MUZIChinese Matrix
Clerics › Religious Figure
Xinghua scholar who abandoned the examinations for Daoism, claimed to have been taught by Lu Dongbin and is regarded as founder of the Eastern school of inner alchemy
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Zi Changgeng · Hao Qianxu · Hao Fanghu Waishi
Lu Xixing, courtesy name Changgeng, came from Xinghua in Yangzhou prefecture. He was a county student in his youth but is said to have failed the provincial examination nine times, after which he turned from Confucian studies to Daoism, claiming that the immortal Lu Dongbin had appeared to him and taught him the secrets of the elixir. His teaching held that inner alchemy could be practised without leaving family life, and later Daoists regarded him as founder of the Eastern school, set beside the older Southern and Northern lineages. In later years he also studied Buddhism. His writings were gathered as the Fanghu waishi, which includes commentaries on the Cantong qi and the Wuzhen pian, and he also wrote a commentary on the Zhuangzi. A Qing catalogue of plays says that the Fengshen zhuan was written by Lu Changgeng, and some modern scholars have taken him to be the author of the novel Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi), though the attribution is still disputed.
MingAccording to prefaces in the Fanghu waishi, Lu Qianxu (Lu Xixing) was versed in the three teachings and received the true transmission of Patriarch Lü, and was taught orally by an immortal master. A preface calls his Fanghu waishi writings the orthodox line of this way and the 'true transmission of the Eastern lineage', which is why they were collected and printed together.