiao, Zhengyi, and other traditions. It is the largest compilation for the study of Song-Yuan Daoist ritual methods and thunder rites.

A general term for a Daoist place of worship. 'Guan' originally meant a watchtower — Yin Xi of the Louguan School is said to have built a thatched watchtower there to observe the qi, giving the term its name; after the Northern Zhou it became the standard designation for Daoist establishments. Large ones are called Gong (Palace), smaller ones An (Nunnery), Yuan (Institute), Tang (Hall), or Dong (Grotto).

Compiled by the Chinese Taoist Association and the Suzhou Taoist Association, published by Huaxia Publishing House in 1994, it contains over ten thousand entries and is the most commonly used Chinese-language reference dictionary of Daoism. Hu Fuchen's edited Great Dictionary of Chinese Daoism (1995) exists alongside it.

Compiled by Meng Anpai of the Tang in ten scrolls, it systematically summarizes Daoist doctrine under thirty-seven headings, including the Dao and De, the Dharma-body, the Three Treasures, ranks and merits, and the Three Caverns. It is a representative work of Sui-Tang Daoist doctrinal scholarship and reflects the influence of the Chongxuan (Twofold Mystery) School.

Daoist Music comprises the scripture-chant melodies and ritual-instrument music used in jiao and liturgical services. It is divided into the "Shifang yun" (十方韵, Ten Directions Tunes, used generally across Quanzhen temples) and various regional tunes, performed on instruments such as bells, drums, stone chimes, wooden fish, small gongs, and cymbals. Kou Qianzhi's "Yunzhong Yinsong" (云中音诵, Cloud-Borne Chants) of the Northern Wei is an early recorded example, and the Daoist music of Wudang, the White Cloud Temple, and Suzhou have all been inscribed as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

The early Way of the Celestial Masters' term for lay believers who had entered the faith; they were required to pay five pecks of rice (the 'faith rice'), receive registers (lu), and be recorded on household registers ('life registers'), distinguishing them from ordained priests — the origin of Daoism's system of lay believers.

Daoshi (Daoist Priest) is the term for religious professionals who follow the Dao in practice and preside over liturgical rites; women are called kundao or nüguan. Quanzhen priests leave the family, let their hair grow long, observe a vegetarian diet, and reside in temples, whereas Zhengyi priests may marry and live at home, popularly known as "hearth-dwelling priests." Today, ordination through either the Transmission of Precepts or the Conferral of Registers, together with official registration, is required.

A Daoist organization formed by lay believers, centered chiefly on revelations received through spirit writing; it flourished in Guangdong and Hong Kong in the late Qing and early Republic, as with Hong Kong's Sik Sik Yuen, Fung Ying Seen Koon, and Ching Chung Koon. Such halls venerate Lü Dongbin and Wong Tai Sin and combine charitable work with scripture-chanting rites.

Daoyin (Guiding and Stretching): bodily stretching and flexing exercises coordinated with the breath, to guide the flow of qi and blood and prolong life free of illness. Already seen in the Mawangdui silk manuscript Daoyin Illustrations, Hua Tuo's Five Animal Frolics and the Eight Pieces of Brocade both belong to this category — a source for Daoist life-nourishing arts and for practices such as taijiquan.

One of the names for a Daoist establishment, ranking in scale between a Gong/Guan and an An/Tang, as with the Maoshan Daoyuan and various Daoyuan of the Qing dynasty. The Republican-era 'Daoyuan' — associated with the Red Swastika Society — was a distinct new religious movement and should be distinguished from this term.

The complete collection of Daoist scriptures, or Daozang. The Tang dynasty first compiled the Three Caverns' Jeweled Web (Sandong Qionggang) under the Kaiyuan era; the Song produced the Zhenghe Wanshou Daozang; the Jin produced the Precious Repository of the Mysterious Metropolis of the Great Jin. The Yuan-dynasty canon was burned. What survives today is the Ming-dynasty Zhengtong Daozang (1445, 5,305 fascicles) together with the Wanli Xu Daozang (1607, 180 fascicles), 5,485 fascicles in total, which entered wide circulation after the Hanfenlou photolithographic reprint of 1926.

A selective compendium of the Daoist Canon compiled by Jiang Yuanting during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing and reprinted with additions by Erxian Nunnery in Chengdu during the Guangxu reign; arranged according to the Twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, it collects nearly 300 scriptures, including a large number of Qing-dynasty internal-alchemy texts and works attributed to Lü Dongbin through spirit writing, making it a key source for the study of Qing-dynasty Daoism.

Written by Chen Guofu, first published in 1949 and revised and expanded in 1963, it investigates the compilation of the Daoist Canon through the ages, the appearance of Daoist scriptures, and the transmission of their lineages, with appended studies on external alchemy's 'yellow and white' methods and Daoist music. It is the foundational work of Daozang textual scholarship.

The manifestation and function of the Dao within concrete things: 'The Dao engenders them, De nurtures them.' The myriad things obtain the Dao and thereby possess De; a person who preserves De draws close to the Dao. In Daoism, De also refers to a practitioner's meritorious deeds, moral character, and accumulated merit, and is paired with 'Dao' in the compound daode (Dao and De).

'The middling adept wanders among famous mountains' — one who, though immortal, remains in the human world dwelling in the grotto-heavens of famous mountains. Ge Hong held that earthly immortals may freely choose whether or not to ascend to heaven, and this was the practical aspiration of many practitioners.

A Daoist place of practice built into or named after a mountain cave, such as Mingxia Grotto on Mount Lao, Zhuming Grotto on Mount Luofu, and Baiyun Grotto — connected with the cult of the Grotto-Heavens.

Meaning 'a grotto chamber within a mountain that communicates with heaven above,' referring to a separate world within a mountain inhabited by immortals and perfected beings. The Ten Great Grotto-Heavens include Mount Wangwu (Xiaoyou Qingxu Grotto-Heaven), Mount Weiyu, Mount Xicheng, Mount Xixuan, Mount Qingcheng, Mount Chicheng, Mount Luofu, Mount Gouqu (Maoshan), Mount Linwu, and Mount Kuocang.

The Daoist system of sacred sites. In the Tang dynasty, Sima Chengzhen's Chart of the Palaces and Bureaus of Heaven and Earth and Du Guangting's Record of Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Lands, Marchmounts, Rivers and Famous Mountains fixed the system as the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, the Thirty-six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, and the Seventy-two Blessed Lands, mostly located at grottoes on famous mountains. These are held to contain worlds of their own, governed by immortals and perfected beings, and serve as centers of cultivation and pilgrimage.

The foremost of the male immortals, paired with the Queen Mother of the West, already appearing on Han-dynasty stone reliefs. Daoism honors him as the Wood Father, the Eastern Florescence Sovereign Emperor, who oversees the registers of male immortals. Wang Xuanfu, foremost of Quanzhen's Five Northern Patriarchs as the Eastern Florescence Sovereign Emperor, is said to embody this deity.

The god of Mount Tai, who oversees life and death, rank and status in the human world, and the seventy-five bureaus of the underworld. Emperor Zhenzong of Song granted him the title 'Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak Who Levels All and Is Humane and Sagely.' Dongyue temples were built throughout China and serve as centers of Daoist belief in the underworld; the Dongyue Temple in Beijing is the northern ancestral seat of the Xuanjiao branch of Zhengyi.

Temples dedicated to the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak, found throughout China. The Dongyue Temple in Beijing was built by Zhang Liusun, Grand Patriarch of the Xuanjiao (Mysterious Teaching) in the Yuan dynasty, and served as the northern centre of Zhengyi Daoism; the temple's statues of the Seventy-six Departments display Daoist beliefs about judgment in the underworld.

The mother of the stars of the Northern Dipper, also called Doumu Yuanjun or the Numinous Sovereign Great Sage Doumu of the Prior Heaven. Her iconography, with three eyes, four heads, and eight arms, shows the influence of the Buddhist deity Marici. From the Song and Yuan onward she has been linked with dipper-worship rites, presiding over the warding off of calamity and the extension of life; temples commonly have a Doumu hall.

The Cantor (dujiang) is the priest who assists the High Priest during a jiao by chanting hymns of praise, leading the recitation of scriptures, and directing the sequence of the rite; he is one of the Three Ritual Masters.

The Lingbao wuliang duren shangpin miaojing, the foremost scripture of the Lingbao School. It proclaims that the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning opens the kalpa to save humankind, holding that 'the immortal way values life, and salvation is without limit.' In the Song dynasty it was expanded to sixty-one scrolls and placed first in the Zhengtong Daozang; it remains one of the most commonly chanted scriptures in Daoist rites and retreats.

Some eight hundred Daoist manuscripts of the Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang periods recovered from the Library Cave at Dunhuang, including fragments of the Xiang'er Commentary on the Laozi and the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping jing), as well as otherwise lost scriptures such as the Benji jing and the Shengxuan jing. Ōfuchi Ninji's Tonkō dōkyō (Dunhuang Daoist Manuscripts) and Zhonghua Book Company's Dunhuang Daozang are the principal compilations.

Twenty-eight constellations near the ecliptic, divided among the Four Symbols: the Azure Dragon of the East, the White Tiger of the West, the Vermilion Bird of the South, and the Black Tortoise (Xuanwu) of the North. Daoism deifies them and employs them in Pacing the Dipper, date selection, the layout of ritual altars, and star worship such as that found in the Northern Dipper Scripture (Beidou jing).

The twenty-four ecclesiastical parishes (zhi) that the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice established in Ba and Shu, such as the Yangping, Ludang, and Heming Parishes, each headed by a libationer (jijiu) who governed the Daoist commoners (daomin). This constituted the theocratic organization of early Daoism and was later expanded to twenty-eight parishes.

Ritual Registers (falu) are the graded texts of registers conferred on a Daoist priest. The Zhengyi order confers, among others, the Taishang Sanwu Dugong Register, the Zhengyi Mengwei Register, the Shangqing Sandong Wulei Register, and the Shangqing Dadong Register, transmitted in sequence according to the depth of the recipient's cultivation, determining his priestly rank and level of ritual power.

The master-to-disciple genealogy of Daoist transmission, perpetuated through the passing on of scriptures, the conferral of registers, the transmission of precepts, or secretly transmitted oral formulas — the core of sectarian identity. Quanzhen emphasizes 'master succession,' Zhengyi emphasizes the 'register lineage,' and folk Daoist altars emphasize the 'ritual lineage.'

Ritual Implements are the objects used during liturgical rites, such as the audience tablet (chaojian, or hu), the command plaque, the ritual sword, the Tianpeng ruler, the ritual seal, the whisk, the bell, the mirror, the conch, and the master's blade, each with its own symbolism and function in summoning spirits and expelling evil.

The Ritual Altar is the sacred space in which a jiao is held, laid out according to the positions of the Three Pure Ones, the Four Sovereigns, and the various deities, and divided into the Main Altar, Inner Altar, and Outer Altar, with banners, placards, and talismans marking its boundaries. The altar precinct symbolizes the heavens, and when the priest ascends the altar he is understood to enter the celestial court.

Fangshi (Masters of Methods) were specialists in the arts of immortality, medicine, and divination active from the Warring States through the Qin and Han, many hailing from the states of Yan and Qi; they sought immortality on behalf of emperors, such as Xu Fu and Li Shaojun. Fangxian Dao was one of the forerunners of organized Daoism, and its arts were absorbed into the Daoist tradition.

Immortality techniques transmitted by the fangshi of Yan and Qi during the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods, centered on the Three Divine Mountains of the sea, the elixir of deathlessness, and hearth sacrifice and alchemy; both Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han were taken in by it, and together with Huang–Lao Daoism it forms the two major sources of Daoism.

