A first-person account of Daoist ritual life across mountain temples
Debra Liu is an Australian author and Daoist practitioner whose work intersects cultural history, religious ritual, and personal experience. Of Anglo-Celtic background, she was ordained into Qing Song Guan (青松观), the Evergreen Daoist Temple, a non-monastic Daoist order based in Brisbane. In 1993, she participated in the Luo Tian Da Jiao—the highest Daoist grand ceremony—at the White Cloud Temple (Baiyunguan) in Beijing, as one of only four non-Chinese delegates. Her book Into the Mountains, published by Earnshaw Books, recounts her initiation into the Daoist tradition in Australia, followed by her extended time living in China, where she travelled extensively to sacred mountains including Taishan, Huashan, Wudangshan, Luofushan and Qingchengshan.
Liu spent fifteen years in China, where she lived and married, working in major cities while engaging in Daoist ritual life. Her writing draws on first-hand encounters with mountain temples, oral histories, and ceremonial practices, and documents how Daoism persisted through political disruptions and resumed through community efforts, intergenerational transmission, and pilgrimages. She focuses on how sacred geography, lineage, and lay participation continue to shape the lived tradition of Daoism in contemporary China.
How did your interest in Daoism first emerge?
I was always interested in China, since childhood. Aged 17, I walked into a bookstore and saw the Wilhelm-Baynes translation of the I Ching – before even touching the book, I just knew I had to have it. I carried that same dog-eared copy around with me, whenever I moved house or country. Shortly after that I purchased a copy of the Dao De Jing – I can’t remember which version nor which translator. I recall feeling somehow connected to both books. I continued reading – in those pre-internet days, it was about whatever books might have been available to purchase.
What do you recall about your first visits to Qing Song Guan?
Excitement, joy, and most of all, a deep sense of belonging. I felt like I was where I should be.
What aspects of Daoist liturgy or ritual practice were most difficult to learn in the beginning? What were the most challenging aspects of integrating into Daoist ritual life as a non-Chinese woman?
There are two questions here.
With respect to liturgy and ritual practice, I fell into it like meeting an old friend – when I would don my Daoist clothes and walk inside the altar, I was transformed into a different reality, where I somehow just knew how to sing, when to bow, when to chant. It felt very natural, and joyous.
Studying was more like reinforcing what I instinctively felt I ‘knew’, though to describe how I ‘knew’, is difficult. Although I was not literate in classical Chinese, I was able to sing and chant with phonetics underneath. This did not seem problematic to me at all, as once inside the altar, I was in another reality, a place of existence that cannot be described, nor understood, in ordinary terms. In my heart and soul, I understood perfectly.
When various passages of the texts were translated to me it seemed to match my intuitive understanding, only more beautiful. Daoist texts are very poetic, and deeply moving.
I would say that the most challenging aspect wasn’t the ritual life, but the associated cultural setting – outside the altar. At first I was bemused by Cantonese culture and didn’t really understand many things about particular cultural aspects of life in the Cantonese community.
In places like Hengshan or Huashan, how did the interaction between tourism and sacred geography affect your experience?
To answer to this question, the response is not so much spatial but temporal. I was fortunate to visit places like Taishan in the late nineties, then returned a few times afterwards. Over the years and decades, time has changed the way people travel, and access to mountaintops has become easier with cable cars and fast speed trains. Certainly, towards the later years, crowds increased.
For me however, when I would go to Daoist spaces, be they in the mountains or in temples in cities, I always felt such amazement that fate had brought me to these places. I felt, and still do, an extraordinary gratitude that I was able to see so many wonderous places connected to the Daoist tradition. Of course, the over-tourism in a place like Huashan, I find sad, but Daoists have survived through millennia during the ups and downs of imperial support and also times of isolation and not so much support. Daoists have always continued practising our religion, regardless.
I also believe that the qi of each mountain is special and tangible, and one can access the spirit of place if one is so attuned, regardless of the busy-ness around.
Several of the mountains are associated with specific Daoist schools—how visible were these differences during your visits?
The differences were not so visible to me. There would be certain external differences – style of hats for example – and the musical style of some rituals particular to the particular school or lineage, but for me personally, I didn’t focus on these differences.
What role did lay practitioners and local communities play in sustaining Daoist rituals in modern China?
Great question. A really important role! There would always be a group of Aunties and Grandmothers giving practical support, like the Grandmothers at Taishan, embroidering Daoist cloths and washing robes, or the brigade of women at Hemingshan, folding paper money. At Luofushan a group of local people, women and men, but especially women, would regularly come up the mountain and pray, light incense, and then help with sweeping and cleaning altars.
Along with this practical support, each temple would have a register, a list of lay practitioners, who would come for important rituals. These lay people would follow the priests/nuns in ritual observance, bowing and genuflecting in unison. Some temples provided kneeling stools for lay practitioners, so they would be close to the altar and would be given opportunities for deeper participation, such as chanting.
