The lineages that carry the tradition.

The younger of Taoism's two great living branches, and today its dominant monastic tradition. Founded by Wang Chongyang in the 1160s, Quanzhen fused Taoist internal alchemy with Chan Buddhist meditation discipline and Confucian ethics into a single celibate, monastic path. Its transmission passed to Wang's "Seven Perfected" disciples, of whom Qiu Chuji's Longmen ("Dragon Gate") sub-lineage — headquartered at White Cloud Temple in Beijing — is by far the largest surviving branch.

Practice. Monastic, celibate clergy living in community; emphasis on neidan (internal alchemy), meditation, moral cultivation, and study, with far less ritual/talismanic practice than Zhengyi.

The older of the two great living branches, tracing its founding to Zhang Daoling's revelation from the deified Laozi in 142 CE and the establishment of the Way of the Celestial Masters — the first organised Taoist religious institution. Zhengyi priesthood is hereditary or apprenticed rather than monastic; priests may marry, live among their communities, and are called on for ritual services — exorcism, talismans, funerary rites, and communal festivals — rather than withdrawn cultivation.

Practice. Married or lay priesthood, ritual- and talisman-centered (fu, registers, exorcistic rites), embedded in lay community religious life rather than monastery-based.

An early and highly literary school of revealed scripture and visionary meditation, centered historically at Mount Mao (Maoshan) near Nanjing. Shangqing practice emphasises inner visualisation of the body as a landscape inhabited by resident deities, and produced some of Taoism's most sophisticated meditative and cosmological literature. Its scriptures and methods were later absorbed into the broader Taoist canon and into Quanzhen practice.

Practice. Visionary meditation, inner visualisation of celestial deities resident within the practitioner's own body, scripture transmission through a defined patriarchal lineage.

A ritually elaborate school that drew heavily on Mahayana Buddhist cosmology — universal salvation, multiple heavens and hells, communal liturgy — to build the large-scale public rites (zhai, purification retreats; jiao, offering rituals) that remain the backbone of Taoist communal ceremony today. Lingbao liturgical structure was absorbed into both Zhengyi and Quanzhen practice and underlies most large public Taoist ritual performed in Chinese communities worldwide.

Practice. Large-scale communal liturgy — purification retreats (zhai) and cosmic renewal offerings (jiao) performed for entire communities rather than individual cultivation.