Breathing Spaces

Breathing Spaces PDF Author: Nancy N. Chen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231502214
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The charismatic form of healing called qigong, based on meditative breathing exercises, has achieved enormous popularity in China during the last two decades. Qigong served a critical social organizational function, as practitioners formed new informal networks, sometimes on an international scale, at a time when China was shifting from state-subsidized medical care to for-profit market medicine. The emergence of new psychological states deemed to be deviant led the Chinese state to "medicalize" certain forms while championing scientific versions of qigong. By contrast, qigong continues to be promoted outside China as a traditional healing practice. Breathing Spaces brings to life the narratives of numerous practitioners, healers, psychiatric patients, doctors, and bureaucrats, revealing the varied and often dramatic ways they cope with market reform and social changes in China.

Breathing Spaces

Breathing Spaces PDF Author: Nancy N. Chen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231128053
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The charismatic form of healing called qigong, which at its core involves meditative breathing exercises, achieved enormous popularity in China during the last two decades. Anthropologist Nancy N. Chen examines the cultural context of medicine and healing practices in the PRC, Taiwan, and the United States, and the pages of her book come alive with the narratives of the numerous practitioners, healers, psychiatric patients, doctors, and bureaucrats she interviewed.

Falun Gong and the Future of China

Falun Gong and the Future of China PDF Author: David Ownby
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199887012
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
On April 25, 1999, ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside Zhongnanhai, the guarded compound where China's highest leaders live and work, in a day-long peaceful protest of police brutality against fellow practitioners in the neighboring city of Tianjin. Stunned and surprised, China's leaders launched a campaign of brutal suppression against the group which continues to this day. This book, written by a leading scholar of the history of this Chinese popular religion, is the first to offer a full explanation of what Falun Gong is and where it came from, placing the group in the broader context of the modern history of Chinese religion as well as the particular context of post-Mao China. Falun Gong began as a form of qigong, a general name describing physical and mental disciplines based loosely on traditional Chinese medical and spiritual practices. Qigong was "invented" in the 1950s by members of the Chinese medical establishment who were worried that China's traditional healing arts would be lost as China modeled its new socialist health care system on Western biomedicine. In the late 1970s, Chinese scientists "discovered" that qi possessed genuine scientific qualities, which allowed qigong to become part of China's drive for modernization. With the support of China's leadership, qigong became hugely popular in the 1980s and 1990s, as charismatic qigongqigong boom, the first genuine mass movement in the history of the People's Republic. Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi started his own school of qigong in 1992, claiming that the larger movement had become corrupted by money and magic tricks. Li was welcomed into the qigong world and quickly built a nationwide following of several million practitioners, but ran afoul of China's authorities and relocated to the United States in 1995. In his absence, followers in China began to organize peaceful protests of perceived media slights of Falun Gong, which increased from the mid-'90s onward as China's leaders began to realize that they had created, in the qigong boom, a mass movement with religious and nationalistic undertones, a potential threat to their legitimacy and control. Based on fieldwork among Chinese Falun Gong practitioners in North America and on close examinations of Li Hongzhi's writings, this volume offers an inside look at the movement's history in Chinese popular religion.

Tokens of Exchange

Tokens of Exchange PDF Author: Lydia H. Liu
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822381125
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
The problem of translation has become increasingly central to critical reflections on modernity and its universalizing processes. Approaching translation as a symbolic and material exchange among peoples and civilizations—and not as a purely linguistic or literary matter, the essays in Tokens of Exchange focus on China and its interactions with the West to historicize an economy of translation. Rejecting the familiar regional approach to non-Western societies, contributors contend that “national histories” and “world history” must be read with absolute attention to the types of epistemological translatability that have been constructed among the various languages and cultures in modern times. By studying the production and circulation of meaning as value in areas including history, religion, language, law, visual art, music, and pedagogy, essays consider exchanges between Jesuit and Protestant missionaries and the Chinese between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and focus on the interchanges occasioned by the spread of capitalism and imperialism. Concentrating on ideological reciprocity and nonreciprocity in science, medicine, and cultural pathologies, contributors also posit that such exchanges often lead to racialized and essentialized ideas about culture, sexuality, and nation. The collection turns to the role of language itself as a site of the universalization of knowledge in its contemplation of such processes as the invention of Basic English and the global teaching of the English language. By focusing on the moments wherein meaning-value is exchanged in the translation from one language to another, the essays highlight the circulation of the global in the local as they address the role played by historical translation in the universalizing processes of modernity and globalization. The collection will engage students and scholars of global cultural processes, Chinese studies, world history, literary studies, history of science, and anthropology, as well as cultural and postcolonial studies. Contributors. Jianhua Chen, Nancy Chen, Alexis Dudden Eastwood, Roger Hart, Larissa Heinrich, James Hevia, Andrew F. Jones, Wan Shun Eva Lam, Lydia H. Liu, Deborah T. L. Sang, Haun Saussy, Q. S. Tong, Qiong Zhang

