Daoist Body Cultivation

Daoist Body Cultivation PDF Author: Livia Kohn
Publisher: Three Pine Press
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Daoist Body Cultivation is a comprehensive volume by a group of dedicated scholars and practitioners that covers the key practices of medical healing, breathing techniques, diets and fasting, healing exercises, sexual practices, Qigong, and Taiji quan. Each presentation places the practice in its historical and cultural context and relates its current application and efficaciousness. Ultimately aiming to energetically transform the person into a spiritual and trancendent being, Daoist cultivation techniques have proven beneficial for health time and again and can make an important contribution in the world today. Daoist Body Cultivation provides a deeper understanding of the practices in their cultural and historical contexts, bridging the gap between healing and religion and allowing both scholars and practitioner to reach a deeper understanding and appreciation. Contributors: Shawn Arthur, Bede Bidlack, Catherine Despeux, Stephen Jackowicz, Lonny Jarrett, Livia Kohn, Louis Komjathy, Michael Winn.

Daoist Body Cultivation

Daoist Body Cultivation PDF Author: Livia Kohn
Publisher: Three Pine Press
ISBN:
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
Daoist Body Cultivation is a comprehensive volume by a group of dedicated scholars and practitioners that covers the key practices of medical healing, breathing techniques, diets and fasting, healing exercises, sexual practices, Qigong, and Taiji quan. Each presentation places the practice in its historical and cultural context and relates its current application and efficaciousness. Ultimately aiming to energetically transform the person into a spiritual and trancendent being, Daoist cultivation techniques have proven beneficial for health time and again and can make an important contribution in the world today. Daoist Body Cultivation provides a deeper understanding of the practices in their cultural and historical contexts, bridging the gap between healing and religion and allowing both scholars and practitioner to reach a deeper understanding and appreciation. Contributors: Shawn Arthur, Bede Bidlack, Catherine Despeux, Stephen Jackowicz, Lonny Jarrett, Livia Kohn, Louis Komjathy, Michael Winn.

Cultivating Stillness

Cultivating Stillness PDF Author: Eva Wong
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 0834823780
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
A principal part of the Taoist canon for many centuries, this Lao-Tzu classic is an essential overview of the Taoist practice of internal alchemy, or qigong Equanimity, good health, peace of mind, and long life are the goals of the ancient Taoist tradition known as “internal alchemy,” of which Cultivating Stillness is a key text. Written between the second and fifth centuries, the book is attributed to T’ai Shang Lao-chun—the legendary figure more widely known as Lao-Tzu, author of the Tao-te Ching. The accompanying commentary, written in the nineteenth century by Shui-ch’ing Tzu, explains the alchemical symbolism of the text and the methods for cultivating internal stillness of body and mind. A key text in the Taoist canon, Cultivating Stillness is still the first book studied by Taoist initiates today.

Taoism and Self Knowledge

Taoism and Self Knowledge PDF Author: Catherine Despeux
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900438345X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Catherine Despeux’s book Taoism and Self Knowledge is a study of the Internal Alchemical text "Chart for the Cultivation of Perfection." It begins with an analysis of pictographic and symbolic representation of the body in early Taoism after which the author examines different extant versions of the "Chart" as it was transmitted among Quanzhen groups in the Qing dynasty. The book is comprised of four main parts: the principal parts of the body and their nomenclature in Internal Alchemy, the spirits in the human body, and the alchemical processes and procedures used in thunder rituals and self-cultivation. This is a revised, expanded edition of the original French edition Taoïsme et connaissance de soi. La carte de la culture de la perfection (Xiuzhen tu) Paris, 2012.

Taoist Meditation

Taoist Meditation PDF Author: Thomas Cleary
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
ISBN: 083482549X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 140

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Book Description
A curated collection of ancient texts that shed light on the full breadth of Taoist meditation practices The ancient meditation techniques of Taoism encompass a wide range of practices—with an aim toward cultivating a healthy body as well as an enlightened mind. These selections from classic texts of Taoist meditation represent the entire range of techniques—from sitting meditation practices to internal alchemy. Most of the texts appear here in English for the first time. Selections are taken from the following classics: • Anthology on Cultivation of Realization: A document from 1739 (Ming Dynasty) that emphasizes development of the natural, social, and spiritual elements in human life. • Treatise on Sitting Forgetting: A Tang Dynasty text that sets meditation practice in terms familiar to Confucians and Buddhists. • Sayings of Taoist Master Danyang: Wisdom of the Taoist wizard and representative of the Complete Reality School. • Secret Writings on the Mechanism of Nature: An anthology taken from one hundred sixty-three Taoist sources, including ancient classics and works on meditation and spiritual alchemy, along with admonitions and teachings of the great Taoist luminaries. • Zhang Sanfeng's Taiji Alchemy Secrets: A treatise on the inner mediation practices that are the proper foundation of the martial art Taiji. • Secret Records of Understanding the Way: A rare and remarkable collection of talks by an anonymous Taoist master of the later Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Traditional teachings with a sometimes strikingly modern bent.