The Abbot (fangzhang) is the supreme leader of a public monastery. He must have received the Three Altars of Great Precepts and be a person of high virtue and reputation, elected by the monastery community; he is responsible for ordination and religious affairs but generally does not handle day-to-day matters. The title is borrowed from Buddhism.

Bedchamber Arts (Fangzhong): sexual life-nourishing techniques for harmonizing yin and yang and conserving essence through restraint of desire, already classified as a branch of the medical arts (fangji) in the Han. The early Way of the Celestial Masters had a method of 'merging qi' (heqi). It later became a subject of concealment after criticism from Confucians and Buddhists; internal alchemy adopted 'dual cultivation of male and female' as a variant of it, though orthodox alchemists mostly advocated solitary practice.

Ascension into the celestial realm after cultivation has succeeded; the highest form is 'ascension in broad daylight,' as when, according to legend, Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor) rode a dragon, or the Celestial Master Zhang Daoling ascended at Mount Yuntai. This is frequently seen in biographies of immortals and is a mark of the celestial immortal.

The lord of the Daoist underworld, dwelling on Mount Luofeng in the north and ruling the ghosts and spirits of the Six Heavens, already recorded in the Shangqing scriptures of the Six Dynasties. Fengdu in Sichuan became known as the 'Ghost City' because of its name, and is the center of Daoist belief in hell.

The art of geomancy (kanyu), which determines the orientation of dwellings and graves according to Yin and Yang, the Five Phases, the Eight Trigrams, and the configuration of mountains and watercourses. Though not exclusive to Daoism, it shares a common origin with Daoist cosmology; historically many Daoist priests also worked as geomancers, and the siting of temples likewise followed its principles.

Talismans (fu) are mysterious graphic characters written in cinnabar ink on paper or silk, serving as the script of the celestial gods and as tokens attesting a priest's authority; they are used to expel evil, cure illness, summon spirits, and pacify dwellings. In the Eastern Han, the Way of Great Peace and the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice already used talisman water to heal illness, and this later developed into the vast system of Talismans and Registers.

The Seventy-two Blessed Lands, mostly described as 'places where perfected beings attained the Dao,' of a scale secondary to the Grotto-Heavens — for example, Mount Difei (in the Zhongnan Mountains), Mount Gaizhu, Mount Xianke, Eastern Immortal Source, and Mount Qingyu. They are distributed throughout the Jiangnan region and the Ba-Shu region (Sichuan and Chongqing), and served as local centers of Daoism.

A method of divination and revelation in which a planchette writes on a tray of sand to invite a deity's descent; already flourishing in the Song dynasty, a great many Daoist morality books and elixir scriptures of the Ming and Qing were produced by spirit writing attributed to Lü Dongbin and other deities. It remains a central activity of the daotang of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.

Talismans and Registers (fulu) is a compound term for fu and lu together, referring broadly to the Daoist ritual traditions characterized by talismans, incantations and magical rites, as contrasted with the alchemical lineages. The Zhengyi, Lingbao, Shangqing, Shenxiao and Qingwei schools all belong to the Talismans-and-Registers current; in the Song dynasty, Longhushan, Maoshan and Gezaoshan were together known as the "Three Mountains of Registers."

Ingesting Qi (Fuqi): the art of expelling and drawing in breath (tuna) and circulating qi, absorbing the essential qi of heaven, earth, sun and moon while abstaining from the five grains — also called eating qi or embryonic breathing. It flourished from the Han–Wei through the Tang, practiced together with abstention from grains and daoyin, and appears in texts such as the Baopuzi and the Treatise on the Essential Meaning of Ingesting Qi.

Ingesting Herbs and Minerals (Fushi): techniques of ingesting botanical and mineral medicines in pursuit of longevity and immortality, related to external alchemy. The ingestion of the Five-Mineral Powder by Wei–Jin literati and of poria and Solomon's seal by Daoist priests both belong to this category; Ge Hong's 'Immortality Medicines' chapter in the Baopuzi gives a systematic account.

Water into which a burnt talisman has been mixed, or water empowered by talismanic incantation, drunk or sprinkled to cure illness and expel evil. The Way of Great Peace and the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice used it to attract followers, and it remains in common use at popular Daoist altars today.

The ten Heavenly Stems (jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui) combine with the twelve Earthly Branches (zi, chou, yin, mao, chen, si, wu, wei, shen, you, xu, hai) to record years, months, days and hours. Daoism uses this system to calculate a person's birth-year star (benming) and the Year God (Taisui), and to select auspicious dates, and correlates it with the sixty deities of the Sexagenary Cycle.

The High Priest (gaogong) is the officiating Daoist who presides over the entire jiao and communicates with the gods on behalf of the assembled faithful. He must be thoroughly versed in ritual protocol, talismans and incantations, and visualization; together with the Cantor and the Overseer of the Retreat he makes up the "Three Ritual Masters."

Lord Immortal Ge, the Supreme Ultimate's Immortal of the Left, a Daoist priest of the Wu kingdom during the Three Kingdoms period, great-uncle of Ge Hong. He is said to have received the Lingbao scriptures and methods on Mount Gezao, and is venerated as founding patriarch of the Lingbao School and one of the Four Celestial Masters. Later tradition holds that he could spit out rice and transform it into bees and perform other wonders.

Gong (Palace) designates a Daoist temple of grand scale or one bearing an imperial patent, such as Taiqing Palace, Shangqing Palace, Yongle Palace, and Qingyang Palace; from the Tang–Song period onward such names were mostly bestowed by imperial decree.

A moral self-examination handbook that records daily good and bad deeds and assigns them quantified scores; the earliest example is the Southern Song Ledger of Merit and Demerit of the Immortal Lord of Taiwei. Such ledgers flourished in Daoism and among the general populace during the Ming and Qing, and together with morality books such as the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response they formed the practical system of Daoist ethics.

The Heavenly Sovereign Great Emperor of Curved Array of the Upper Palace, one of the Four Sovereigns, who assists the Jade Emperor in governing the North and South Poles and the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity, presides over the assembled stars, and oversees warfare in the human world.

Lodging at a Monastery (guadan) refers to an itinerant priest's temporary stay at a public monastery: he must be examined on the scriptures by the Guest Hall and have his identity verified before being registered, a process called guadan. It is an important part of the Quanzhen monastic institution.

The most common designation for a Daoist establishment, as in White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan), Xuanmiao Temple, and Louguan. A Guan ranks below a Gong in scale, and is most often a place where Daoist priests reside and perform liturgies.

The deification of Guan Yu of the Three Kingdoms period. From the Song onward Daoism enfeoffed him as 'Perfected Lord Chongning'; Emperor Shenzong of Ming granted him the title 'Emperor Guan, Great Emperor Who Subdues Demons of the Three Realms, Divine and Awe-inspiring, Who Pacifies Distant Lands, Celestial Worthy.' He serves as Dharma protector, martial god of wealth, and overseer of emolument and fate, and is jointly venerated by Confucians, Buddhists, Daoists, and folk religion; the True Scripture of Awakening the World by Lord Guan is a morality book.

River Chariot: an internal-alchemy code term for the process of transporting essence and qi as they rise along the Du Meridian and descend along the Ren Meridian — 'moving the river chariot' — taking as its image the waters of the Yellow River flowing backward upstream; also called 'turning the river chariot.'

According to legend, Fuxi received a chart carried on the back of a dragon-horse from the Yellow River, and Yu the Great received a document carried on the back of a divine turtle from the Luo River. In the Song dynasty, Daoists including Chen Tuan arranged them into diagrams of black and white dots, which became the pictorial basis of Image-Number Studies of the Book of Changes and of Daoist internal alchemy, geomancy, and numerological arts.

The Empress of Earth Who Embodies Heaven, Emulates Its Virtue, and Manifests Great Brightness, one of the Four Sovereigns, who rules over mountains, rivers, and land, and over yin-yang and procreation. From the Tang and Song onward she has usually been depicted as a goddess, known in popular belief as 'Empress Houtu,' spoken of alongside August Heaven.

Divine generals who guard the Dharma, temples, and ritual altars, such as Wang Lingguan, the Four Great Marshals (Ma, Zhao, Wen, and Guan), the marshals of the Thunder Department, the Green Dragon and White Tiger, and the Six Ding and Six Jia Spirits. In ritual, priests summon them to 'guard the altar,' and they are commonly enshrined in the hall by a temple's mountain gate.

Compiled by the retainers of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, in the Western Han, in twenty-one chapters. Predominantly Daoist in orientation but incorporating other schools of thought, it discusses cosmogony, nourishing life, and statecraft, and represents the culmination of Han-dynasty Huang-Lao thought. The saying 'when one man attains the Dao, even his chickens and dogs ascend to Heaven' derives from this text.

Huang Chuping, a Jin-dynasty Daoist priest of Jinhua, Zhejiang; the Biographies of Divine Immortals (Shenxian zhuan) records that he transformed stones into sheep by a shout. His cult was transmitted to Hong Kong in the early twentieth century through spirit-writing (fuji), and the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple there enjoys extremely strong incense-offering. He is one of the most popular Daoist deities among Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas Chinese.

A Han-dynasty current of thought that took Huangdi and Laozi as its founders, blending the non-action of Daoist philosophy with immortality techniques and yin-yang numerology; Emperor Huan of Han sacrificed to Huang-Lao within the palace. It was the direct precursor of Daoism's formation, and both the Way of Great Peace and the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice venerated Huang-Lao.

One of the Lingbao retreat rites, instituted specifically to deliver the souls of the dead and relieve the suffering of the underworld. It became the most widely practiced retreat rite from the Song dynasty onward; the Song-dynasty Wushang Huanglu Dazhai Licheng Yi (无上黄箓大斋立成仪, Established Liturgy of the Supreme Yellow Register Retreat), in fifty-seven scrolls, records its procedures in detail.

Yellow Court (Huangting): the central palace within the body, identified variously as the spleen (the Middle Dantian), or as within the head, or as the lower dantian — the site where the body-gods assemble and the focus of visualization. The Scripture of the Yellow Court takes its title from it, becoming a classic of both visualization and internal alchemy.

Divided into the Inner Effulgences and Outer Effulgences scriptures, this Wei-Jin Shangqing visualization text describes in heptasyllabic verse the names of the gods residing in the body's viscera and the methods for visualizing them. It is the source of the body-god system and of later internal alchemy; Wang Xizhi is said to have copied out the Scripture of the Yellow Court: Outer Effulgences in his own calligraphy.

Yellow Sprout: an alchemical code term. In external alchemy it refers to the essence produced from lead ('lead flower'); in internal alchemy it refers to the pre-celestial single qi first generated when the earth of Wu and Ji (true intent) unites Kan and Li — the foundation of the golden elixir, often paired with 'White Snow' as 'Yellow Sprout and White Snow.'

Written by Liu Huayang of the Qing, it fuses Chan Buddhist methods with internal alchemy, describing through illustrations and text the stages of exhausting the outflows, the wheel of the dharma, the embryo of the Dao, and the emergence of the spirit. Published together with Wu Shouyang's Direct Discourse on the True Principles of Celestial Immortality as the Wuliu xianzong (The Wu-Liu School of Immortality), it was one of the most popular alchemical scriptures of the Qing dynasty.

