Ma Dan was a native of Jin Geng. During the time of Marquis Wen, he served as a senior official. By the time of King Xian, he once again became chief officer of the military office. When King Xian destroyed Jin Geng and killed Crown Prince Gong, Dan left his post. This principled withdrawal from a corrupt court places Ma Dan within the same tradition as Jie Zitui, his contemporary in the Lie Xian Zhuan, who similarly refused to serve rulers who violated moral order.

During the time of Zhao Xuanzi, he traveled in a comfortable carriage to the capital of Jin and waited upon the high officials. King Ling wanted to appoint him to an official post, but treated him without proper rites; suddenly a violent wind blew off the roof, and Dan entered the swirling wind and vanished. People in the north revered him and built shrines to worship him. This act of divine departure through wind — a classical Taoist motif of transcendence — echoes the biography of Wu Guang (務光), another immortal in the Lie Xian Zhuan who refused political appointment and chose the path of the Tao.

Ma Dan served in Jin, rising and falling with the times. He served Wen but left Xian; his fame and obscurity knew no bounds. As a dense net was about to be cast, he followed the rites and vanished in the sudden wind. He ascended mysteriously alone, leaving no trace in the celestial palace.

The Lie Xian Zhuan (列仙传, Biographies of Immortals) presents Ma Dan as a figure whose immortality was inseparable from his moral discernment — his ability to recognize when a ruler had forfeited the right to his service, and to act accordingly. The shrine worship that followed his departure reflects the broader pattern documented in the formation of Taoist doctrines, in which historical figures of exceptional virtue were gradually absorbed into the Taoist sacred landscape as objects of popular devotion. His biography in the Lie Xian Zhuan stands alongside that of Laozi and other foundational figures as evidence that Taoist immortality was understood not as a supernatural gift but as the natural consequence of living in perfect alignment with the Tao.