TAO FA ZHEN
29th Generation Long Men

Clarifications:

1) Daoist sects are not extreme sects but religious groups of teachers, disciples and monks dedicated to the pacific cultivation of the Self, teaching Daoist Arts, helping heal the ill and guide people in their spiritual journeys.

2) A renunciant monk/nun is a person that gives up his/her family and their common life to live a monastic life following the precepts of the Dao.

Tao Fa Zhen (Tao Shifu) was born in 1915, in Ankang, Shaanxi. She began studying the Dao at age seven following her uncle who was an at home practitioner of the Zheng Yi Pai. She survived the severe hardship and torture of the cultural revolution, having chosen to stand her ground as a renunciant and refusing to return to societal ways. She came to the Five Immortals Temple around 1990, at the time no more than a few shacks, and was to remain the only residing Abbess for the following ten years.

No longer in the same cultural and religious despair, however in extreme poverty and often without sufficient food and warmth, she continued to cultivate alone for many years.

It was in 1995 when she sought out Du Xin De (Li Shifu). He had, for the third and final time renounced his family and society and took post at Zi Xiao Gong in central Wudang. He stayed there for some time though soon became unsettled and decided to seek out a smaller quieter place to cultivate. On the morning he had packed his bag and was on his way out of the gates of Zi Xiao towards he did not yet know where, one foot had stepped over the door rise and one foot was still inside, a messenger came running up the steps towards him.

The messenger said:

- "I am looking for a man by the name of Du, have you seen him?"

Li Shifu replied: - "My surname is Du."

- "Ah, then I have found you!"

The messenger explained to Li Shifu that he was to take him to White Horse Mountain where the Abbess was waiting to meet him. When he arrived, Li Shifu asked Tao Shifu how she had known his name and she only laughed in return.

Li Shifu stayed with her until her ascension to immortality in the year 2000, learning from her scripture, herbs, inner alchemy, and of all intangible things, most importantly the cultivation of life and character, making merit and dispelling desires. He then took her place as Abbot of the Five Immortal Temple.

*Special thanks to Lindsey Wei for allowing me to use this info and for sharing with us.

TAO FA ZHEN29th Generation Long Men

Five Immortals Temple, Sacred Mountains of Wudang, China.

TAO FA ZHEN
29th Generation Long Men