Fire Phasing (Huohou): originally referring to the control of flame intensity and timing in external-alchemy smelting, in internal alchemy it refers to using intention and breath to regulate the intensity and sequence of advance and retreat of qi circulation within the body (civil fire and martial fire, advancing the yang fire and withdrawing the yin talisman). It is regarded as the most closely guarded secret of the elixir art.

The head clerical office of each parish under the early Way of the Celestial Masters, responsible for governing Daoist commoners, presiding over the submission of petitions to heal illness, and maintaining charity lodges (yishe); a 'Grand Libationer' oversaw subordinate 'demon clerks' (guili). In Hanzhong, Zhang Lu governed the populace through libationers rather than appointing regular officials.

Prior, Superintendent (jianyuan), colloquially called "dangjia," is the officer who manages the day-to-day affairs of a public monastery. Ranking below the Abbot, he oversees the various department heads — the "Eight Great Offices," such as the Guest Hall, dormitories, storehouse, and scripture hall.

A rite in which an altar is set up, offerings are arrayed, and petitions are submitted to expel calamity and give thanks to the gods of Heaven and Earth. Its scale ranges from small household jiao to communal "great jiao" lasting several days, such as the Great Offering to All Heavens or the Wangye Jiao. The jiao rites of Taiwan and Fujian–Guangdong remain fully preserved to this day and represent a living Daoist tradition.

A concept of time and cosmic catastrophe borrowed from the Buddhist notion of the kalpa. Daoism, especially the Lingbao scriptural tradition, holds that the cosmos passes through cyclical periods of creation, duration, and destruction; in the end-kalpa heaven and earth are utterly destroyed and all beings suffer calamity, and only those who revere the Dao and accumulate good deeds are saved by the Celestial Worthies. This gave rise to concepts such as 'kalpic fate' (jieyun) and 'deliverance from the kalpa' (dujie).

Precepts and Rules are the norms of conduct that Daoism sets for believers and priests. Early forms included the Nine Precepts of Xiang'er and Lord Lao's Twenty-seven Precepts; the Six Dynasties saw the Ten Precepts of Lingbao and the Great Precepts of Shangqing; and the Quanzhen order has the Three Altars of Great Precepts. Precepts are the foundation of cultivating the Dao: "one who studies the Dao without keeping the precepts has no path to ascend to the register of the Perfected."

Golden Elixir (Jindan): in external alchemy, an elixir smelted for ingestion to attain longevity, its 'gold' taking the meaning of imperishability; in internal alchemy, the pre-celestial true qi — the 'sacred embryo' — formed by the condensation of essence, qi and spirit. 'The great way of the golden elixir' is the self-designation of internal-alchemy learning, embraced as its doctrine by both the Southern and Northern Lineages.

Attributed to Zhang Boduan, it comprises four hundred characters in twenty pentasyllabic rhymed stanzas, condensing the essentials of the alchemical medicines, fire phasing, and the mysterious pass of internal alchemy, with an explanatory preface. It is an introductory alchemical formula of the Southern Lineage.

One of the Lingbao retreat rites (zhai), a great retreat performed to pray for blessings and avert calamity on behalf of the emperor and the state and to protect its altars. During the Tang and Song it was often presided over by the imperial court. Together with the Yellow Register Retreat and the Jade Register Retreat, it is known as one of the "Three Register Retreats."

A Daoist lineage of the late Southern Song and early Yuan tracing its founder to Xu Xun, formally established by Liu Yu in the Yuan dynasty; it took 'loyalty, filial piety, purity, and brightness' as its central tenet, fusing Confucian ethics with Daoist cultivation and talismanic ritual, and flourished at Wanshou Palace of Xishan in Nanchang, Jiangxi.

Essence, Qi and Spirit (Jing, Qi, Shen): the 'Three Treasures' of internal alchemy. Essence is the material basis of life, qi is the circulation of energy, and spirit is the ruler of consciousness. The cultivation sequence — refining essence into qi, refining qi into spirit, refining spirit to return to emptiness — describes their mutual transformation, ultimately returning to the Dao.

Quiet Sitting (Jingzuo): the basic practice of sitting cross-legged or upright, regulating the breath and concentrating the spirit, forming the common foundation of visualization, sitting in oblivion, and internal alchemy. The Quanzhen order's 'sitting meditation' (dazuo), with its hundred days of laying the foundation, developed in mutual influence with Buddhist Chan sitting and Confucian quiet sitting.

The deification of the nine stars of the Northern Dipper, said to be the nine sons born of Doumu (including the Heavenly Sovereign, the Purple Tenuity Sovereign, and the Seven Lords of the Northern Dipper). The 'Nine Emperor Assembly,' held from the first to the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, flourishes among Chinese communities in Fujian, Guangdong, and Southeast Asia, who fast and make offerings to the Nine Emperor Gods.

Nine Orifices (Jiuqiao): the two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, mouth, and the anterior and posterior orifices of the body. Daoist life-nourishing holds that the nine orifices communicate with the qi of heaven and earth and must be guarded so that essence and qi are not lost outward; the Scripture of the Yellow Court speaks of 'closing off the nine orifices.'

A believer who venerates the Dao while remaining a householder rather than becoming ordained; Tang and Song literati styled themselves 'Daoist lay devotees,' and contemporary temples maintain a system of 'refuge lay devotees.' The term is shared with Buddhism.

Hand Seals (jue, also qiajue) are specific finger configurations, such as the Sword Seal, Thunder Seal, and Yuqing Seal, symbolizing the summoning of spirits, transformation into a deity, or the mastery of ritual power. A priest combines them with talismans and incantations when performing rites; they derive from the Daoist calculation of the twelve hour-positions on the palm.

Consecration (kaiguang) is the rite performed for a newly made deity image, in which the eyes are "dotted" and the deity is invited to enter the image; the priest performs it with a cinnabar brush, a mirror, and talismans and incantations, so that the image acquires numinous efficacy. It is a necessary procedure before a deity image can be enshrined in a temple or household.

Kan and Li (Water and Fire Trigrams): among the Eight Trigrams, Kan (Water, with a yang line at its center) and Li (Fire, with a yin line at its center). Internal alchemy takes Kan as the true yang within the kidney-water and Li as the true yin within the heart-fire; 'taking from Kan to fill Li' means extracting the yang within Kan to replenish the yin within Li, restoring the pure yang body of Qian — the core model of internal alchemy.

"Ke" denotes ritual regulations and "yi" denotes procedural forms; together keyi refers to the operating rules and texts of the various Daoist rites, such as the Morning and Evening Liturgy, the Audience Ritual, Repentance Rites, Refinement and Salvation (liandu), and Feeding the Hungry Ghosts (shishi). Lu Xiujing was the first to systematically compile ritual protocols, and Du Guangting brought this work to its culmination.

Kuixing, the first star of the Northern Dipper, or the four stars forming the 'dipper bowl' (kui), presiding over literary fortune. Depicted as a blue-faced, red-haired demon standing on one foot atop a dipper, holding a vermilion brush to mark the name of the top graduate. Together with Wenchang Dijun, he was venerated by scholars in the imperial examination era.

A mythical pillar of heaven and immortal mountain, the abode of the Queen Mother of the West, recorded in both the Shanhaijing (山海经, Classic of Mountains and Seas) and the Huainanzi. Daoism regards it as the center of heaven and earth, a place where all the gods gather; in internal alchemy 'Kunlun' is used to refer to the Niwan Palace at the crown of the head.

Li Er, a Spring and Autumn period thinker and author of the Daodejing, founder of Daoist philosophy. Daoism venerates him as its founding teacher and as an incarnation of the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (Laojun); the Tang posthumously honored him as 'Supreme Mysterious and Primordial Emperor,' and the fifteenth day of the second lunar month is kept as Laojun's birthday. His life and the date of the Laozi's composition remain debated among scholars.

The claim that after Laozi passed west through the Hangu Pass he traveled to India and became the Buddha to teach the western barbarians, making Buddhism a branch of Daoism. Wang Fu of the Western Jin composed the Scripture of Laozi Converting the Barbarians, which touched off recurring Buddhist–Daoist disputes across the dynasties; Kublai Khan ordered it burned.

Written by the Western Jin Daoist priest Wang Fu and later expanded to ten scrolls, it relates how Laozi traveled west and converted the barbarians, becoming the Buddha. It was a focal point of Buddhist-Daoist polemics and was burned under interdiction in the Yuan dynasty; several fragmentary Dunhuang copies survive today.

An early Celestial Masters commentary on the Daodejing, traditionally attributed to Zhang Daoling or Zhang Lu; the first half survives in a Dunhuang fragment (S.6825). It deifies the Dao as the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (Laojun) and sets out the Nine Precepts of Xiang'er, reflecting the doctrine of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice. Rao Zongyi produced a critical edition.

Compiled by the disciples of Huang Yuanji of the Qing from his lectures at the Leyu Tang in Sichuan, in five scrolls. In plain language it expounds the dual cultivation of nature and life and the single aperture of the mysterious pass, and it is a representative work in the popularization of internal alchemy in the late Qing.

Thunder Rites (leifa) are a system of Daoist ritual that arose in the Song dynasty, in which a priest, grounded in internal-alchemical attainment, summons and commands the divine generals of the Thunder Department to wield thunderous power in order to expel evil, pray for rain, slay demons, and cure illness. The Shenxiao, Qingwei, and Tianxin schools all transmitted Thunder Rites, with Wang Wenqing and Sa Shoujian as representative figures; the Corpus of Daoist Ritual is their great compendium.

The Celestial Worthy of Universal Transformation through the Sound of Thunder, Responding to the Primordial from the Nine Heavens, the highest deity of the Thunder Department. His status rose greatly after the Shenxiao tradition emerged in the Song, and he commands the marshals of the Thunder Department (Deng, Xin, Zhang, Tao, and others), presiding over the performance of Thunder Rites, the expulsion of demons, and the execution of Heaven's punishments.

Refinement and Salvation (Liandu): a rite of salvation for the dead that arose after the Song, in which the officiating priest combines their own internal-alchemical attainment with water-and-fire talismans to refine and save the souls of the deceased, elevating them to immortality. The Lingbao Dafa and the Qingwei and Donghua traditions all have liandu rites — a product of the fusion of internal alchemy with zhaijiao ritual.

Refining Self and Laying the Foundation (Lianji Zhuji): the entry-level stage of internal alchemy — 'refining the self' means gathering in the mind and stilling thought while cultivating virtue, and 'laying the foundation' means replenishing essence, qi and spirit and clearing the channels, generally described in terms of a 'hundred days of laying the foundation,' preparing for the subsequent stage of refining essence into qi.

Attributed to Liu Xiang of the Western Han (though most scholars now hold it to have been compiled in the Eastern Han), it records over seventy immortals, including Chisongzi, Pengzu, and Anqi Sheng. It is the earliest surviving collection of immortal biographies.

Attributed to Lie Yukou, the received text in eight chapters is generally thought to have been compiled by people of the Wei-Jin period. The Tang court honored it as the Chongxu zhenjing; it contains such parables as 'The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains' and 'The Man of Qi Who Worried the Sky Would Fall,' and advocates valuing emptiness and following naturalness. Alongside the Laozi and Zhuangzi it is an important text standing outside the Daoist 'Three Mysteries' canon.

The Michuan zhengyang zhenren lingbao bifa, attributed to a transmission from Zhongli Quan to Lü Dongbin. It is divided into the Lesser Vehicle method of peace and longevity, the Middle Vehicle method of eternal life without death, and the Greater Vehicle method of transcending the mundane to enter sagehood, systematically setting out ten gates of internal alchemy practice. It is the overarching manual of the Zhong-Lü alchemical tradition.