Daily Report

Daily Report PDF Author: United States. Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 844

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Book Description


The Secret of the Mystic Meditation Practice(禪修密中秘)

The Secret of the Mystic Meditation Practice(禪修密中秘) PDF Author: Sakyaqingyang(釋迦青陽)
Publisher: 全方文化
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
According to our plan, it is time to publish our second scripture, The Mysteries of Dharma Bodies. However, after our readers had finished reading the first scripture, Rectifying Fallacies of Modern Buddhism, most inquiries were concerning how to practice the Qingyang meditation method. The author feels obliged to publish a guidance book on the practice of the Qingyang meditation in order to help people go about their practice. *The meditation practice, as followed by the disciples of Buddha-to-Be Religion, has a legacy of lineage order; from ancient times up to this day, it has been passed down from generation to generation. This meditation practice originates from the correct Dharma. Therefore, our ancestors, who had undergone the practice of high-level meditation practice, cultivated and developed the high Dharma Bodies and eventually entered Nirvana. **The meditation our disciples practice is the “Meditation of Life and Wisdom.” But, in the earlier phase, we stress the practice of the “Meditation of Life” to help develop health and longevity, and in the later phase, we emphasize the practice of the “Meditation of Wisdom” to develop wisdom and potential.

Daily Report

Daily Report PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 1008

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Book Description


Chinese Religious Life

Chinese Religious Life PDF Author: David A. Palmer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199911355
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars, this volume provides an in-depth introduction to religion in contemporary China. Instead of adopting the traditional focus on pre-modern religious history and doctrinal traditions, Chinese Religious Life examines the social dimensions of religious life, with essays devoted to religion in urban, rural, and ethnic minority settings; to the religious dimensions of body, gender, environment, and civil society; and to the historical, sociological, economic, and political aspects of religion in contemporary Chinese society.

Clouds Over Qingcheng Mountain

Clouds Over Qingcheng Mountain PDF Author: Wang Yun
Publisher: Singing Dragon
ISBN: 1787755215
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Immersing the mind with the concepts of the Daoist path of health and immortality, Clouds over Qingcheng Mountain invokes the sacred birthplace of one of China's mystical mountains that has stimulated both mind and body for generations. Whilst the first volume, Climbing the Steps to Qingcheng Mountain, invited the reader to travel across time and through the history of China and Daoism, Clouds over Qingcheng Mountain is more focused in the book's purpose. Wang Yun places special focus on relaxation and the breath through five sets of foundational yet all-encompassing practices, such as posting, to deepen both themes. He offers tales from his life and journey, along with accessible tools to strengthen both body and qi. Bridging the gap between practical experience and philosophical background, Clouds over Qingcheng Mountain simplifies the complex practices of Daoism handed down by generations of accomplished Masters, and gifts the reader with its most valuable aspects for a modern world.

The Six Healing Sounds

The Six Healing Sounds PDF Author: Mantak Chia
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1594779651
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
The Six Healing Sounds that keep the vital organs in optimal condition • Presents vocalizations and accompanying postures that dissolve the tensions at the root of unhealthy chi flow and organ malfunction • Shows how to release excess heat trapped around the organs and redistribute it to cooler regions of the body to bring balance, health, and calmness to the entire system Thousands of years ago Taoist masters discovered that a healthy organ vibrates at a particular frequency. They found six sounds with the correct frequencies to keep each organ in optimal condition. To accompany these Six Healing Sounds, six postures were developed to activate the acupuncture meridians, or energy channels, of the corresponding organs. In The Six Healing Sounds Master Mantak Chia explains how the pressures of modern life can cause excess heat to become trapped around the organs, causing energy blockages and sickness. He shows readers how the vibrations of the Six Healing Sounds and their accompanying postures redistribute this excess heat to the cooler regions of the body, thereby stimulating and balancing chi energy and restoring the vital organs. Regular practice of the Six Healing Sounds promotes optimal health for the organs, increased sexual pleasure, emotional balance, and the prevention of illness.

Falun Gong

Falun Gong PDF Author: Li Hongzhi
Publisher: B Jain Publishers Pvt Limited
ISBN: 9788131907504
Category : Exercise
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Falun Gong is an introductory text, systematically presenting the practice of Falun Gong. This book includes instructions and photo illustrations for performing the five sets of Falun Gong exercises. Falun Gong is a high-level cultivation practice guided by the characteristics of the universeTruthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance. Cultivation means continuously striving to better harmonize oneself with these universal principles. Practice refers to the exercises five sets of easy-to-learn gentle movements and meditation. Cultivating oneself is essential; practicing the exercises supplements the process.