Liu Yiming

Liu Yiming
Portrait by Qing-dynasty painter Tang Lian, ca. 1800/1820
Born	1734
Died	1821
Religion	Taoism
Lineage	Longmen

Liu Yiming (1734–1821) was one of the main representatives of Taoist Internal Alchemy, or Neidan. He was an 11th-generation master of one of the northern branches of the Longmen 龍門 (Dragon Gate) lineage, and the author of a large number of works that illustrate his views on both Taoism and Neidan.

Liu Yiming was born in 1734 in Quwo, Pingyang 平陽 (in present-day Linfen, Shanxi). Before he reached the age of 20, he was severely ill three times (Sun Yongle 2011:302). After recovery, he began to travel, and in 1753 or 1754 he met his first master, whom he calls the Kangu Laoren 龕谷老人 (Old Man of the Kangu Valley). In 1757, he stayed in Beijing, where he studied ophthalmology following his father’s wish. Five years later, he moved to Henan, where he lived until 1765 working as a doctor (Sun Yongle 2011:302).

In 1766 he resumed traveling, and around 1768 he met the Xianliu zhangren 遇仙留丈 (Great Man Who Rests in Immortality), who became his main master. The Xianliu zhangren (himself an earlier disciple of the Kangu laoren) gave Liu Yiming teachings on Neidan. As Liu Yiming reports in one of his works, it was under the Xianliu zhangren that he obtained the full awakening (Liu Yiming 2013:34; Baldrian-Hussein 2008:691).

After the death of his father in 1769, Liu Yiming—who was then in his mid-30s—alternated periods of traveling (in Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and elsewhere) and of seclusion for a decade. In 1779 or 1780, he visited the Qiyun 棲雲 mountains in Jincheng 金城 (present-day Yuzhong, Gansu) and settled there to practice self-cultivation. From that time, this mountain became his stable residence, even though he occasionally traveled elsewhere. His abode, called Zizai wo 自在窩 (Nest of Being by Oneself), is still extant in the present day (Sun Yongle 2011:304; Baldrian-Hussein 2008:691).

Liu Yiming devoted the second half of his life to teaching and writing. His biographies also report that he used his financial resources to restore temples, shrines, and other buildings; to buy and lease fields to poor farmers; and to provide burial ground to those who could not afford it. In 1816, he prognosticated an auspicious place for his tomb on top of the Qiyun mountains, and his “tomb cave” was built there. In 1821, on the 6th day of the 1st lunar month, Liu Yiming entered the cave, pronounced his final words to his disciples, and died (Sun Yongle 2011:8).