Arose in the Eastern Jin when Ge Chaofu produced the Lingbao scriptures under the name of Ge Xuan; it absorbed Buddhist notions of kalpa cycles, rebirth, and universal salvation, emphasizing purification rites and offering liturgies, and after Lu Xiujing's compilation it became the principal source of Daoist ritual. From the Song dynasty on, Mount Gezao was its ancestral seat.

The second of the Three Pure Ones, also called the Most High Lord of the Dao (Taishang Daojun) or the Great Emperor of the Highest Clarity, dwelling in the Yuyu Heaven of the Highest Clarity Realm; he presides over the transmission of the Lingbao scriptures and teachings. In statuary he is usually depicted holding a ruyi scepter or a Taiji diagram.

The Taishang lingbao wufu xu, one of the earliest scriptures of the Lingbao corpus. It was said to have been obtained by Yu the Great at Dongting, and it records the talismans of the Five Directions and Five Emperors together with methods of ingestion and visualization; it forms the basis of the later Lingbao scriptures.

Twelve divine generals named after the sexagenary stems and branches — the six Ding are yin spirits, jade maidens, and the six Jia are yang spirits, mighty warriors — who, when summoned, can be invoked for exorcism, protection, and invisibility. The 'concealed jia' of 'mysterious-gate concealed jia' divination (qimen dunjia) is related to them, and they are frequently summoned deities in Daoist talismans and Dharma protection.

The cycle of sixty combinations formed by pairing the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches. Daoism assigns to each of the sixty combinations a Year-Governing Taisui deity (the sixty Yuanchen), and believers worship the Yuanchen deity of their birth year; this forms the basis of the cult centered on the Yuanchen Hall found in Daoist temples.

An expanded version of the Four Sovereigns: besides the Jade Emperor, the Great Emperor of Purple Tenuity, the Great Emperor of Curved Array, and the Empress of Earth, it adds the Great Emperor of Long Life of the South Pole and the Great Emperor of Blue Florescence of the East Pole (the Taiyi Celestial Worthy Who Saves from Suffering). Found in liturgical rites from the Song onward and in temple pantheons.

Dragon and Tiger: an alchemical code term. The Dragon belongs to Wood and Fire, symbolizing spirit (Nature) and mercury; the Tiger belongs to Metal and Water, symbolizing essence and qi (Life) and lead. 'The mating of Dragon and Tiger' means the union of spirit and qi, the mutual complementing of yin and yang, forming the elixir. The metaphor already appears in the Zhouyi cantong qi, and the name of Mount Longhu (Dragon and Tiger Mountain) is also related to it.

The branch transmitted by Qiu Chuji, one of the Seven Perfected of Quanzhen; revived in the early Qing when Wang Changyue conferred the precepts at White Cloud Temple, it became the largest branch of Quanzhen, spreading nationwide with White Cloud Temple as its ancestral seat. Most contemporary Quanzhen priests belong to the Longmen Lineage.

Recorded by the disciples of Wang Changyue of the Qing from his sermons, also known as the Platform Scripture of the Jade Garden, it sets out the essentials of cultivation — observing the precepts, taking refuge, repentance, and severing entanglements — in twenty lectures. It was the ideological program for the revival of the Longmen Lineage and for the transmission of precepts in Quanzhen Daoism.

A Daoist lineage that flourished at Louguan on the Zhongnan Mountains from the Northern Dynasties through the Sui and Tang; it venerated Yin Xi as its founder, holding that Laozi transmitted the Daodejing to him there. It emphasized the Daodejing and the Xisheng Jing, championed the theory that Laozi converted the barbarians, and was held in great honor in the early Tang for having aided Li Yuan's uprising.

Registers (lu) are secret texts recording the names, forms, and subordinate officers and troops of the celestial gods. Once a Daoist priest has received a register, he may summon and command the divine troops listed in it to perform rites, the register also serving as proof of his priestly rank. The twenty-four grades of ritual registers of the Way of the Celestial Masters have been transmitted down to the present and remain a core institution of Zhengyi Daoism.

Lü Dongbin, styled Chunyangzi, a late-Tang Daoist priest, one of the Eight Immortals, and patriarch of the Zhong–Lü Internal Alchemy Tradition; Quanzhen venerates him as one of the Five Northern Patriarchs. Highly revered from the Song onward, temples to Patriarch Lü were built throughout China, and spirit-writing revelations were frequently attributed to him, making him the most popular Daoist immortal in folk religion.

The highest-ranking jiao rite in Daoism, in which all the deities of the Three Realms and Ten Directions are invited (luotian meaning the Great Canopy Heaven, Daluo tian). It lasts from several days to several dozen days and was historically staged mainly by the imperial court or major Daoist temples. In contemporary times it has been held at temples such as the White Cloud Temple, Beijing.

Lin Mo, the sea goddess Tianhou (Heavenly Empress), a native of Meizhou in Fujian in the Northern Song, granted successive titles of Tianfei (Heavenly Consort) and Tianhou (Heavenly Empress) by later dynasties. Though she arose from popular religion, she was absorbed into the Daoist pantheon, and there exists the Efficacious Scripture Spoken by the Most High Lord Lao on Tianfei's Salvation from Suffering. She is widely venerated along the coasts of Fujian, Guangdong, and Taiwan and throughout Southeast Asia, and was inscribed on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. (Appendix: a typical case of the interplay between popular religion and Daoism.)

The gods who guard the household gate and ward off evil, originally Shentu and Yulü, replaced from the Tang onward mostly by Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong. New Year woodblock prints of the Door Gods are a product of the fusion of the Daoist pantheon with folk custom.

Markets and deity-entertainment festivities held at temples on a god's birthday or festival day, such as the Yanjiu Festival (Qiu Chuji's birthday) at White Cloud Temple, Beijing, in the first month, the Dongyue Temple Fair, and the Miaofeng Mountain Temple Fair — an important form of interaction between Daoism and popular society.

Religious practice in Chinese society centred on the worship of local deities, ancestor veneration, and seasonal festivals. It is closely tied to Daoism: Daoist priests provide its ritual services, and popular deities are largely absorbed into the Daoist pantheon. Scholars describe this as the interaction between "institutional religion" and "diffused religion."

The six stars of the Dou lunar mansion. In Daoist belief, the Six Officiating Star Lords of the Southern Dipper govern the extension of life and the bestowal of blessings in the human world, and are paired with the Northern Dipper. Popular tradition tells of the Southern Dipper Star Lords extending a person's lifespan, as recorded in the story of Guan Lu in the Soushen ji (搜神记, In Search of the Supernatural).

The five patriarchs of the Southern Lineage of internal alchemy: Zhang Boduan, Shi Tai, Xue Daoguang, Chen Nan, and Bai Yuchan, who taught 'first cultivate Life, then cultivate Nature,' taking the Wuzhen Pian as their central text; after merging into Quanzhen in the Yuan dynasty they were retroactively honored as the Southern Five Patriarchs.

An internal-alchemy lineage tracing its founder to Zhang Boduan, which flourished in Jiangnan during the Southern Song; it taught cultivating Life before Nature and did not emphasize monastic renunciation. Bai Yuchan was the first to establish a religious community and fused it with Thunder Rites. In the Yuan dynasty it merged with Quanzhen, the Northern Lineage.

Neidan (Internal Alchemy): a system of cultivation that takes the human body as the cauldron and furnace and essence, qi and spirit as the medicines, forming a 'golden elixir' within the body through the stages of refining essence into qi, refining qi into spirit, and refining spirit to return to emptiness. It emerged in embryonic form during the Sui–Tang, and through Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, Zhang Boduan, and the Quanzhen order in the Song, became the mainstream of Daoist cultivation, superseding external alchemy (waidan).

Niwan (Muddy Pellet, Upper Cinnabar Field): the Upper Dantian, located in the cranial palace of the head. The Scripture of the Yellow Court identifies Niwan as the residence of the Lord of the Hundred Spirits, the most important body-god palace in visualization practice (cunsi); internal alchemy takes it as the place where spirit is refined to return to emptiness, also called Kunlun or the Celestial Valley.

Daoist Priestess (nüguan) is the ancient term for a female Daoist priest, so named because Tang-dynasty priestesses wore a yellow cap; many Tang princesses entered the Daoist order. Today such women are called kundao, and within the Quanzhen order Sun Bu'er is regarded as the founding ancestress of the kundao.

According to legend, one of the Three Sacred Mountains in the Eastern Sea (Penglai, Fangzhang and Yingzhou), inhabited by immortals and possessing the elixir of immortality. Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han both dispatched fangshi to sail out to sea in search of it; it is a symbol of the Fangxian Dao and of the later cult of the immortal mountains of the sea.

A collective term, coined after the 1950s, for traditional mind-body practices such as Daoyin, Ingesting Qi (Fuqi), and Internal Alchemy (Neidan). During the "qigong fever" of the 1980s in mainland China, it borrowed heavily from Daoist terminology, and its relationship to Daoist cultivation remains a topic of scholarly interest.

Wang Chongyang's seven great disciples — Ma Yu, Tan Chuduan, Liu Chuxuan, Qiu Chuji, Wang Chuyi, Hao Datong, and Sun Bu'er — who respectively founded the Yuxian, Nanwu, Suishan, Longmen, Yushan, Huashan, and Qingjing branches, and who are the founders of Quanzhen Daoism.

Lead and Mercury: the principal materials of external alchemy, borrowed in internal alchemy as code terms: lead ('true lead') refers to the pre-celestial true qi and the true unitary essence within the kidneys, while mercury ('true mercury') refers to the primordial spirit and numinous nature within the heart. 'Taking the lead from within Kan to subdue the mercury within Li' means subduing the heart-spirit with essence and qi to form the elixir.

'Clarity' (qing) means being free of impurity and contamination; 'stillness' (jing) means not acting recklessly. The Scripture of Constant Clarity and Stillness (Qingjing jing) states, 'If a person can maintain constant clarity and stillness, heaven and earth will both return to them,' regarding clarity and stillness as the fundamental practice and state for embodying the Dao. The Quanzhen order places particular emphasis on clarity and stillness, taking it as the guiding principle of mind cultivation.

The Taishang laojun shuo chang qingjing jing, which appeared in the Tang dynasty. In only four hundred characters it expounds clarity, stillness, and non-action, and the dispelling of desire to purify the mind and merge with the Dao. It is the first scripture of the Daoist morning liturgy and required reading in the Quanzhen tradition; commentaries include one by Du Guangting.

A Thunder Rite talismanic lineage formed in the late Song and early Yuan, tracing its founder to the Tang-dynasty Zushu; brought to culmination by Huang Shunshen in the Yuan dynasty, it fused the ritual lineages of Shangqing, Lingbao, Daode, and Zhengyi, and was noted for combining Thunder Rites with internal alchemy, exerting great influence in the Ming dynasty.

Popular religious texts that propagate the doctrine of retribution and exhort people to do good, with the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response, the Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang, and the True Scripture of Awakening the World by Lord Guan constituting the 'Three Sacred Scriptures' (三圣经). Widely circulated from the Song dynasty onward, they blended Confucian, Buddhist and Daoist ethics and had a profound influence on popular morality.

A Daoist lineage founded by Wang Chongyang in the Jin dynasty, advocating the unity of the Three Teachings and the joint cultivation of Nature and Life (xingming shuangxiu) through monastic practice. His disciples, the Seven Perfected, established seven branches — Longmen, Suishan, Nanwu, Yuxian, Huashan, Yushan, and Qingjing — and the school flourished greatly after Qiu Chuji in the Yuan dynasty. Together with Zhengyi, it forms one of the two major branches of contemporary Daoism.

