The Qingcheng School 青城派

Qingcheng Mountain (青城山) — the sacred site associated with the school’s founding, one of the great Taoist mountains of Sichuan.

Definition and Origins

The Qingcheng School (青城派) is a school of Taoist inner alchemy cultivation said to have originated with the Elder of Qingcheng (青城丈人), a semi-legendary figure associated with Qingcheng Mountain (青城山) in Sichuan. The school was practiced and transmitted by figures such as Li Babai (李八百, “Li the Eight-Hundred-Year-Old”). Xue Daoguang (薛道光), in his Three Annotations on the Wuzhen Pian (《悟真篇三注》), states that Zhang Boduan (张伯端, Zhang Ziyang) once encountered the Elder of Qingcheng, who imparted to him the profound way of the Golden Elixir of Returning to the Origin — though this account belongs to the school’s transmitted lore rather than independently verified history.

The school traces its philosophical lineage to Guan Yinzi (关尹子), the legendary guardian of the Han Pass to whom Laozi is said to have transmitted the Dao De Jing. Its cultivation foundation is expressed in the formula: “emptiness and nothingness as the essence, simplicity as the function, and practicality as the merit” (虚无为体，简易为用，自然为功).

Core Teaching: Nothingness as Foundation

The Qingcheng School emphasizes the character wu (无, nothingness) as the foundation of all cultivation. Rather than beginning with lower-level techniques and working upward, it advocates starting from the highest level — the direct apprehension of emptiness and nothingness — and allowing the effects of middle and lower levels to follow naturally. This is the meaning of “non-action yet action, non-doing yet doing” (无为而为，无不为而为).

The school holds:

“修而无修，是为大修；得而无得，是为大得；德而无德，是为大德；有而无有，是为大有。”
(Cultivation without cultivation is the great cultivation; achievement without achievement is the great achievement; virtue without virtue is the great virtue; possession without possession is the great possession.)

The school strictly prohibits overthinking and the arbitrary creation of mental images during contemplative stillness — distinguishing its approach from Chan Buddhist insight meditation, which it regards as too dependent on conceptual activity.

The Three Stages of Practice

The Qingcheng School’s oral formula (口诀) of “guarding nothingness to attain emptiness” (守无得虚) is divided into three progressive stages:

• Stage 1 — Guarding the center to attain harmony (守中得和): the initial practice of stabilizing the mind at the center, allowing the qi to harmonize naturally
• Stage 2 — Understanding the One to transform the ten thousand (识一化万): the intermediate practice of apprehending the unity underlying all phenomena
• Stage 3 — The ten thousand returning to the One, and the One returning to emptiness (万归于一，一归于虚): the culminating practice in which all multiplicity dissolves back into the primordial emptiness

The mist of Qingcheng Mountain — the school’s emphasis on emptiness and nothingness mirrors the mountain’s characteristic atmosphere of concealment and revelation.

Dual Cultivation: Spiritual Rather Than Physical

Although the Qingcheng School adopts elements of the Southern School’s Yin-Yang dual cultivation, it limits this to what it calls the highest level of dual cultivation — spiritual communion without physical union. The Elder of Qingcheng is quoted (via Xiao Tianshi’s Outline of Taoist Health Preservation) as saying:

“采补之道，非房中术采阴补阳之术，乃采天地之气以补己之气，采天地之精以补己之精，采天地之神以补己之神。”
(The way of gathering and replenishing is not the sexual practitioners’ art of gathering yin to replenish yang, but rather gathering the qi of heaven and earth to replenish one’s own qi, gathering the essence of heaven and earth to replenish one’s own essence, gathering the spirit of heaven and earth to replenish one’s own spirit.)

This dual cultivation is described as “spiritual communion without physical union, emotional communion without physical contact, qi communion without bodily union” — making the Qingcheng School’s approach what its tradition calls “pure cultivation with a focus on dual cultivation.”

The Taoist altar — the Qingcheng School’s cultivation ultimately aims at the same goal as all Taoist practice: the realization of the Tao through the refinement of body, qi, and spirit.

Zhengyi Perspective

In the Zhengyi tradition, the Qingcheng School represents one of the more esoteric streams of inner alchemy cultivation that developed alongside the mainstream institutional traditions. Qingcheng Mountain itself has deep Zhengyi associations: it is traditionally identified as one of the sacred sites of Zhang Daoling’s early ministry in the Bashu region, and the mountain’s Taoist temples have historically maintained connections with the Zhengyi lineage.

The Qingcheng School’s emphasis on emptiness and nothingness as the foundation of cultivation is consonant with the Zhengyi tradition’s understanding of the Dao as the primordial emptiness from which all things arise. Where the Zhengyi school expresses this understanding through ritual — the jiao ceremony, the talisman, the Three Officials’ theology — the Qingcheng School expresses it through direct meditative apprehension. Both paths lead toward the same source.

Related Concepts

• Neidan (内丹): the internal alchemy tradition within which the Qingcheng School is classified → Neidan
• Yin and Yang (阴阳): the cosmological framework underlying the school’s dual cultivation theory → Yin and Yang
• Taoist Cultivation Methods (修炼方法): the broader category → Taoist Cultivation Methods

Source Texts

• Xue Daoguang (薛道光). Wuzhen Pian San Zhu (《悟真篇三注》). Song dynasty. Zhengtong Daozang.
• Xiao Tianshi (萧天石). Daojia Yangsheng Xue Gailun (《道家养生学概论》). 20th century.
• Xiao Tianshi (萧天石). Daohaiweilan (《道海微澜》). 20th century.