Zhong–Lü Internal Alchemy Tradition钟吕内丹派

Also known as

Zhong–Lü Golden Elixir Way, Zhong–Lü Alchemical Methods, Zhong–Lü School

Type

School

Period

Late Tang and Five Dynasties–Northern Song

Founded

Late Tang and Five Dynasties (c. 9th–10th century)

Founder

Zhongli Quan, Lü Dongbin

Region

The area around the Zhongnan Mountains and Mount Hua, and nationwide

Status

Absorbed into Other Lineages — As a school of thought it has been absorbed into Quanzhen Daoism and the Southern Lineage; Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin are honored by Quanzhen as founding patriarchs, and the cult of Patriarch Lü remains widely practiced today across the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia; contemporary practitioners of internal alchemy still use the Zhong-Lü alchemical texts as basic teaching material.

Overview

The Zhong-Lü internal-alchemy tradition took shape in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, attributed to the transmission of Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, and is the common source of both the Southern and Northern lineages of Song-Yuan internal alchemy. Internal-alchemical thought had already appeared in the Sui and Tang in commentaries on the Zhouyi cantong qi and in the work of Su Yuanlang and Cui Xifan's Mirror for Compounding the Medicine (Ruyao jing); by the late Tang and Five Dynasties, alchemical scriptures written in the form of question-and-answer dialogues between the master Zhongli Quan and his disciple Lü Dongbin appeared — the Anthology of Zhongli Quan's Transmission of the Dao to Lü Dongbin (compiled by Shi Jianwu), the Complete Methods of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao bifa), and the Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Western Hills, among others — marking the formation of a systematic theory of internal alchemy. These texts borrow the terminology of external alchemy (lead and mercury, dragon and tiger, cauldron and furnace, fire phasing) to describe the process of refining essence, breath and spirit within the human body, proposing the sequence of "refining essence into breath, refining breath into spirit, refining spirit to return to emptiness," and a fivefold hierarchy of immortality — celestial immortal, divine immortal, earthly immortal, human immortal and ghost immortal — advocating the "dual cultivation of nature and life," and drawing a clear line against the ingestion of external elixirs that had flourished in the Tang. Lü Dongbin became a widely venerated popular immortal in the Song dynasty; Quanzhen Daoism honors him as one of the "Five Northern Patriarchs," while the Southern Lineage honors Liu Haichan as a disciple of Lü, both lineages claiming direct descent from Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin. The Zhong-Lü tradition itself had no organizational structure of its own, being a school of thought transmitted through alchemical scriptures, legend and secret master-to-disciple instruction, but figures such as Liu Haichan and Chen Tuan of the Northern Song each developed it further as a foundation, preparing the theoretical groundwork for Zhang Boduan's Southern Lineage and Wang Chongyang's Quanzhen Daoism; after the Song, nearly every internal-alchemy tradition traced its origin back to Zhong-Lü, and the "spirit-writing revelations of Patriarch Lü" scriptures of the Yuan, Ming and Qing further deepened its influence among the common people.

Core Doctrine

Taking the human body as cauldron and furnace and essence, breath and spirit as the medicinal substances, it seeks, through internal refinement, to return to the root and origin and merge with the Dao; it advocates the 'dual cultivation of nature and life,' whether life first and nature after or an equal cultivation of both; it puts forward theories of true yin and true yang, the mating of dragon and tiger, the fire phasing of the celestial circuit, and the return and reversion of the Three Fields; it transforms the material refinement of external alchemy into inner cultivation of mind and body, proclaiming that 'the golden elixir lies within the body, and need not be sought outside.'

Practice & Ritual

Quiet sitting and regulating the breath, guarding the cinnabar field with intent, gathering the medicine and refining the self, circulating the lesser and greater celestial circuits, returning the essence to nourish the brain, inner contemplation and visualization, practicing at the proper times (the 'hours of zi, wu, mao and you'); supplemented by daoyin exercises, grain abstention and breath ingestion; it stresses orally transmitted formulas from a master and the timing of the fire phasing. Internal-alchemical cultivation is often paired with fasting, keeping precepts and accumulating merit through good works, holding that the elixir cannot be completed if one's virtue is insufficient; the Zhong-Lü texts also speak of the 'ten demons and nine ordeals,' used to warn practitioners.

Transmission

Legendary genealogy: the Sovereign of Eastern Florescence → Zhongli Quan → Lü Dongbin → Liu Haichan → Zhang Boduan (Southern Lineage) / Wang Chongyang (Quanzhen Daoism); the actual textual transmission was compiled by late Tang and Five Dynasties Daoists such as Shi Jianwu; from the Northern Song onward, Zhong-Lü alchemical methods were transmitted into the Southern and Northern lineages respectively through the lines of Chen Tuan and Liu Haichan, and in the Yuan dynasty Chen Zhixu and others proposed a genealogy uniting the Southern and Northern lineages.

Key Scriptures

Key Figures

Principal Temples