Xu Mingye 许明业 — Healing Hermit of Qingxi Mountain
Paul PengWhen the harvest came, Xu Mingye (许明业) didn’t sell it. He didn’t store it. He called the villagers — old and young, whoever could work — and told them to take what they could carry.
This happened every year.
The sources record it without fanfare, as a simple fact about how he lived: he farmed with his disciples, and when the rice and millet ripened, the harvest belonged to the village. He treated the sick. He observed his fasts. He traveled the mountains. And when the wars came — and in the Liang dynasty’s final years, they came badly — he retreated to Qingxi Mountain in Wuchang and built a hermitage. He kept living the same way he always had.
Key Takeaways
- Xu Mingye (许明业) was a native of Chigang in Fufeng (扶风赤岗, present-day Shaanxi Province) active during the Taiqing era of the Liang dynasty (547–549 CE); he left secular life in his youth to study Daoism and traveled extensively across famous mountains and great rivers
- He maintained a vegetarian diet and religious fasting for many years, and was known for his generosity: when the rice and millet ripened, he invited villagers — old and young — to harvest according to their strength, and never complained
- He was skilled in medical arts and treated all who came to him in illness or hardship, without distinction
- When wars and chaos prevailed — a reference to the Hou Jing rebellion (548–552 CE) that devastated the Liang dynasty — he retreated to Qingxi Mountain (青溪山) in Wuchang (武昌), where he built a hermitage and continued his practice
- Primary sources: Sandong Zhunang (《三洞珠囊》) and Shangqing Dao Lei Shixiang (《上清道类事相》)
Xu Mingye (许明业) — the Liang dynasty Daoist practitioner from Fufeng who farmed with his disciples, shared the harvest with villagers, healed the sick, and retreated to Qingxi Mountain during the chaos of the Hou Jing rebellion.
Note on the Taiqing Era and the Hou Jing Rebellion: The Taiqing era (547–549 CE) of Emperor Wu of Liang coincides with the outbreak of the Hou Jing rebellion (侯景之乱, 548–552 CE) — one of the most catastrophic events in Southern Dynasties history, which effectively destroyed the Liang dynasty and caused massive civilian casualties across the Jiangnan region. The “wars and chaos” that drove Xu Mingye to retreat to Qingxi Mountain almost certainly refer to this rebellion.
A Daoist from the Northwest in the Southern World
Xu Mingye came from Chigang (赤岗) in Fufeng (扶风) — the same northwestern region that had produced the Louguan masters Chen Baochi, Li Shunxing, and Wang Yan. Like them, he had moved south into the Jiangnan world. Unlike them, his biography contains no imperial summons, no palace debates, no stele inscriptions recording supernatural attainments. What it contains is a life of sustained, ordinary practice: fasting, traveling, farming, healing, giving. The sources record these things with the same matter-of-fact tone they use for miraculous events. In the Daoist hagiographic tradition, this is itself a statement: the life of consistent compassion is as worth recording as the life of spectacular attainment.
The Farm and the Village
Xu Mingye led his disciples in manual labor — farming, not just contemplating. When the rice and millet ripened, he did something that the sources find worth recording: he invited the villagers, old and young alike, to come and harvest according to their strength. He never complained about this. The phrase “never complained” (wei chang yan juan 未尝厉倦) is small but precise. It implies that this was not a one-time gesture but a repeated practice, and that the invitation was genuine rather than performative. The harvest was not his to keep. It belonged, in his understanding, to whoever needed it.
The Healer
Xu Mingye was skilled in medical arts, and the sources record that whenever people came to him in illness or hardship, he did his utmost to treat them. The Daoist medical tradition runs from the Han dynasty through Ge Hong (葛洪), Sun Simiao (孙思邈), and beyond — a tradition that understood healing not as a commercial transaction but as an expression of the practitioner’s cultivation. The healer who treats without distinction, who does not turn away the poor or the difficult case, is practicing the Daode Jing’s teaching on compassion (ci 慈) in its most concrete form. Xu Mingye’s medical practice was not separate from his Daoist cultivation. It was the same thing, expressed differently.
The Rebellion and the Mountain
In 548 CE, Hou Jing (侯景) — a northern general who had defected to the Liang — launched a rebellion that would destroy the dynasty. The siege of Jiankang (present-day Nanjing) lasted months. The city fell. Emperor Wu of Liang, the great patron of Buddhism and Daoism who had reigned for nearly half a century, died in captivity. The Jiangnan region, one of the most prosperous in China, was devastated. Hundreds of thousands died.
Xu Mingye retreated to Qingxi Mountain (青溪山) in Wuchang (武昌, present-day Wuhan area, Hubei Province) and built a hermitage. He kept farming. He kept healing. He kept fasting and giving. The mountain was different from the village, but the practice was the same.
What This Kind of Life Looks Like from the Inside
The Zhengyi (正一) tradition has always understood the Daoist priest’s vocation as service — to the community, to the sick, to the dead who need ritual care, to the living who need guidance. Xu Mingye’s biography is a portrait of that service in its most unadorned form: no imperial titles, no supernatural attainments recorded in stone, just a man who farmed and healed and shared and kept going when the world fell apart around him. The Zhengyi priest at Longhu Mountain (龙虎山) today performs elaborate rituals with precise liturgical forms. But the foundation of those rituals — the reason they have meaning — is the same understanding that Xu Mingye embodied in his fields and his hermitage: that the Dao is not separate from the world, and that serving the world is how you practice it. For more, see What is Daoism.
Related Concepts
- Ci (慈, compassion): the first of the three treasures of the Daode Jing, embodied in Xu Mingye’s shared harvests and medical practice
- Yishe (義舍, communal provision): the early Celestial Masters tradition of communal granaries and free provision for travelers and the poor, which Xu Mingye’s farming practice continues
- Hou Jing Rebellion (侯景之乱, 548–552 CE): the catastrophic rebellion that destroyed the Liang dynasty and drove Xu Mingye to retreat to Qingxi Mountain
- Qingxi Mountain (青溪山): the mountain in Wuchang where Xu Mingye built his hermitage and continued his practice during the wars
Source Texts
- Sandong Zhunang (《三洞珠囊》, Precious Treasury of the Three Grottoes).
- Shangqing Dao Lei Shixiang (《上清道类事相》, Classified Matters Concerning the Shangqing Dao).