The Quanzhen Monastic Rules are the rules of daily conduct and the disciplinary regulations of Quanzhen temples, set out in texts such as the Pure Rules of Complete Perfection and the Jiaozhu Chongyang Dijun Zefa Bang (教主重阳帝君责罚榜, Notice of Punishments of Patriarch Chongyang, Founder of the Teaching). They require ordained priests to remain unmarried, observe a vegetarian diet, abstain from alcohol, and follow monastic order, with penalties for violations.

The Ren and Du Meridians: the Ren Meridian runs along the front midline of the body and the Du Meridian along the back midline, together forming the pathway of the 'Lesser Celestial Circuit.' In internal alchemy, 'opening the Ren and Du' marks the completion of refining essence into qi, and the theory corresponds to the Eight Extraordinary Meridians of Chinese medicine.

Written by Cui Xifan of the Five Dynasties in eighty-two lines of trisyllabic verse, it summarizes the gathering of the medicine and fire phasing of internal alchemy in concise rhymed language. Its line 'pre-celestial qi, post-celestial qi — one who attains them is ever as though drunk' is a celebrated saying of internal alchemy; it has been annotated by Wang Daoyuan and others.

Perfected Man Sa, a Song-dynasty Daoist priest who transmitted the Thunder Rites of Shenxiao and secret methods of incantation with jujubes, known for burning down licentious shrines with thunder-fire; his Dharma protector Wang Shan is Wang Lingguan. He is one of the Four Celestial Masters and a Thunder Rite patriarch held in great esteem from the Ming dynasty onward.

The classification system of the Daoist Canon: the Three Caverns are the Cavern of Perfection (i.e. Shangqing), the Cavern of Mystery (i.e. Lingbao), and the Cavern of Spirit (i.e. Sanhuang), established by Lu Xiujing's Catalogue of the Scriptures of the Three Caverns; the Four Supplements are Taixuan (supplementing the Cavern of Perfection, the Daodejing corpus), Taiping (the Taiping Jing), Taiqing (the golden elixir), and Zhengyi (the Way of the Celestial Masters), formed at the end of the Southern dynasties — together they are called the Seven Sections.

The three great emperors of Heaven, Earth, and Water: the Official of Heaven bestows blessings, the Official of Earth pardons sins, and the Official of Water dispels calamity. They derive from the early Celestial Masters' penitential rite of 'handwritten confessions to the Three Officials'; the Shangyuan, Zhongyuan, and Xiayuan festivals mark their birthdays and are widely venerated in popular belief.

Handwritten Confessions to the Three Officials was a healing method of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice: the sick person wrote his own name and an expression of repentance in three copies — one placed on a mountaintop for Heaven, one buried in the earth, and one sunk in water — to ask the Three Officials to pardon his transgressions. This is the origin of Daoist confession and of the cult of the Three Officials.

Three Flowers Gather at the Crown: an internal-alchemy term describing the refining and unifying of the Three Treasures — essence, qi and spirit — which then converge upward at the Niwan. Paired with 'Five Qi Return to the Origin' (the qi of the five viscera converging at the central palace), it describes the attainment of a profound stage of cultivation.

The Sanhuang wen, a talismanic scripture that flourished in the Jin dynasty. It was said to have been obtained by Bao Jing from a stone chamber on Mount Song, and it is the source of the Dongshen section of the canon, chiefly concerned with methods for summoning gods and exorcising demons. It was denounced as spurious and burned under interdiction during the Zhenguan era of Emperor Taizong of Tang; only fragments survive today.

Three Hun and Seven Po Souls: the Daoist view of the soul — the hun, belonging to yang and governing the spirit, number three (Taiguang, Shuangling, Youjing); the po, belonging to yin and governing the physical form, number seven (Shigou, Fushi, and others). At death the hun ascend and the po descend. Daoist cultivation includes methods for 'restraining the three hun and controlling the seven po,' found in texts such as the Seven Slips from the Bookbag of the Clouds.

A concept borrowed by Daoism from Buddhism, referring to the Desire Realm, the Form Realm and the Formless Realm, or alternatively to the three realms of Heaven, Earth and Water (Humanity). Above the Three Realms lie the Four Brahma Heavens and the Three Clarity Realms; a practitioner who transcends the Three Realms is no longer bound by the cycle of rebirth and cosmic calamity.

The highest deities of Daoism: the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning of the Jade Clarity, the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure of the Highest Clarity, and the Celestial Worthy of the Dao and Its Virtue (the Supreme Venerable Sovereign, Laojun) of the Great Clarity, each residing in one of the Three Clarity Realms (三清境, Sanqing jing). The Three Pure Ones are a threefold personification of the Dao, and from the Tang dynasty onward it became standard practice to enshrine them in the main hall of Daoist temples.

The three great talisman-conferral centers recognized by the Song court: Longhushan (Zhengyi), Maoshan (Shangqing), and Mount Gezao (Lingbao). In the Yuan dynasty the Celestial Master of Longhushan was authorized to oversee the talismans of all Three Mountains, giving rise to Zhengyi Daoism.

Three Corpses (Sanshi): three malevolent spirits (also called the Three Peng) that dwell in the upper, middle and lower dantian of the human body, desiring their host's early death. On every gengshen day they ascend to Heaven to report the person's transgressions in order to shorten their lifespan. Daoist priests seek to 'slay the Three Corpses' by keeping vigil on gengshen nights, abstaining from grains, and ingesting medicines — a distinctive feature of the Daoist view of the body.

The structure of the Daoist celestial realm: six heavens of the Desire Realm, eighteen heavens of the Form Realm, and four heavens of the Formless Realm, making twenty-eight heavens in all; above these are the Four Brahma Heavens and the Three Clarity Heavens, and at the very top is the Great Canopy Heaven (Daluo tian), together forming the Thirty-six Heavens. This scheme appears in the Seven Slips from the Bookbag of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian) and in the Lingbao scriptural tradition.

The Three Altars of Great Precepts are the three graded sets of precepts transmitted in Quanzhen ordination: the Precepts of Initial Perfection (the Ten Precepts and others), the Precepts of Medium Ultimate (three hundred precepts), and the Great Precepts of Celestial Immortality. Wang Changyue's Heart Methods of the Dragon Gate Lineage expounds their meaning, and they form the core of the Quanzhen precept system.

Shangyuan (the fifteenth of the first month), Zhongyuan (the fifteenth of the seventh month), and Xiayuan (the fifteenth of the tenth month), the days on which the Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water respectively review the registers. Shangyuan bestows blessings and is marked with lanterns, Zhongyuan pardons sins and delivers the dead, and Xiayuan dispels calamity — together they form the most important festival system in Daoism.

The foremost scripture of the Shangqing School, in thirty-nine chapters; through chanting and visualizing thirty-nine body gods the practitioner achieves the 'whirling and merging of winds' and attains immortality. It is celebrated as 'the first of the Three Marvels of Daoism' and is placed first in the Dongzhen section of the Zhengtong Daozang.

Formed in the Eastern Jin when Yang Xi, Xu Mi, and others received the revealed Shangqing scriptures from Wei Huacun and other transcendent beings; Tao Hongjing of Maoshan brought it to culmination, hence it is also called the Maoshan Lineage. It emphasizes visualization, scripture recitation, and the system of body-gods, held extremely high status in the Tang dynasty, and is the source of the Cavern of Perfection, the foremost of the Three Caverns.

Observed on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the day on which the Official of Heaven bestows blessings. From the Tang dynasty onward it has been celebrated with the hanging of lanterns; it is the same as the Yuanxiao (Lantern) Festival, and Daoist temples hold the Offering to the Official of Heaven to pray for blessings.

Submitting Petitions (shangzhang) was a core rite of the early Way of the Celestial Masters, in which a priest wrote a petition on behalf of a believer and submitted it to the officials and gods of the Celestial Bureaus to request healing or the averting of calamity. The Chisongzi Zhangli (赤松子章历, Almanac of Petitions of Master Red Pine) preserves a large number of petition formats and is the source of the "memorial" and "memorial document" genres used in later jiao rites.

The birthdays of the gods, such as the Jade Emperor's birthday on the ninth day of the first month, Laojun's birthday on the fifteenth of the second month, Zhenwu's birthday on the third of the third month, Lü Dongbin's birthday on the fourteenth of the fourth month, and Doumu's birthday on the ninth of the ninth month. Temples hold offering rites (jiao) in celebration, and believers come to burn incense.

Body Gods (Shenshen): Daoism holds that the human body is a microcosm, with divinities residing in each part of the body (such as the gods of Niwan, the dantian, and the five viscera), enumerated in detail in the Scripture of the Yellow Court and the Central Scripture of Laozi. Visualizing the body-gods and preventing their dispersal is the key to longevity, and is central to the Daoist view of the body.

The ideal person of Daoism: one who has attained the Dao through cultivation, achieved immortality, and gained the ability to transform freely. The Baopuzi (Master Who Embraces Simplicity) divides immortals into three grades — celestial immortals, earthly immortals, and immortals liberated from the corpse; later tradition further distinguished ghost immortals, human immortals, divine immortals, and celestial immortals. Belief in immortals is the core marker that distinguishes Daoism as a religion from Daoist philosophy.

Compiled by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin, it records the deeds of over eighty immortals, continuing and elaborating on Liu Xiang's Biographies of Exemplary Immortals. It is representative of Daoist hagiographical literature; Robert Campany has produced an annotated English translation and study.

A Thunder Rite lineage founded by Wang Wenqing and Lin Lingsu in the late Northern Song, vigorously patronized by Emperor Huizong of Song, venerating the Supreme Sovereign of Longevity of Jade Clarity and Shenxiao. It drove out evil and prayed for rain with the Five Thunders Rite, and was transmitted through the Yuan and Ming by figures such as Sa Shoujian, becoming the principal source of Daoist Thunder Rites.

Sacred Embryo (Shengtai): an internal-alchemy term for the 'embryo' formed by the union of spirit and qi during the stages of refining essence into qi and refining qi into spirit. It must be nurtured for ten months as a mother nurtures a child in the womb, culminating in the 'yang spirit emerging from the embryo,' also called the 'Infant' or 'Newborn Child.'

The subdivisions under each section of the Three Caverns: root texts, divine talismans, jade instructions, numinous diagrams, genealogical records, precepts, dignified observances, methods, various arts, records and biographies, eulogies, and memorials — together called the Thirty-six Divisions of Revered Scriptures, a scheme retained in the Zhengtong Daozang.

A Public Monastery (shifang conglin) is a large Quanzhen temple that receives itinerant priests from every direction for lodging and that publicly confers ordination, such as the White Cloud Temple in Beijing, Taiqing Palace in Shenyang, or the Eight Immortals Palace in Xi'an. Its Abbot is chosen by election and may not take private disciples. It stands in contrast to the hereditary temple, and its institution is modeled on the Buddhist public monastery.

'The inferior adept dies first and then sloughs off the body' — the practitioner appears to die but in fact sheds the physical husk and becomes an immortal, so that only clothing, a sword, or a staff is left in the coffin. This was an important concept by which early Daoism explained the death of practitioners, and it is subdivided into liberation by the blade, liberation by water, liberation by fire, and other types.

A rite in which food and drink are offered to orphaned and wandering ghosts, and the Dharma is preached to deliver them. It is commonly performed at the Zhongyuan Festival and during Yellow Register Retreats; both the Quanzhen and Zhengyi orders possess a Tieguan Shishi (铁罐施食, "Iron Cauldron Feeding of the Hungry Ghosts") liturgical manual, comparable to the Buddhist Yankou rite (焰口, "Flaming Mouth" rite).

