Huang Taiyong

Zhao Daojian (1163–1221), first-generation great precept master of the Longmen (Dragon Gate) lineage, was originally named Zhao Jiugu; his Taoist name was Xujingzi, and people called him Master Xujing. He was an important figure of the Quanzhen school (Complete Perfection) in the late Jin and Mongol-Yuan period. In life he was Qiu Chuji's most valued disciple, and after his death the Longmen lineage revered him as its first-generation great precept master.

Zhao Daojian was born into a family of officials; his father was prefect of Zizhou (present-day Zibo, Shandong) and was later transferred to be vice prefect of Pingliang (present-day Pingliang, Gansu), and the whole family moved with him. As a child Zhao Daojian was calm by nature, of pure bearing and unusual frame. He loved to contemplate the Taoist classics and especially enjoyed reading Laozi and Zhuangzi. Introverted by nature, and having lost his father when young, he “often had the wish to ascend into emptiness.”

Entering the Tao

Hearing that Cui Yangtou, a Taoist in the prefectural town, had attainment in the Tao, Zhao Daojian became his disciple. Cui Yangtou set him to work in the kitchen, cooking five to seven meals every night, each with a different flavor; when they were served, Cui ate little and would not let him cook more, so that Zhao could not sleep all night. This went on for three years without a word of complaint from Zhao Daojian; on the contrary, “his heart grew ever more respectful, without the slightest trace of arrogance, and people called him the Master of Inner Service.”

Knowing that Zhao Daojian could be taught, Cui Yangtou recommended him in the nineteenth year of the Dading era (1179) to Ma Danyang at Huating (present-day Huating, Gansu). The following year, Ma Danyang returned to the Zhongnan Mountains and sent the seventeen-year-old Zhao Daojian to Longmen (northwest of present-day Long County, Shaanxi) to become a disciple of Qiu Chuji. Qiu Chuji was very fond of this disciple and changed his name to Daojian, “firm in the Tao.”

In his early years of austere practice at Panxi, Qiu Chuji had written the poem “Firm Resolve”: “My turning to the Tao is firm to the utmost of my heart; I have treasured the alchemical scriptures since early years. I hid my traces among the cliffs at just nineteen, and drifted like tumbleweed over three thousand li. Without attachment I do not dream of home; with resolve I must become an immortal beyond things. Even if blessings are light and demonic obstacles heavy, persisting step by step, the work will surely be complete.” From this one can see how deep a meaning lay in the name he gave Zhao Daojian.

While following Qiu Chuji, Zhao Daojian “was sincere, reverent, meticulous, and strict, observing the rites of a disciple,” and won exceptional appreciation; he was taught the secret method of pure emptiness and naturalness. During the years of cultivating the Tao in seclusion at Longmen, he accompanied Qiu Chuji to the Yan region to spread the Tao, and “often traveled back and forth to Pingliang.” Probably in this period he often returned to Pingliang to visit his mother or traveled to teach, which is why scroll 1 of the Heart Lamp of Jingai and the Transmission of the Orthodox Longmen Lineage, Jueyun Branch also record that he “went out to pacify the Northwest Circuit for seven years and resettled more than 200,000 refugees.”

In 1186, Zhao Daojian followed Qiu Chuji to the ancestral court in the Zhongnan Mountains. In 1188, when Qiu Chuji answered the summons of Emperor Shizong of Jin, Wanyan Yong, to the Jin Central Capital (present-day Beijing), he had Zhao serve Li Lingyang as his teacher. In the second year of the Mingchang era of the Jin (1191), Zhao Daojian followed Qiu Chuji east back to the Taixu Temple at Qixia in Shandong; passing through Yecheng (present-day Laizhou, Shandong), Qiu Chuji told him to pay his respects to Liu Changsheng. By having Zhao Daojian serve these two elders as teachers, Qiu Chuji was in fact deliberately training him.

Before long, Qiu Chuji had Zhao Daojian return to Qixia to serve as his secretary, in charge of scriptures, books, and teaching, in effect becoming Qiu Chuji's right-hand man. This was partly because Zhao Daojian was genuinely very capable, especially outstanding in writing and calligraphy, and partly because, after long training, Qiu Chuji judged that he had gained considerable experience. It was probably also in this period that Zhao Daojian's reputation and standing within Quanzhen Taoism began to rise.

