Zheng Lue was a scholar and Taoist in the Tang Dynasty. In the late Tang Dynasty, he served as a chancellor.
Philosophically, he regarded "Dao" as the highest category, believing that "Dao" is the origin of the world that existed prior to heaven and earth. He said: "Great is the supreme Dao, which is inactive and natural. It has no end and no beginning, existing before earth and before heaven. It contains light in silence, enduring endlessly and continuously" (Ode to the Great Dao).
While taking Dao as the origin of the world, he also viewed it as the highest law, holding that "Dao" as the highest law is commonly followed by all emperors: "A hundred kings take it as a model, and successive sages pass it down" (ibid.).
He also personified "Dao", endowing it with will and purpose, and believed that "Dao" occupies the position of the highest religious leader: "It taught Confucius in the east and converted the Golden Immortal in the west" (ibid.).
"Ni Fu" (Master Ni) refers to Confucius, and "Jin Xian" (Golden Immortal) refers to the Buddha. Buddhism advocates that the Buddha was born in Tianzhu (ancient India), took form in Queen Maya (the wife of King Suddhodana), and was born from the right 胁 of the queen. He has thirty-two physical characteristics and eighty secondary marks, with a height of sixteen feet, and "his body is all golden" (Mouzi's Treatise on Refuting Doubts).
This can prove the theory that the Buddha is the Golden Immortal. In the first year of Xuanhe during the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty (1119 AD), an imperial edict was issued "to rename the Buddha as the Great Awakened Golden Immortal" (A Brief Account of Examining Antiquity, Volume 4).
The "west" in "converted the Golden Immortal in the west" is a literary contrast to the "east" (in the above quote), indicating that the "Golden Immortal" refers to Buddhism introduced from the west. Zheng Lue placed Taoist thought in the highest position, regarding Confucianism and Buddhism as objects of "teaching" and "conversion" respectively, and further declared that Taoist thought is "the master of all religions, profound and mysterious beyond measure" (Ode to the Great Dao).
He advocated taking Taoist thought as the mainstay, integrating Buddhism, regulating Confucianism, and establishing an ideological system with Taoist thought as the core.
His works include Ode to the Great Dao, which is compiled in Volume 817 of Complete Prose of the Tang Dynasty.
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