Keeping Vigil on Gengshen Nights (Shou Gengshen): remaining awake through the night on every gengshen day so that the Three Corpses cannot ascend to Heaven while their host sleeps to report on them. Both the Tang–Song Daoist tradition and the Japanese 'Kōshin cult' derive from this practice, and Kōshin steles and other relics survive in Japan to this day.

Conferral of Registers (shoulu) is the rite by which a Zhengyi priest receives a ritual register and thereby obtains priestly rank. It must be presided over by a register-holding master at an ancestral court, such as the Celestial Masters' Mansion at Longhushan; the recipient thereby obtains "register rank" and "memorial rank," qualifying him to preside over liturgical rites. Today it is regulated and conducted by the Chinese Taoist Association.

Guarding the One (Shouyi): an early core Daoist practice developed from 'embracing the One' in the Daodejing, emphasized alike in the Scripture of Great Peace and the Baopuzi. It consists of concentrating the spirit and guarding the 'One' within the body (the Dao, or the true spirit within the person) so that the spirit does not scatter and the hundred gods remain at their posts — a forerunner of both visualization and internal alchemy.

The Memorial Document (shuwen) is the written text used in liturgical rites to report to the gods the name of the rite's sponsor and the purpose of the prayer. Together with the biao (memorial), zhang (petition), die (dispatch), and bang (placard), it forms the Daoist "documentary system," modeled on the format of ancient official documents, and is burned so that its message may reach the ears of Heaven.

The four Celestial Masters venerated by Daoism as Dharma Protectors: Zhang Daoling, Ge Xuan, Xu Xun, and Sa Shoujian (in one account Qiu Chuji replaces Sa Shoujian). Their images are often placed before the Hall of the Three Pure Ones or in the Hall of the Numinous Officer, symbolizing the lineages of the Zhengyi, Lingbao, Jingming, and Shenxiao traditions.

The Four Symbols: the Azure Dragon of the east, White Tiger of the west, Vermilion Bird of the south, and Xuanwu (Black Tortoise) of the north — the four-directional groupings of the Twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, correlated with the four seasons and the Five Phases. In Daoism they serve as ritual-altar guardians (the Azure Dragon and White Tiger gods), as internal-alchemy metaphors, and in fengshui geomancy.

Four great emperors who assist the Three Pure Ones in governing Heaven and Earth: the Jade Emperor; the Great Emperor of Purple Tenuity of the Central Heaven and North Pole; the Heavenly Sovereign Great Emperor of Curved Array of the Upper Palace; and the Empress of Earth Who Embodies Heaven and Emulates Its Virtue. One tradition holds that August Heaven's Jade Emperor is foremost among the Four Sovereigns.

The Book of Changes states in its 'Xici' (系辞, Appended Statements) commentary, 'In change there is the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji), which gives rise to the Two Modes.' It refers to the undifferentiated, unified state prior to the separation of yin and yang. In the Song dynasty Zhou Dunyi wrote the Taijitu shuo (太极图说, Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate Explained); Daoism treats Taiji as a stage in the manifestation of the Dao ('from Wuji comes Taiji'), and the concept is applied in the theories of internal alchemy and Taijiquan.

An internal martial art guided by the theory of Taiji and Yin-Yang, traditionally attributed to Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang, though it actually took shape in places such as Chenjiagou during the Qing dynasty. In contemporary times it has spread widely overseas as a symbol of Daoist culture, and was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020.

Founded by Zhang Jiao in the late Eastern Han based on the Taiping Jing (Scripture of Great Peace), healing the sick with talisman water and incantations; with tens of thousands of followers, it launched the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184. It dispersed after its defeat, but part of its teachings and organization were absorbed by the Way of the Celestial Masters.

An early Eastern Han Daoist scripture, said to derive from the Taiping qingling shu in 170 scrolls presented by Yu Ji and Gong Chong; fifty-seven scrolls survive today, along with the Digest of the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping jing chao). It expounds the doctrines of chengfu (inherited burden), guarding the One, the ideal of great peace, and the correspondence between Heaven and humanity, and was the foundational text of the Way of Great Peace. Wang Ming's Taiping jing hejiao is the standard critical edition.

A scripture of salvation from calamity that appeared at the end of the Eastern Jin. It proclaims that in the final age demons and plagues will run rampant and a Perfected Lord will appear; those who venerate the scripture and recite its incantations may escape disaster. It reflects the eschatology and popular beliefs of early Daoism.

A morality book that appeared at the end of the Northern Song, in just over a thousand characters. It holds that 'misfortune and fortune have no gate of their own — each is summoned by the person,' and it enumerates good and evil deeds with their consequent retributions. Emperor Lizong of Song inscribed it with the motto 'commit no evil, practice every good,' and it is the most widely circulated of all Daoist morality texts.

The deification of Laozi, the third of the Three Pure Ones as the Celestial Worthy of the Dao and Virtue (Daode Tianzun), residing in the Great Scarlet Heaven of the Great Clarity Realm. In the Eastern Han, Zhang Daoling stated that he had received the Way of the Covenant of Orthodox Unity (Zhengyi Mengwei zhi Dao) from Laojun's descent; in the Tang he was honored as the Emperor of Mystery and Origin (Xuanyuan Huangdi). Laojun is regarded as the embodiment of the Dao, who through successive kalpas served as teacher to emperors and transmitted the Daodejing.

A hypothetical stellar deity corresponding to the movement of Jupiter (the Year Star), governing the fortune and misfortune of each year. Daoism assigns a Lord of Taisui to each of the sixty combinations of the sexagenary cycle; those in their birth-year or in conflict with the year's Taisui must 'pacify' or 'worship' Taisui, one of the most widely practiced Daoist folk customs today.

Embryonic Breathing (Taixi): the advanced stage of ingesting qi, in which breathing becomes as subtle as that of an infant in the womb, circulating not through the nose and mouth but through the navel or within the body — 'one who attains embryonic breathing can inhale and exhale without nose or mouth, as if still within the womb.' Internal alchemy also identifies true breath with embryonic breathing.

The Great Emperor of Blue Florescence of the East Pole, who presides over the salvation of suffering souls in hell and their release from torment, an iconography resembling the Buddhist bodhisattvas Kṣitigarbha and Guanyin, riding a nine-headed lion. He is the central deity of refinement and salvation rites and one of the Six Sovereigns.

One of the names for a Daoist establishment, most often used for household altars, charitable halls, or spirit-writing halls (as with the various daotang of Hong Kong); also denotes a hall within a larger temple complex (e.g. the Sanqing Hall, the Vegetarian Hall).

Celestial Master (tianshi) is the honorific title conferred on Zhang Daoling by Laojun; his descendants have hereditarily held the title of Celestial Master, and in the Yuan dynasty the imperial court formally recognized the "Celestial Master Who Continues the Zhengyi Teaching," heading Daoism in the Jiangnan region. The title has now passed down to around the sixty-fourth generation, and the Mansion of the Celestial Masters at Longhushan is its residence.

The later name for the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice founded by Zhang Daoling in the Eastern Han; Zhang Lu established a theocratic regime in Hanzhong, and after submitting to Cao Wei it spread north into the Central Plains and became the mainstream of Daoism. Kou Qianzhi of the Northern Wei and Lu Xiujing of the Southern dynasties each reformed it, and from the Tang–Song period onward it merged into the Zhengyi Daoism of Longhushan.

The highest grade of immortal: 'the superior adept lifts his body and ascends into the void,' able to ascend to heaven in broad daylight and dwell in the celestial realm. In internal alchemy, one who refines the spirit and returns to emptiness, thereby merging with the Dao in truth, is regarded as a celestial immortal.

A talismanic lineage transmitted by Rao Dongtian in the Northern Song, noted for healing and exorcism through the Northern Ultimate Court for Expelling Evil and the Three Radiances Talismans (heavenly gang, black malevolence, and three radiances); it was the earliest of the new talismanic lineages of the Song dynasty and influenced later Thunder Rite lineages.

A short Tang-dynasty treatise on cultivation, traditionally annotated by Sima Chengzhen, divided into eight chapters — immortality, simplicity, the gradual gate, fasting and precepts, proper dwelling, visualization, sitting in oblivion, and spiritual understanding — describing the method of gradual cultivation toward attaining the Dao.

The grassroots earth deity who guards a locality, the 'Correct God of Blessing and Virtue,' depicted as a white-bearded old man; he is the deity in the Daoist pantheon closest to ordinary people. His shrines are found throughout villages; he is subordinate to the City God and keeps registers of a locality's households and its books of birth and death.

Waidan (External Alchemy): techniques of smelting a 'golden elixir' from minerals such as lead, mercury and cinnabar in a cauldron and furnace, to be ingested in pursuit of longevity. It flourished from the Han–Wei through the Tang, represented by the Zhouyi cantong qi and the 'Golden Elixir' chapter of Ge Hong's Baopuzi. After repeated cases of poisoning from ingested elixirs, it gradually declined after the Tang, though its terminology was borrowed by internal alchemy.

A supplement to the Daoist Canon compiled by imperial order under the fiftieth Celestial Master Zhang Guoxiang in the thirty-fifth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming (1607), comprising 56 works in 180 fascicles; it added scriptures and morality books newly produced in the Ming dynasty, and is published together with the Zhengtong Daozang.

The Wangye Jiao (Plague-god Offering) is a large-scale jiao rite in Fujian and Taiwan for sending off pestilence and praying for peace, in which the Royal Lords are reverently welcomed as they patrol the world on Heaven's behalf; the rite concludes with the ceremonial burning or setting adrift of a royal boat (wangchuan). It is presided over by Zhengyi priests and is held once every three years at places such as Xigang and Donggang in Tainan. In 2020, the "Wangchuan" rite (送王船, Sending Off the Royal Boat) was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

A Dharma-protecting deity of Daoism, 'the Three-Eyed Numinous Light,' shown with a red face, three eyes, and a golden whip, said to be the transformation of Wang Shan, disciple of Sa Shoujian. From the Ming dynasty onward he has usually been enshrined in the first hall inside a temple's mountain gate, as the god who guards the gate and investigates good and evil.

The god of literary learning who governs examination success and official rank, formed by the merging of the star Wenchang with Zhang Yazi, a deity of Zitong in Sichuan. In the Yuan dynasty he was granted the title 'Assisting Sovereign Who Opens Transformation, Lord of Literary Emolument, Vastly Benevolent Emperor.' The Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang is one of the Three Sage Scriptures on moral exhortation, and Wenchang temples and Kuixing pavilions were built throughout the country.

A morality tract said to have been revealed by Lord Wenchang, composed around the Song-Yuan transition. It urges people to perform hidden virtue widely, and together with the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response and the True Scripture of Awakening the World by Lord Guan it is known as the 'Three Sage Scriptures,' especially venerated by examination candidates in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Attributed to Wenzi, a disciple of Laozi, it was honored by the Tang court as the Tongxuan zhenjing. It frequently cites Laozi's words to expound the principles of Dao, De, and non-action; the 1973 discovery of Han-dynasty bamboo slips at Dingzhou confirmed that an original version already existed in the Han.

A religious community founded in Shu by Zhang Ling during the reign of Emperor Shun of the Eastern Han, named for the five pecks of rice required of new initiates; it was distinguished by healing with talisman water, the 'Handwritten Documents to the Three Officials,' and the maintenance of charity lodges, making it the earliest organized form of Chinese Daoism.

