Sun Bu'er (孙不二)

Sun Bu'er (1119–1182), original name Sun Fuchun — the only woman among the Quanzhen Seven Perfected, wife of Ma Yu, founder of the Qingjing (Clear-Stillness) lineage, remembered as Immortal Lady Sun. The Seven Cranes birth legend, the couple who became fellow disciples, and the retreat in the Fengxian'gu cave at Luoyang where she died in sitting.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCETRADITIONAL / LINEAGE INTERPRETATION

Who she was

The only woman among the Seven Perfected — and, by marriage, half of the archive’s most famous pair of fellow disciples. Sun Bu’er (孙不二, 1119–1182) was born Sun Fuchun (孙富春) into the wealthy Ninghai family whose other half appears on this site’s Ma Yu page: she was Ma Yu’s wife, mother of their three sons, and — when Wang Chongyang arrived in 1167 and was lodged in their house — she became his disciple together with her husband. The marriage that had produced the three sons became a pair of fellow students; the school’s memory of the conversion is inseparable from hers. Her dharma name 不二 (Bu’er — “not two”) and her title 清静散人 (Qingjing Sanren, “the Clear-Stillness Wanderer”) gave their name to the lineage she founded: the 清静派, the Qingjing lineage, the quiet wing of Quanzhen — and her popular name 孙仙姑 (Immortal Lady Sun) marks the rare case of a woman entering the Seven Perfected as a founder, not a footnote.

What the sources record — and disagree on

• The dates: two versions, both registered. The majority tradition and the Chinese encyclopedia entries give 1119–1182; the Wikipedia entry gives precise dates of February 16, 1119 – January 24, 1183. Per this site’s rule for disputed facts (record both, judge neither), both appear here. The difference is one year; the sources agree on the century, the place, and the life.
• The birth legend: seven cranes dance in the courtyard. The lineage tradition (registered here as traditional, not historical) says that at her birth seven cranes danced in the courtyard — the portent that later readings connected to her place among seven disciples. The site files this with the same flag as the other birth omens on the Wang Chongyang and Ma Yu pages: lineage interpretation, not evidence.
• The conversion: the household was the hinge. In 1167 Wang Chongyang came to Ninghai and was lodged in the Ma household — the house that became the 全真庵, the school’s first permanent address (the building that gave Quanzhen its name; see the Ma Yu page). Sun Bu’er’s conversion happened inside the home, and the sources preserve the specific difficulty: she was, as the Epoch Times account puts it, initially held back by family ties — the same entanglement the Ma Yu page records for her husband. The tradition credits Wang Chongyang’s teaching of gradual release (the “ten separations” from the pear) with working on both spouses; the site notes the pattern without endorsing its mechanisms: the archive’s founding generation is repeatedly described as extracted from family wealth rather than lifted out of it.
• The retreat: the cave at Luoyang. After ordination she withdrew to the Fengxian’gu (凤仙姑洞) area near Luoyang — the site where, by the received account, she died in sitting posture (趺坐而化). The Wikipedia phrasing (于洛阳风仙姑洞趺坐) is the soberest version; the tradition adds the detail that her death in sitting was the completion of the practice rather than an accident of biography. Registered as traditional.
• The lineage. The Qingjing lineage she founded is remembered as the school’s women’s line and its stillness line — the two descriptions are not competing but consecutive: the lineage was founded by its only woman founder, and its name is the practice. This site’s jingzuo page holds the vocabulary that made the name possible: 清静, clear stillness, was already the common coin of the meditation tradition her school took as its badge.

Why she is on this site

Because the Quanzhen founding generation is not complete without its woman founder — and because her story is the archive’s clearest instance of the pattern this site’s teacher question tracks: the couple who became fellow disciples. The Ma Yu page ends with the image of the man who paid for the school refusing its money; the Sun Bu’er page supplies the other half of the same story — the wife who entered the same school from inside the same house, and whose lineage carried the practice’s stillest name. The two pages are best read as one record: one marriage, one teacher, one school, two lineages — and the school’s own memory registering that a woman’s cave at Luoyang is one of the places where its founding happened.

Sources

• Baike.baidu.com entry on Sun Bu'er (item 2402303): 孙不二（公元1119–1182年），名富春，志童，法名不二，号清静散人，或称孙仙姑。金代宁海县（今山东牟平）人。本马丹阳之妻，生三子。金大定七年，王重阳住其家 [full entry cross-checked 2026-10-07]
• Daode.in entry '全真仙姑孙不二' (jwsx/09/1548.htm): 孙不二（1119-1182），原名孙富春，'不二'为法名，道号'清静散人'，是全真七子中唯一的女性，马钰之妻，全真教清静派创立者
• Zh.wikipedia.org entry on Sun Bu'er: dates 1119年2月16日—1183年1月24日, 自号清静散人，人称孙仙姑，山东宁海人，金朝道教人物，全真七子之一，全真教清静派创始人；孙不二于洛阳风仙姑洞趺坐[而化]
• Epoch Times account of the Ma Yu / Sun Bu'er story (2009-09-08): the couple before ordination, the renaming from Sun Fuchun to Sun Bu'er, the title 清静散人 and the popular name 孙仙姑
• Sohu account of Sun Bu'er among the Seven Perfected (244794515): the married couple who became fellow disciples after both took Wang Chongyang as teacher