Nourishing Destiny

Nourishing Destiny PDF Author: Lonny S. Jarrett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy, Chinese
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description


Daoist Cultivation of Qi and Virtue for Life, Wisdom, and Learning

Daoist Cultivation of Qi and Virtue for Life, Wisdom, and Learning PDF Author: Tom Culham
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030449475
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
This book explores Daoist philosophies of qi and virtue through inquiry into their potential as technologies for cultivating good among individuals and society within educational settings, as well as in the modern world. The first part of the book, authored by Jing Lin, examines Daoist cosmology, axiology, and epistemology. She illuminates qi cultivation’s reliance on the accumulation of virtues, leading to transformation of the body and even—extraordinarily—the abilities of Daoist masters to transcend physical limitations to achieve health, longevity, and immortality. The second part of the book, authored by Tom Culham, establishes an understanding of qi and virtue as a technology within the Daoist paradigm, outlining the benefits of its cultivation while illuminating how contemporary Western philosophy and science support this paradigm. Both authors explore new forms of education to incorporate Daoist wisdom in schooling.

Daoist Internal Mastery

Daoist Internal Mastery PDF Author: Liping Wang
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1931483396
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This book translates Master Wang's original practice instructions and discourses given during training seminars. His system of internal alchemy goes back to two ancient Daoist texts: the 13th-century Lingbao bifa, linked to the immortals Zhongli Quan and L Dongbin; and the 17th-century Taiyi jinhua zongzhi (Secret of the Golden Flower), also connected to L . Together they are known as the Lingbao tong zhineng neigong shu (Arts of Internal Mastery, Wisdom, and Potential, Based on Numinous Treasure). The texts outline the concoction of a golden elixir through the dual cultivation of inner nature and life-destiny. This book follows the classics and presents all different kinds of techniques--including walking, pacing, sleeping, circulating the five phases, absorbing tree energy, and capturing planetary essences--in a systematic format and with a great amount of instructional detail. It contains a wealth of information invaluable to anyone interested in genuine Daoist cultivation and elucidates numerous rather obscure concepts to contextualize each practice.

Cultivating Perfection

Cultivating Perfection PDF Author: Louis Komjathy
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047421736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
This important work focuses on early Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism, a twelfth-century Daoist religious movement and subsequent monastic order. Emphasis in this first study to approach Quanzhen from a comparative religious studies perspective is placed on the complex interplay among views of self, specific training regimens, and the types of experiences that were expected to follow from dedicated praxis. On the basis of historical contextualization and textual analysis it is demonstrated that in its formative and incipient organized phases Quanzhen was a Daoist religious community consisting of a few renunciants dedicated to religious praxis. The study proper is followed by a complete annotated translation of a text attributed to the founder, which represents one of only two early Quanzhen texts translated to date. Subsequent appendices address issues of dating and contents of the early textual corpus as well as technical Quanzhen religious terminology.

China's Green Religion

China's Green Religion PDF Author: James Miller
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231544537
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
How can Daoism, China's indigenous religion, give us the aesthetic, ethical, political, and spiritual tools to address the root causes of our ecological crisis and construct a sustainable future? In China's Green Religion, James Miller shows how Daoism orients individuals toward a holistic understanding of religion and nature. Explicitly connecting human flourishing to the thriving of nature, Daoism fosters a "green" subjectivity and agency that transforms what it means to live a flourishing life on earth. Through a groundbreaking reconstruction of Daoist philosophy and religion, Miller argues for four key, green insights: a vision of nature as a subjective power that informs human life; an anthropological idea of the porous body based on a sense of qi flowing through landscapes and human beings; a tradition of knowing founded on the experience of transformative power in specific landscapes and topographies; and an aesthetic and moral sensibility based on an affective sensitivity to how the world pervades the body and the body pervades the world. Environmentalists struggle to raise consciousness for their cause, Miller argues, because their activism relies on a quasi-Christian concept of "saving the earth." Instead, environmentalists should integrate nature and culture more seamlessly, cultivating through a contemporary intellectual vocabulary a compelling vision of how the earth materially and spiritually supports human flourishing.

Foundations of Internal Alchemy

Foundations of Internal Alchemy PDF Author: Mu Wang
Publisher: Golden Elixir Press
ISBN: 0984308253
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Originally written for Chinese readers, this book provides a clear description of the Taoist practice of Internal Alchemy, or Neidan. The author outlines the four stages of the alchemical practice and clarifies several relevant terms and notions, including Essence, Breath, and Spirit; the Cinnabar Fields; the "Fire Times"; and the Embryo. The book is based on the system of the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), one of the main sources of Internal Alchemy, and contains about two hundred quotations from original Taoist texts. Table of Contents Foreword, vii INTRODUCTION, 1 The Basis: Essence and Spirit, 3 STAGES OF THE ALCHEMICAL PRACTICE IN AWAKENING TO REALITY, 11 The Four Stages, 13 "Laying the Foundations," 15 Main Points in the Practice of "Laying the Foundations," 20 The Functions of Essence, Breath, and Spirit, 36 Terms Related to the "Coagulation of the Three Treasures," 52 Conclusion of the Stage of "Laying the Foundations," 63 "Refining Essence to Transmute it into Breath," 65 "Refining Breath to Transmute it into Spirit," 99 "Refining Spirit to Return to Emptiness," 109 CONCLUSION, 119 The "Arts of the Way," 121 Tables, 123 Glossary of Chinese Characters, 133