What is the difference between Taoist immortals and Taoist immortals?

Of course, the immortals mentioned in the novel are actually very different from the immortals in Taoist theory. Let's talk about it today What kind of concept is immortal in Taoism? In fact, in the Taoist myth system, there are many kinds of immortals, and immortals are just one of them.

The immortal we usually talk about is just a general concept. Immortals are also a kind of immortals in Taoism, which does not mean that only those who soar to heaven are called immortals. According to missionaries in Zhong You, there are five kinds of immortals, namely, fairy, vulgar fairy, human fairy and ghost fairy. Although there is no strict boundary division among the five immortals in Taoism, there are also high and low levels. Fairy is the best, ghost fairy is the worst. The specific meaning of these five immortals is actually very easy to understand, that is, to distinguish the realm according to the different places where they live.

According to the interpretation of the Taoist classic "Yin Tian Zi Shen Jie Ba", people are immortals, immortals in the sky, immortals on the ground, daffodils in the water, and immortals can be flexible. It's a simple concept, just understand the literal meaning. Immortals are naturally already in the sky, not in the world. Immortals are tired of the world, but they are not enough to soar. Generally, they live in overseas fairy mountains. Immortals can live forever, but they are greedy for the secular world and live happily on earth. Immortals keep fit and prolong their lives, which is better than the average person.

The narcissus mentioned above is actually a ghost fairy among the five immortals. As the name implies, a ghost fairy is a person who practices immortality after death, so people who die in the water become immortals, that is, daffodils, such as Wu Zixu and Qu Yuan. They all died by jumping into the river, so they are called daffodils.

Of course, it is not the only way to classify immortals into five categories. Ge Hong's "Bao Pu Zi On Immortals" divides immortals into three types. Staff sergeant promotes its shape and its emptiness, which is called immortals; The sergeant traveled to a famous mountain and was called a fairy; Corporal slough after death first, which is called corpse-dissolving fairy.

Among them, the division between immortals and earthly immortals is similar to the concept of immortals and earthly immortals mentioned in Zhong You's The Missionary, while autopsy immortals generally refer to a kind of immortals who have failed to cultivate truth and abandoned their flesh to cultivate truth. However, Du Jie's failure does not exist in Taoism. Immortality is just a special way of practicing Taoism in the early days. Abandoning the body or replacing the body with a fake offering becomes immortality. This method of becoming immortal was later abandoned by Taoism and is not often said.

There is also a concept of scattered immortals, which is different from the concept in the novel. In Taoism, scattered immortals refer to immortals who have not been awarded official titles in heaven, which means scattered immortals are also the lowest immortals. There are also such examples, such as barefoot immortals, which are famous scattered immortals in Taoism.