The so-called old gentleman is just a description. The purpose is to unify all laws and achieve the same goal by different routes. The old gentleman here, or Sanqing, has no meaning, only one word. Tao is everywhere, everywhere. The so-called Sanqing, whether it is heaven or earth, has its own Sanqing. The process from scratch.
But nowadays people only look at the surface of words, not the roots. This sentence itself is good, but what is wrong is that people have misunderstood it.
In modern times, many people think that Sanqing (early Yuan Dynasty, Lingbao, Taishang Laojun) was transformed by a nihilistic natural old gentleman. Although Taoism now refers to the actual Buddha, not the three talents. However, the "Sanqing" of the early old gentleman neither refers to the three-day Buddha nor the Sanqing realm.
Another reason why people confuse this concept now is that they mistake the Sanqing enshrined in Taoism for Taoism. And the old gentleman's "three cleanings, one gasification and three cleanings" are three talents, which can also be said to be a process, or it can be said that it does not represent anything specific.
Sanqing, which is now enshrined by Taoism, is a "figure", a god who survived the robbery, not a Tao. The nihilistic natural god mentioned in the Taoist scriptures is the old gentleman, not the old gentleman who is too high in Sanqing. This old gentleman is not too tall, and this Sanqing is not very clear. One is the evolution of Tao, and the other is becoming a Buddha, which is totally different. Everything can have you, but you are not everything.
The old gentleman's enlightenment of the Three Clearances describes the continuation, evolution and formation of the Tao, which means that the Tao is omnipresent and all-encompassing, not the Three Clearances you worship.