Bidong Branch of the Longmen Lineage全真龙门碧洞宗

Also known as

Bidong Branch, Dantai Bidong Branch, Longmen Bidong Lineage, Bidong Hall of the Orthodox Longmen Lineage, Mount Qingcheng

Type

Branch Lineages

Period

Qing dynasty to the present

Founded

During the Kangxi reign of the Qing; the Erxian Nunnery was built in the thirty-fourth year of Kangxi (1695), and in the forty-first year (1702) the name “Dantai Bidong” was bestowed by imperial decree, from which the lineage took its name

Derived from

Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen

Region

Centered on Chengdu and Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan, spread throughout Sichuan–Chongqing and Yunnan–Guizhou

Ancestral seat

Erxian Nunnery, Chengdu, Tianshi Cave / Changdao Temple

Status

Extant — The Daoist priests of the various temples on Mount Qingcheng and of the Qingyang Palace in Chengdu mostly belong to the Bidong Branch, which forms the main body of the Sichuan Provincial Taoist Association; part of the former site of the Erxian Nunnery was incorporated into a cultural park, with partial restoration in the early twenty-first century, and the Qingyang Palace preserves the complete set of printing blocks for the Daozang jiyao. The tradition of the Bidong Branch has also spread to Chongqing, Yunnan, Guizhou, and other regions.

Overview

The Bidong Branch, in full the "Dantai Bidong Zong," is a branch of the Longmen Lineage of Quanzhen that emerged in Sichuan, and has been the main current of Daoism in the southwest of China since the Qing dynasty. Its founding patriarch, Chen Qingjue (1606–1705), sobriquet Hansong, also known as Yanxia, was a native of Wuchang, Hubei, and a licentiate (zhusheng) at the end of the Ming; after the fall of the Ming he abandoned Confucian scholarship to become a Daoist, traveling to Taizi Po on Mount Wudang to study under Zhan Tailin, becoming the tenth-generation transmitter of the Longmen Lineage. In the early Kangxi era of the Qing he entered Sichuan, first residing at the Changdao Guan (Tianshi Cave) on Mount Qingcheng, where he restored the temple halls and revived the site's practice, and later moved to the garden of the Qingyang Palace in Chengdu to cultivate quiet stillness. In the thirty-fourth year of the Kangxi era (1695), Zhao Liangbi, the Surveillance Commissioner of Sichuan, built the Erxian Nunnery for him beside the Qingyang Palace; in the forty-first year of the Kangxi era (1702), on Zhao Liangbi's memorial to the throne, the Kangxi Emperor bestowed on him a plaque in his own calligraphy reading "Dantai Bidong" and a copy of the Wuzhen pian, and gave him the title "Perfected Bidong," from which this branch came to be known as the "Dantai Bidong Zong," with the Erxian Nunnery as its ancestral temple and the Tianshi Cave on Mount Qingcheng as a second center. Although the Bidong Branch established its own name, it continued to observe the hundred-character generation-name poem of the Longmen Lineage without establishing a separate one, and so remains a regional branch within the Longmen lineage of transmission. Its later transmitters, including Zhang Qingye (1676–1763), Wang Yicui, and Yan Yonghe, successively presided over the Temple of Marquis Wu, the Qingyang Palace, the Erxian Nunnery, and other sites in Chengdu, emphasizing the precepts, promoting public monasteries, and holding ordinations, bringing great flourishing to Quanzhen Daoism in Sichuan. In the thirty-second year of the Guangxu era of the Qing (1906), Yan Yonghe, abbot of the Erxian Nunnery, and others directed the reprinting and expansion of the Daozang jiyao, producing over ten thousand printing blocks (now held at the Qingyang Palace), a major achievement in the collation of Daoist texts in the Qing. In modern times, the eminent Bidong master Yi Xinying was the twenty-second-generation transmitter, and served as Vice President of the Chinese Taoist Association.

Core Doctrine

The Bidong Branch fully inherits the principles of the Longmen Lineage of Quanzhen: the unity of the Three Teachings and the dual cultivation of nature and life, rooted in clarity, stillness, and non-action, and in illuminating the mind to see one's true nature. It places particular emphasis on the precepts, upholding the Three Altars of Great Precepts — the Precepts of Initial Perfection, the Precepts of Medium Ultimate, and the Great Precepts of Celestial Immortality — and holds that "the precepts are the foundation, concentration is the substance, and wisdom is the function." It also gives weight to the collation of scriptural texts and the building of public-monastery institutions, and has fostered a scholarly, ritually rigorous ethos within Sichuan Daoism.

Practice & Ritual

The system of public monasteries (shifang conglin) and the opening of altars for the transmission of precepts; morning and evening liturgy and quiet sitting in internal alchemy; retreats and offering rites (zhaijiao) and Sichuan-style Daoist music; emphasis on temple economics and the printing of scriptures (as in the Erxian Nunnery's reprint of the Daozang jiyao). Successive abbots have often also run charity schools, dispensed medicine, and provided famine relief and other local public services.

Transmission

Wang Changyue (seventh generation of Longmen) → Zhan Tailin (of Taizi Po, Wudang) → Chen Qingjue (tenth generation, founder of the Bidong Branch) → Zhang Qingye, Wang Yicui, and others → Yan Yonghe of the late Qing (who reprinted the Daozang jiyao) → Yi Xinying (twenty-second generation), from the Republican era to the present, and others. This branch does not establish a separate generation-name poem, but continues to use that of the Longmen Lineage: "Dao de tong xuan jing, zhen chang shou tai qing, yi yang lai fu ben, he jiao yong yuan ming, zhi li zong cheng xin, chong gao si fa xing, shi jing rong wei mao, xi wei yan zi ning..." The stele record Qingchengshan Longmen Zhengzong Bidong Tang Shang Zhi Pu (Branch Genealogy of the Bidong Hall of the Orthodox Longmen Lineage on Mount Qingcheng) records its generational transmission, which by the Republican era had already reached around the twenty-third generation.

Key Scriptures

Key Figures

Principal Temples