Quanzhen, Complete Perfection, is the principal monastic order of later Daoism, and it gave the tradition an institutional form parallel to the Buddhist sangha.
Celibate and contemplative
In contrast to the married, community-serving priests of the Zhengyi tradition, Quanzhen Daoists are typically celibate monastics living in monasteries under a disciplined rule. Its emphasis falls on inner cultivation, meditation and internal alchemy, the refinement of body and mind toward union with the Dao, rather than on the communal liturgy of exorcism and offering. It drew Daoist, Buddhist and Confucian elements together self-consciously, and its austere, contemplative character is what allowed Daoism to meet Buddhism on the ground of organised monasticism.
Mongol favour and the White Cloud
The order was founded in the twelfth century in northern China under Jurchen rule by Wang Chongyang and carried to prominence by his seven principal disciples, among them Qiu Chuji, whose journey to meet Genghis Khan won the order Mongol favour and a period of great influence. Quanzhen became the dominant monastic Daoism of the north, and its chief monastery, the White Cloud Temple in Beijing, remains a principal centre and the seat of the state-recognised Daoist association in the modern period.