'Returning again to the Limitless (Wuji)' — refers to the original, formless and boundless state of the Dao that precedes the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji). Song-dynasty Daoism and Neo-Confucianism used the formula 'from Wuji comes Taiji' to describe the sequence of cosmic generation; in internal alchemy, 'refining the spirit and returning to emptiness' is precisely a return to Wuji.

The Five Celestial Lords of the Five Directions: Qingling Shilao of the East, Danling Zhenlao of the South, Yuanling Yuanlao of the Center, Haoling Huanglao of the West, and Wuling Xuanlao of the North, each paired with one of the Five Phases and its color. They appear in the Lingbao scriptures and preside over the five directions in retreat and offering rites.

Five Qi Return to the Origin: an internal-alchemy term for the qi of the five viscera (heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys) each returning to its place and converging at the dantian or Niwan, paired with 'Three Flowers Gather at the Crown' to symbolize the post-celestial returning to the pre-celestial.

A principle of conduct and statecraft that accords with what is natural and refrains from forced action: 'The Dao constantly takes no action, yet nothing is left undone.' It is not passive inactivity but rather a refusal to intervene by private will in the natural tendency of things. In Daoist cultivation the term is extended to denote the practice of gathering in the mind and spirit and eliminating contrivance.

The five basic material properties — metal, wood, water, fire and earth — and their relationships of mutual generation and mutual overcoming, used to explain the transformation of all things. Daoism correlates the Five Phases with the five directions, the five viscera, the five colors and the Five Emperors, and applies them widely in cosmology, medicine, alchemy, and talismans and registers.

Spirits of the Five Viscera (Wuzang Shen): the Scripture of the Yellow Court holds that the heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys each have a presiding spirit, each with its own name and ceremonial dress. Visualizing the spirits of the five viscera can settle the body-gods in their places and ward off illness while prolonging life — an important element of the Shangqing school's system of body-gods.

Written by Zhang Boduan of the Northern Song in verse form, it expounds the principle of the dual cultivation of nature and life in internal alchemy. Together with the Zhouyi cantong qi it is ranked as an ancestral text of alchemy, and it is the foundational scripture of the Southern Lineage; it has attracted numerous commentaries, including those by Weng Baoguang and Chen Zhixu.

Transmitted by the Louguan School, it purports to record the words Laozi gave to Yin Xi upon his western ascension. Fusing the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi with Buddhist doctrine, it discusses the substance of the Dao and the relationship of form and spirit, and is an important text of Daoist philosophy in the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties period.

The foremost of the female immortals, dwelling by the Turquoise Pond of Kunlun. The Classic of Mountains and Seas describes her as half-human, half-beast; by the Han dynasty she had already become a venerated deity who held the elixir of immortality. Daoism honors her as the Golden Mother Sovereign, the Golden Mother of the Turquoise Pond, presiding over all female immortals, paired with the King Father of the East.

A fundamental distinction in internal alchemy and in the study of the Book of Changes: 'pre-celestial' (xiantian) refers to the original state prior to birth, of pure yang without admixture (the Pre-celestial Unitary Qi, the Pre-celestial Eight Trigrams), while 'post-celestial' (houtian) refers to the state after birth, fallen into physical form and the differentiation of yin and yang. Cultivation consists in returning from the post-celestial to the pre-celestial.

Fasting of the Mind (Xinzhai): from the 'In the World of Men' chapter of the Zhuangzi — 'Do not listen with the ears but listen with the mind; do not listen with the mind but listen with the qi... Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.' It refers to the practice of stilling and emptying the mind, discarding fixed views and desires, and together with sitting in oblivion is a wellspring of Daoist quietist cultivation.

A Ming-dynasty work on internal alchemy attributed to a senior disciple of the Perfected Yin, divided into four collections named after the Yuan, Heng, Li, and Zhen hexagram qualities. Richly illustrated, it expounds a nine-stage method of dual cultivation of nature and life, fusing the Three Teachings, and was the most popular illustrated manual of alchemy in the Ming and Qing periods.

A core tenet of internal alchemy (neidan). 'Nature' (xing) refers to the mind and spiritual consciousness, while 'life' (ming) refers to the physical body and vital essence and qi. The doctrine holds that cultivation of nature and cultivation of life must not be pursued to the neglect of the other; the Southern Lineage generally holds 'life first, nature after,' while the Northern Lineage of Quanzhen holds 'nature first, life after.' Ultimately nature and life are united to form the elixir.

Perfected Lord Xu, a native of Yuzhang in the Jin dynasty, said in legend to have slain a flood dragon, controlled floodwaters, and ascended to Heaven with his whole household. The Song granted him the title 'Perfected Lord of Divine Merit and Wondrous Salvation.' He is venerated as founding patriarch of the Jingming Loyalty and Filial Piety Way and is one of the Four Celestial Masters; the Wanshou Palace in Jiangxi is his ancestral seat, with temples built widely throughout the Jiangyou region.

Written by Wu Yun of the Tang in thirty-three chapters, it discusses the Dao and De, heaven and earth, nature and emotion, and the attainability of immortality, arguing that 'immortality can be learned.' It responds to Confucianism and Buddhism through the cultivation of nature and life, and is a celebrated work of Tang Daoist theory.

Xuanguan (Mysterious Pass), also 'the single aperture of the mysterious pass': the point at which the pre-celestial true qi is activated in internal-alchemy practice. Alchemists across the ages have variously located it at a certain aperture within the body, or held that it has no fixed location and appears suddenly amid stillness and concentration. It is regarded as the most crucial point of entry into the Dao — 'once this aperture is attained, the work of the golden elixir is complete.'

Daily Recitation of the Mysterious Gate: "Mysterious Gate" refers to the Daoist tradition, and "daily recitation" refers to the scriptures recited every day; the term specifically denotes the Daily Morning and Evening Liturgy of the Mysterious Gate. Scripture recitation is regarded as a basic practice of cultivation, the accumulation of merit, and moral instruction.

Xuanwu (Black Tortoise), the tortoise-and-serpent deity of the north among the Four Symbols, presiding over water, the northern direction and winter. From the Song onward he was deified as Zhenwu (the Perfected Warrior), attaining an extremely exalted status in the Ming.

The birthday of Qiu Chuji on the nineteenth day of the first month, marked by a grand temple fair at White Cloud Temple, Beijing. According to tradition, immortals take on human form and mingle among the crowds on this day, and visitors go to "meet the immortals" (hui shenxian) — the most popular Daoist festival in Beijing during the Ming and Qing.

Yang Spirit (Yangshen): in internal alchemy, the pure yang spirit nurtured from the sacred embryo, capable of leaving the physical body and existing independently. 'The yang spirit emerging from its aperture' marks the completion of the stage of refining qi into spirit, distinguished from the 'yin spirit' of a mere ghost-immortal.

Nourishing Life (Yangsheng): the general Daoist term for techniques of preserving body and mind and prolonging life free of illness, including ingesting qi, daoyin, abstention from grains, ingesting herbs and minerals, bedchamber arts, and diet and daily regimen. Tao Hongjing's Records of Nourishing Nature and Extending Life and Sun Simiao's Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold are representative works, forming the main body of the traditional Chinese art of life-nourishing.

Sun Simiao, the Tang-dynasty Daoist physician, is honored by later generations as the King of Medicine. Author of the Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold (Qianjin yaofang) and its sequel, he was also versed in nourishing life and ingesting qi. Temples to the King of Medicine were built throughout the country, representing the Daoist cult of medical deities; Bian Que and Wei Cizang are also sometimes venerated under this title.

The Huangdi yinfu jing, just over three hundred characters, appeared in the Tang dynasty (though some hold it to be earlier). It expounds the principle of mutual 'pilfering' between Heaven and humanity and the theory of the Five Thieves and the Three Powers, touching on statecraft, military strategy, and alchemy alike. It has been annotated by Li Quan, Zhang Guo, and others, and is ranked with the Daodejing as one of the two great scriptures of Daoism.

The fundamental dual category of Chinese philosophy, representing two opposing yet complementary potencies within the cosmos. Daoism uses the waxing and waning of yin and yang to explain the operation of heaven and earth, human physiology, and the phasing of alchemical fire; internal alchemy cultivation aims to harmonize yin and yang, 'taking from Kan to fill Li,' in order to return to pure yang.

The Steps of Yu are traditionally said to derive from the limping gait that Yu the Great developed from the exhaustion of controlling the floods — three steps leaving nine footprints. Fangshi used them to summon spirits and expel evil, and the Baopuzi records them in detail. They are the prototype for Pacing the Dipper.

The ancients imagined that immortals grew feathered wings and ascended, and so becoming an immortal was called 'feathered transformation' (yuhua), as in the phrase 'feathered transformation and ascent to immortality.' In later Daoism the term was used as an elegant euphemism for the death of a Daoist priest, corresponding to the Buddhist term 'entering nirvana' (yuanji).

The lord of the heavens who oversees the Three Realms, the ten directions, and the four modes of birth and six paths of rebirth. Emperor Zhenzong of Song honored him as the 'Great Heavenly Emperor Jade Sovereign,' and Emperor Huizong further added the title 'August Heaven's Jade Emperor Supreme Sovereign.' In popular belief he is regarded as the highest of the heavenly gods, with the ninth day of the first lunar month kept as his birthday; his relationship of precedence with the Three Pure Ones has long been debated.

The Gaoshang yuhuang benxing jiajing, which appeared in the Song dynasty. It relates the original deeds of the Jade Emperor — how, as a prince of the Kingdom of Pure Bliss, he cultivated the Dao and attained enlightenment — together with his miraculous powers and merits. It is the principal scripture recited in temples and on the Jade Emperor's birthday.

One of the Three Register Retreats, instituted to dispel calamity and pray for blessings on behalf of emperors, officials, nobles and commoners alike; its rank is below the Golden Register Retreat but above the Yellow Register Retreat.

An elegant term for a Daoist priest, taking the meaning of an immortal who has grown feathered wings; also called yuke, yuren, huangguan, or daoren.

The original, unitary qi that constitutes the cosmos — the 'One' of 'the Dao generates the One.' Daoism holds that qi engenders heaven, earth and the myriad things, and that the human body likewise comes into being endowed with primordial qi (yuanqi); cultivation consists in nourishing and gathering this pre-celestial primordial qi. The character qi (炁) refers specifically to pre-celestial qi, as distinguished from the character for post-celestial, respiratory qi (气).

The foremost of the Three Pure Ones, dwelling in the Qingwei Heaven (Pure Tenuity) of the Jade Clarity Realm, a supreme deity held to have existed before the creation of the cosmos. The Lingbao scriptural tradition venerates him as the source who opens the kalpa to save beings and transmits the scriptures and teachings. In statuary he is usually depicted holding the Primordial Pearl, or with his left hand held in a pinching gesture and his right hand cupped as if holding something.

Compiled by Zhang Junfang of the Northern Song in 122 scrolls, it is a digest of the Precious Canon of the Celestial Palace of the Great Song, excerpting Daoist scriptures, doctrines, methods, and hagiographies according to the Three Caverns and Four Supplements. Known as the 'little Daoist Canon,' it is an encyclopedic source for understanding Daoism before the Song dynasty.

A general term for Daoist texts not included in the Zhengtong Daozang; also the title of a 36-volume anthology of the same name published by Bashu Shushe from 1992 to 1994, gathering nearly a thousand works of Ming–Qing internal-alchemy scripture, ritual manual, mountain gazetteer, and morality book — a basic source for the study of Ming–Qing Daoism.

