The Hou Daohua 侯道华

Hou Daohua (818–851) was a native of Ruicheng (now part of Shanxi Province) during the late Tang Dynasty.

From birth, he appeared unintelligent. He became a Taoist monk and studied under Zhou Wuxian, the abbot of Daojing Yuan (Daojing Abbey) located on the southern slope of Zhongtiao Mountain in Yongle County, Hezhong Prefecture.

Due to his dull appearance and timid demeanor, he wore the clothes of ordinary commoners and was made to do menial labor such as farming and firewood gathering. His fellow disciples looked down on him.

However, Hou Daohua was inwardly sharp and insightful. He quietly comprehended Taoist doctrines, disregarded notions of right and wrong, and during his free time from labor, he collected medicinal herbs and refined pine and cypress leaf pills to take internally. Later, he no longer had an appetite for salt, rice, and other common foods, yet his voice remained clear and melodious, and his muscles and bones seemed translucent. People did not understand the technique he practiced and thus regarded him as unusual.

Subsequently, he encountered an immortal, who instructed him to change his name to Li Neizhi and have his name registered in the Shangqing (Supreme Pure) tradition. He passed away in the fifth month of the fifth year of the Dazhong era (851), at the age of 34.

After his death, Zheng Guang, the Jiedushi (military governor) of Hezhong, submitted a memorial to the imperial court requesting that the abbey where Hou had resided be renamed Shengxian Yuan (Shengxian Abbey, literally "Ascension to Immortality Abbey").

(From Records of the Birth Platform of True Immortal Hou [Hou Zhenren Jiangsheng Tai Ji], Records of Ruicheng County [Ruicheng Xian Zhi], and Volume 13 of Yunji Qiqian [Seven Lots from the Cloud Satchel]—a major Taoist encyclopedia.)