Death on the Journey West with His Master

While Zhao Daojian was living in seclusion at Qixia with his master, the political situation across China changed dramatically: the Mongol Empire was founded, attacked the Jin, occupied the Central Capital, and extended its power into North China. At this time Shandong, where Qiu Chuji lived, became a contested ground among the Mongols, the Jin, and the Song. Because Quanzhen Taoism was then highly influential in the north, it became something every power sought to win over.

In the winter of 1219, Genghis Khan sent envoys to Shandong to summon Qiu Chuji to an audience in the Western Regions. After weighing the matter again and again, Qiu Chuji decided to go west. When he chose his attendants, Zhao Daojian was his first choice.

In the spring of 1220, Zhao Daojian set out west with his master from Dengzhou in Shandong for the distant Western Regions. In the eleventh month of 1221 he died of illness at the city of Sayram in Central Asia, at the age of fifty-nine.

In the third month of 1222, when Qiu Chuji and his disciples passed through Sayram again on their return, they made a special offering at Zhao Daojian's grave. “The disciples proposed to carry his bones home, but the master said: ‘The four elements are a borrowed body that will in the end decay; the one numinous true nature is free and unbound.’ The proposal was dropped. The next day the master set off.”

Honors After Death

After returning from the west, Qiu Chuji was honored by Genghis Khan as an “immortal” and given charge of Taoism throughout the realm. The disciples who had accompanied him, such as Song Dao'an, Yin Zhiping, and Li Zhichang, succeeded Qiu Chuji one after another as heads of Quanzhen Taoism. Although Zhao Daojian had died of illness on the journey west, his influence within Quanzhen did not fade away.

After Zhao Daojian's death, miraculous events connected with him were reported from time to time. The Inner Biographies of the Immortals and Perfected of the Ancestral Court in the Zhongnan Mountains records: At first, when Changchun passed the Abuhan Mountains, he left Song Dao'an and eight others to build the Qixia Temple and wait for him. In the Renwu year, jealous wrongdoers brought a lawsuit against them, and his followers were all anxious and afraid. As Dao'an took a daytime nap, he saw the Master (Zhao) come down through the skylight and say, “A letter from our master has arrived.” Dao'an asked, “Where from?” He said, “From heaven.” Dao'an took it and looked, and saw only the two words “Grand Clarity.” When Song awoke he told the others. The next day a letter did indeed arrive from the imperial camp, and the lawsuit was dropped. This was the Master's unseen protection.

After they reached the lands of the Han, in more than ten places—Yunzhong, Wuchuan, Leiyang, Yanji, and elsewhere—people saw the Master arrive alone on horseback and announce beforehand: “Changchun, the patriarch, will soon return east; why not go out far to meet him?” His miraculous traces cannot all be recorded; one or two are noted here to show that in death he did not perish.

He also received sacrifices within Quanzhen Taoism and titles from the court. In 1250, when Li Zhichang was in charge of Taoist affairs throughout the realm, he was ordered to commend the virtuous masters of the Taoist community and granted Zhao Daojian the title “Perfected Zhongzhen Yijiao Xuanying” (Perfected of Central Integrity, Supporter of the Teaching, of Mysterious Response); his cap and shoes were buried on Mount Wuhua, and sacrifices were offered every year. In the third year of the Zhida era of the Yuan (1310), the court issued an order formally enfeoffing Zhao Daojian as “Perfected Zhongzhen Yijiao Xuanying.”

After Quanzhen Taoism fell into decline in the Yuan, some Longmen Taoist priests reorganized their lineage genealogy. Zhao Daojian had followed Qiu Chuji for many years and was highly valued by him, and in many respects he truly fit the needs of the lineage succession; so he was revered as the first-generation great precept master of the Longmen lineage.

In the Qing dynasty, Wang Changyue, seventh-generation precept master of the Quanzhen Longmen lineage, wrote the Bowl Mirror in five scrolls, whose account of the Longmen line of succession takes Zhao Daojian as its first-generation great precept master. This book is lost, but the Qing Taoist Min Yide recorded its account, based on the book, in scroll 1 of the Heart Lamp of Jingai, and the Transmission of the Orthodox Longmen Lineage, Jueyun Branch, drawing on the Heart Lamp of Jingai, affirmed this record even more firmly.