The Overseer of Fate Kitchen Lord, who observes the good and evil deeds of a household and ascends to Heaven to report on the twenty-third (or twenty-fourth) day of the twelfth lunar month. The Baopuzi already records that 'on the night of the month's end the Kitchen God ascends to Heaven and reports a person's crimes'; he marks the meeting-point of Daoist and popular household religion.

The Morning and Evening Liturgy is the daily course of scripture recitation held in Daoist temples at dawn and dusk, drawn from the Daily Morning and Evening Liturgy of the Mysterious Gate. The morning service recites texts such as the Scripture of Constant Clarity and Stillness and the Jade Emperor's Mind Seal Scripture, while the evening service recites texts such as the Jiuku jing (救苦经, Scripture of Salvation from Suffering) and the Shengtian Dedao jing (生天得道经, Scripture of Ascending to Heaven and Attaining the Dao). It took its fixed form in the Ming and Qing and is shared by both the Quanzhen and Zhengyi orders.

A divinatory art that calculates auspicious and inauspicious days for weddings, breaking ground, and burials by means of the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches and various spirits (shensha). Daoist priests often practise this alongside their other duties; almanacs (tongshu) and calendars (huangli) serve as its vehicles, and it is closely tied to Daoist calendrical belief.

Zhai and Jiao (Retreats and Offerings): the general term for Daoist ritual. 'Zhai' originally meant purifying body and mind and repenting of transgressions (as in the Golden Register Retreat, Yellow Register Retreat, and Three Primes Retreat), while 'jiao' meant setting up an altar to make offerings in thanks to the deities. From the Tang–Song onward zhai and jiao merged, forming the large-scale ritual system for seeking blessings, salvation of the dead, and celebration.

Zhang Ling, a native of the Kingdom of Pei in the Eastern Han, said to have received the Way of the Covenant of Orthodox Unity (Zhengyi Mengwei) from the Most High Lord Lao on Mount Heming in Shu, founding the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice. He is venerated as the founding patriarch of Daoism, honored as the Ancestral Celestial Master; the Zhengyi order holds that his descendants inherited the title of Celestial Master, with Mount Longhu as their ancestral seat.

Head of the Order (zhangjiao) was the supreme leadership position of the Quanzhen order during the Jin and Yuan dynasties. After Wang Chongyang, the post was held in succession by Ma Yu, Tan Chuduan, Liu Chuxuan, Qiu Chuji, Yin Zhiping, Li Zhichang and others; the Yuan court granted the holder the seal of "Perfected Head of the Order."

Perfected Lord of the Mysterious Altar, originally recorded as a plague deity as early as the Jin dynasty; in Song and Yuan Daoist scriptures he is a marshal of the Thunder Department who guards the altar of the Celestial Master, riding a black tiger and wielding an iron whip. From the Ming dynasty onward he developed into the Martial God of Wealth, one of Zhengyi's 'Four Great Marshals' (Ma, Zhao, Wen, and Guan).

Compiled by Tao Hongjing from the pronouncements and biographies recorded by Yang Xi, Xu Mi, and Xu Hui during revelations by descending Perfected Immortals, in twenty scrolls. It is a primary source for the origins of the Eastern Jin Shangqing School, the religious beliefs of the great clans of Jiangnan, and the world of the immortals.

The Zhuangzi calls the utmost person who embodies the Dao a zhenren, "Perfected Person." Daoism uses the term as an honorific for immortals and adepts who have attained the Dao, and it was also bestowed by the imperial court as a title upon eminent Daoist masters, such as "Perfected Nanhua" for Zhuangzi or "Perfected Changchun" for Qiu Chuji; in the Ming and Qing it also served as a title for the Zhengyi Celestial Masters and Daoist officials.

Emperor Xuanwu, the northern god of water; the name was changed to Zhenwu under a naming taboo of the Song. Emperor Yongle of Ming honored him as 'Perfected Warrior, Mysterious Heavenly Supreme Sovereign Who Guards the North Pole and Subdues Heaven,' with the Wudang Mountains as his sacred site, where great temple complexes were built. Depicted with loosened hair and bare feet, standing on a tortoise and serpent, he became the foremost state-protecting deity from the Ming onward.

The practice of suppressing inauspicious influences in a dwelling and safeguarding the household's peace by means of talismans and registers, mirrors, bagua plaques, Shi Gandang stones, or the Anlong Xietu rite (Pacifying the Dragon and Thanking the Earth). It is one of the most common forms of Daoist service to the populace.

The Daoist Canon completed in the tenth year of the Zhengtong reign of the Ming (1445), compiled under the forty-third Celestial Master Zhang Yuchu, Zhang Yuqing, and others, totaling 5,305 fascicles, arranged according to the Three Caverns and Four Supplements in Twelve Categories and numbered with characters from the Thousand Character Classic. It is the only complete Daoist Canon still extant.

A general term for the talismanic lineages descended from the Way of the Celestial Masters; in the Yuan dynasty the Celestial Master of Longhushan was given authority over the talismans of the Three Mountains, and by the Ming the name Zhengyi Daoism was formally adopted. Its priests may live at home and marry, their main work being the performance of purification rites and offering rituals with talismans, and it flourishes in Jiangnan, Fujian, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.

A national Daoist organization founded in 1957, headquartered at White Cloud Temple in Beijing; its successive presidents have included Yue Chongdai, Chen Yingning, Li Yuhang, Fu Yuantian, Min Zhiting, Ren Farong, and Li Guangfu. It oversees temples nationwide, the conferral of precepts and registers, and Daoist education.

A modern critical edition published by Huaxia Publishing House in 2004 and edited by Zhang Jiyu, in 49 volumes; it reorganizes and punctuates the texts of the Zhengtong Daozang and its supplement, adding materials from Dunhuang and texts outside the canon, and is the standard working edition in contemporary use.

Han Zhongli, styled Zhengyangzi, said to have attained the Dao as a Han-dynasty general, one of the Eight Immortals, patriarch of the Zhong–Lü Golden Elixir Tradition, and teacher of Lü Dongbin. The Anthology of Zhongli Quan's Transmission of the Dao to Lü Dongbin sets out internal-alchemical theory in question-and-answer form; he is one of the Five Northern Patriarchs of Quanzhen.

Compiled by Shi Jianwu of the Five Dynasties, it systematically expounds the theory of internal alchemy in the form of a dialogue between Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, comprising eighteen discourses on the perfected immortals, the great Dao, heaven and earth, sun and moon, dragon and tiger, lead and mercury, addition and subtraction, and the river chariot, among others. It is the earliest systematic work of internal alchemy.

Observed on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the day on which the Official of Earth grants pardon for sins. Daoist temples hold the Yellow Register Retreat and feed hungry ghosts to deliver the dead; merged with the Buddhist Ullambana festival it has become the popular 'Ghost Festival,' and the customs of floating river lanterns and burning paper money remain widespread today.

Incantations (zhou) are verbal formulas recited to command spirits and ghosts and to restrain evil forces, such as the Incantation for Purifying the Mind, the Golden Light Incantation, and the closing formula "as swiftly as the statutes command." Incantations are often used together with talismans, hand seals and Dipper-pacing, forming one of the "Four Essentials" of Daoist ritual — talisman, incantation, seal, and step.

Zhoutian (Celestial Circuit): an internal-alchemy term for the circulation of internal qi through one revolution of the Ren and Du meridians (the Lesser Celestial Circuit) or through the entire network of channels in the body (the Greater Celestial Circuit). The celestial circuit is used as an analogy for the movement of sun and moon and the advance and retreat of fire phasing, and is the core practice of the stage of refining essence into qi.

Written by Wei Boyang of the Eastern Han, it correlates the hexagrams and lines of the Zhouyi (Book of Changes), Huang-Lao thought, and the furnace methods of alchemy. Written in deliberately obscure language, it is honored as the 'King of Elixir Scriptures for Ten Thousand Ages' and is revered as the ancestral text by both external and internal alchemy. It has been the subject of numerous commentaries, including a critical study by Zhu Xi.

The Resident Head (zhuchi) is the person in charge of a particular temple. At hereditary temples this officer is usually called zhuchi or dangjia, whereas at public monasteries the roles are divided between the Abbot and the Prior. Today the director of a temple's management committee is often concurrently its Resident Head.

Zhuang Zhou of the Warring States period, a leading figure of Daoist philosophy and author of the Zhuangzi, who advocated free and easy wandering, the equalization of things, sitting in oblivion, and fasting of the mind. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang granted him the title 'Perfected Man of Southern Florescence,' and his book was honored as the Nanhua Zhenjing; it is a major source for Daoist philosophy and cultivation theory.

Composed by Zhuang Zhou and his later followers, the received text comprises thirty-three chapters (seven Inner Chapters, fifteen Outer Chapters, and eleven Miscellaneous Chapters), in the recension with Guo Xiang's commentary. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang honored it as the Nanhua zhenjing (Perfect Scripture of Nanhua); its teachings on free wandering, the equality of things, nourishing life, and sitting in oblivion are the source of Daoist cultivation theory.

A verse used by each lineage to fix the order of generational succession; disciples take their Daoist names according to the characters of the verse, as in the Longmen Lineage's hundred-character verse beginning 'Dao de tong xuan jing, zhen chang shou tai qing, yi yang lai fu ben, he jiao yong yuan ming...'; the Zhengyi Celestial Master lineage likewise has its own generation characters. This serves as the marker of one's sectarian affiliation.

Meaning 'being so of itself' or 'being as it originally is': 'Humans model themselves on earth, earth models itself on heaven, heaven models itself on the Dao, and the Dao models itself on ziran (naturalness).' It denotes the state in which things exist and develop according to their own nature, free from external compulsion. It is the highest value of Daoist philosophy and also a state sought after in Daoist cultivation.

A Hereditary Temple (zisun miao) is a privately held temple passed down through the master-disciple relationship, from teacher to disciple. It may take on disciples but may not confer ordination, and is generally smaller in scale; such temples far outnumber public monasteries. Some hereditary temples can be elevated to "hereditary monasteries" that also confer ordination.

The Great Emperor of Purple Tenuity of the Central Heaven and North Pole, one of the Four Sovereigns, who governs the warp of Heaven and the weft of Earth, the sun, moon, and stars, and the seasons and climate. Seated at the Pole Star, he is regarded as the ancestral lord of all stars.

Patriarch, Grand Master (zongshi) is an honorific for the founder or an outstanding transmitter of a lineage; the Five Northern Patriarchs and Seven Perfected of the Quanzhen order are all called zongshi, and in the Yuan dynasty the Quanzhen Head of the Order was granted the title "Grand Master, Head of the Order." The term is also used more broadly for any Daoist master of high virtue and reputation.

Sitting in Oblivion (Zuowang): from the 'Great and Venerable Teacher' chapter of the Zhuangzi — 'Cast off the limbs and body, dismiss hearing and sight, leave form and knowledge behind, and become one with the Great Pervader.' The Tang Daoist Sima Chengzhen wrote the Treatise on Sitting in Oblivion, setting out seven stages — reverent faith, severing entanglements, gathering the mind, simplifying affairs, true contemplation, supreme stability, and attaining the Dao — a classic model of Daoist cultivation of mind and nature.

Written by Sima Chengzhen of the Tang, it is divided into seven chapters — reverent faith, severing entanglements, gathering the mind, simplifying affairs, true contemplation, great stability, and attaining the Dao — systematically setting out the stages of mind-cultivation from stillness and concentration to entering the Dao. It fuses Zhuangzi's philosophy with Buddhist calming-and-insight meditation, and is a representative work of Tang Daoist theories of mind and nature.