The Li Daojian 李道坚

Li Daojian was a native of Zhenyuan County (now part of Guizhou Province) during the Ming Dynasty.

According to the Guizhou Tongzhi (General Records of Guizhou), in his youth, he abandoned his family to study Taoism. He met a virtuous scholar (a term for a hermit with profound knowledge or Taoist attainments), who taught him the technique of "shuihuo shengjiang" (the ascent of fire and descent of water—a core concept in Taoist Neidan, referring to the circulation and balance of yin and yang energies within the body). Li Daojian practiced this technique in the Southern Cave of Zhonghe Mountain, and he and Xu Jiaohong were spiritual companions outside the secular world (i.e., fellow Taoist practitioners).