Many other people would also arrive during ritual ceremonies to light incense, give offerings, and pray. Most temples also offered study classes for the lay community. Charity work is also a large part of lay practitioners’ role. In short, the role of lay practitioners and local communities is diverse and varied, but plays an essential part in the ongoing living tradition of Daoism.
What does lineage mean in practice, particularly for someone not born into Chinese cultural context?
For me, lineage is not as personally relevant as for someone born and raised in China. In terms of practice, I follow the traditions of Qing Song Guan, a Hong Kong based temple in the Quanzhen Longmen lineage, and as such we follow the precepts of Ancestor Lu Dongbin and Ancestor Qiu Chuji.
Our ascended Abbot Hou Bao Yuan had hundreds of personal disciples. Some westerners – often martial artists -do go to China and are adopted into a lineage-based system. For those people the lineage is also more important. As my temple was in a Western country, that traditional lineage system wasn’t so obvious, but rather connected internally with other Qingsong Guan temples across the world.
How did historical disruptions like the Cultural Revolution or Republican-era temple closures affect the continuity of mountain-based Daoist ritual? Are there local archives or oral accounts that helped preserve what was lost?
When I was first in Baiyunguan for the Luo Tian Da Jiao Grand Ceremony, I walked into an altar which housed a centuries-old statue of Laozi. The energy of this altar was palpable, and deeply spiritual. The attendant monk told me it had just come out of hiding – sensing the troubles of the Cultural Revolution, monks at Baiyunguan had hidden many relics for protection. They brought it out just days before the commencement of the Grand Ceremony.
The monk accepted this as simply matter of fact and told me this same statue had been buried many times over its long history, when Daoism was not in favour with various imperial dynasties.
This is the same with mountain Daoists. Some hid deeper in the mountains, practising in caves. Others may have left the mountain and kept personal practice. During the Japanese invasion prior to World War Two, many Wudangshan Daoists left the mountain to fight for their country, only to return to the temples later. One way or another, the traditions remained.
Sichuan is one place where traditions were kept by mountain Daoists practising in caves. As the temples came to life again in the 1980s and become functioning places of worship, older Sichuanese Daoists returned to temple-based life and would travel to other temples to teach and ensure the traditions continued. Jiang Zhilin was a ritual master from Chengdu who had retired. In the 1980s, Qingchengshan Daoist College invited him there to teach. Along with ritual knowledge, Daoist Jiang was noted for his excellent musical knowledge and ability, and he trained acolytes in Sichuanese Daoist music. He also specialised in ordination rituals. When Beijing’s Baiyunguan reinstated ordination rites in 1989, Jiang Zhilin was invited to perform the ordination ceremonies.
Hemingshan Daoist temple, as part of the Sichuanese tradition, also was home to a number of elders who were ritual specialists. In 2011, a group of Hemingshan Daoists went to Wuhan, to perform special rituals and train Daoists there.
In this way, the traditions were kept alive, through sharing and education amongst the Daoist community over China.
I believe there are many local archives, and certainly would be many oral accounts. It was particularly the living, breathing experience of the elders who retained the knowledge, and shared this once it was possible to do so.
We have a lot to be grateful for to those elders.
What role did sacred mountains play in Daoist pilgrimage networks historically, and how have those routes or circuits changed in the contemporary era?
The sacred mountains were central to pilgrimages historically. In my book, I detail how Laoshan, in Shandong, and Luofushan, in the south in Guangdong, had a connection spiralling over centuries. We have to remember, back in the day, this meant people literally walking for 2,000 miles. (The distance between Laoshan and Luofushan is around 1900 kilometres.)
The tianshi or Celestial Masters school had pilgrimage networks amongst the ‘dioceses’ in Sichuan during the second and third Centuries CE. The dioceses were constructed according to Daoist beliefs in mapping the heavens on earth, and movements between the various dioceses were in accordance with the Celestial Masters geo-cosmological system.
Regional networks, for example in Shandong, were also vibrant historically. Qiu Chuji ， founder of the Dragon Gate school, would travel with other Quanzhen Daoists around regional Shandong – from Laizhou to Laoshan, Penglai and Yantai, where they would preach, support the local community, study and cultivate.
In the contemporary era, no-one has to walk for six months across changing countryside. The tradition of Cloud Travelling （云游）where Daoists wander through the countryside from one temple to another, to study and learn from various traditions, is still alive. I ran into a number of wandering Daoists whilst I lived in China, monks and nuns who were going to other places to learn. Regional, provincial based networks are still in place, but for a Yun-You Daoist, modern travel makes it easy to travel to other temples. For example, someone from Wuhan could easily hop on a train and go to Beijing. I met a Daoist once doing just that. He told me he was headed straight to Baiyunguan once he arrived in Beijing. They did not know he was arriving, but he would be welcomed there.
Topics: Daoist temples in China, Qing Song Guan Daoism, sacred mountains in Daoist practice, Australian Daoists in China, Baiyunguan Daoist ceremony, Luofushan pilgrimage, Daoist rituals in modern China, post-Mao religious revival
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