Chinese Shamanic Tiger Qigong is a uniquely classical practice designed to bolster our health, activate our inner life power, and deepen our spiritual connection to universal energy. This book illustrates the philosophy and cultivating method of the Tiger Qigong form and unlocks the mysterious internal alchemy principle of LaoHu (Shamanic Tiger) Gong. By delving further into Xiang (Daoist symbolism) of Tiger, practitioners will receive greater benefits from studying this book and their own Tiger Qigong practice. Master Wu also shares how each movement in the Tiger Qigong practice relates to the eight extraordinary meridians, twelve organ meridians and twenty four JieQi (seasons). This knowledge will help seasoned practitioners experience new dimensions of their cultivation and sharpen their healing tools.

Families of Virtue articulates the critical role of the parent-child relationship in the moral development of infants and children. Building on thinkers and scientists across time and disciplines, from ancient Greek and Chinese philosophers to contemporary feminist ethicists and attachment theorists, this book takes an effective approach for strengthening families and the character of children. Early Confucian philosophers argue that the general ethical sensibilities we develop during infancy and early childhood form the basis for nearly every virtue and that the parent-child relationship is the primary context within which this growth occurs. Joining these views with scientific work on early childhood, Families of Virtue shows how Western psychology can reinforce and renew the theoretical underpinnings of Confucian thought and how Confucian philosophers can affect positive social and political change in our time, particularly in such areas as paid parental leave, breastfeeding initiatives, marriage counseling, and family therapy.

Explains the science behind the practice of nei kung, the elemental nature of yin and yang energy--the two components of ch'i, and how learning to control the yang energy in our ch'i can result in the release of dynamic energy.
- Establishes the existence and understanding of nei kung in the practices of many of the world's ancient cultures.
- Includes a step-by-step guide to the meditation that forms the basis of the practice of nei kung.
- By Kosta Danaos, author of The Magus of Java and apprentice to an immortal of the Mo-Pai tradition.
In 1994 Kosta Danaos was accepted as a student by John Chang, a Chinese-Javanese Taoist in the Mo-Pai tradition and a master of nei kung, the practice of harnessing and controlling our body's bioenergy, or ch'i. Nei Kung: The Secret Teachings of the Warrior Sages describes the practice of nei kung and how learning to control our ch'i can result in the release of dynamic energy that can be used for healing, pyrogenesis, telekinesis, levitation, telepathy, and more.
Danaos suggests that both components of ch'i--yin and yang energy--are fundamental to the earth and to life and were recognized and used in many of the world's ancient cultures. Though we have forgotten how to access them, these components are in fact elemental parts of us. The author explains that we first must open our minds to the fact that the power of ch'i is real. Next, in learning to control our ch'i as a whole, we must learn to channel our yang energy in productive ways--a potential we all possess. To help readers understand their capacity to connect with this inner elemental power, the author offers a fascinating blend of teachings that include sound scientific theories explaining much of the magic of nei kung. He also offers historical, linguistic, artistic, and literary proof of the presence and understanding of nei kung throughout the ages and a step-by-step introduction to several types of simple meditation--fundamental to directing one's ch'i.
With his engaging storytelling and disarming humor, his physics-based explanations for seemingly mystical phenomena, and his reassurances that he's really no different from the rest of us, Kosta Danaos shows us that once we remember our capacity to harness our yang energy, we can change ourselves and our world.

This innovative work on Chinese concepts of the afterlife is the result of Stephen Bokenkamp's groundbreaking study of Chinese scripture and the incorporation of Indic concepts into the Chinese worldview. Here, he explores how Chinese authors, including Daoists and non-Buddhists, received and deployed ideas about rebirth from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. In tracing the antecedents of these scriptures, Bokenkamp uncovers a stunning array of non-Buddhist accounts that provide detail on the realms of the dead, their denizens, and human interactions with them. Bokenkamp demonstrates that the motive for the Daoist acceptance of Buddhist notions of rebirth lay not so much in the power of these ideas as in the work they could be made to do.

The "three treasures" of human life--vitality, energy, and spirit--are envisioned in Taoist thought as the source of creativity, capability, and intelligence. This comprehensive anthology traces the teachings on these three treasures through the long history of Taoism, highlighting the quintessential works on their practical application for mental and physical well-being. Along with brief selections from the classic sources of Taoism by Lao Tzu and Chang-tzu, the book presents a rich selection of tales and sayings from Taoist literature, as well as a broad range of writings from the Complete Reality school, including essays and commentary from such figures as Lu Yen, Chang Po-tuan, and Liu I-ming.

Representing an unprecedented collaboration among international scholars from Asia, Europe, and the United States, this volume rewrites the history of East Asia by rethinking the contentious relationship between Confucianism and women. The authors discuss the absence of women in the Confucian canonical tradition and examine the presence of women in politics, family, education, and art in premodern China, Korea, and Japan.
What emerges is a concept of Confucianism that is dynamic instead of monolithic in shaping the cultures of East Asian societies. As teachers, mothers, writers, and rulers, women were active agents in this process. Neither rebels nor victims, these women embraced aspects of official norms while resisting others. The essays present a powerful image of what it meant to be female and to live a woman's life in a variety of social settings and historical circumstances. Challenging the conventional notion of Confucianism as an oppressive tradition that victimized women, this provocative book reveals it as a modern construct that does not reflect the social and cultural histories of East Asia before the nineteenth century.

The political influence of temples in pre-modern Japan, most clearly manifested in divine demonstrations, has traditionally been condemned and is poorly understood. In an impressive examination of this intriguing aspect of medieval Japan, Mikael Adolphson employs a wide range of previously neglected sources (court diaries, abbot appointment records, war chronicles, narrative picture scrolls) to argue that religious protest was a symptom of political factionalism in the capital rather than its cause. It is his contention that religious violence can be traced primarily to attempts by secular leaders to re-arrange religious and political hierarchies to their own advantage, thereby leaving disfavored religious institutions to fend for their accustomed rights and status. In this context, divine demonstrations became the preferred negotiating tool for monastic complexes. For almost three centuries, such strategies allowed a handful of elite temples to maintain enough of an equilibrium to sustain and defend the old style of rulership even against the efforts of the Ashikaga Shogunate in the mid-fourteenth century.

By acknowledging temples and monks as legitimate co-rulers, The Gates of Power provides a new synthesis of Japanese rulership from the late Heian (794-1185) to the early Muromachi (1336-1573) eras, offering a unique and comprehensive analysis that brings together the spheres of art, religion, ideas, and politics in medieval Japan.

This book presents the American encounter with Asian religions through a wide range of documents - written and visual from elite and popular culture- dating from 1788 to the present. The entries are divided into four chronological periods. The first section traces the initial attempts to map the earliest contacts, up to 1840; the second section, from 1840 to 1924, presents the first real passages-from east to west and west to east; the third, from 1924 to 1965, sketches a drifting period when immigration had stopped and Euro-American interst in Asian religions was minimal; and the final section, which takes us to the present, covers a time when the encounter intensifies greatly.

In this rare firsthand account of an individual's pursuit of sagehood, the early Ming dynasty scholar and teacher Wu Yubi chronicles his progress and his setbacks, as he strives to integrate the Neo-Confucian practices of self-examination and self-cultivation into everyday life. In more than three hundred entries, spanning much of his adult life, Wu paints a vivid picture, not only of the life of the mind, but also of the life of a teacher of modest means, struggling to make ends meet in a rural community. This volume features M. Theresa Kelleher's superb translation of Wu's journal, along with translations of more than a dozen letters from his personal correspondence. A general Introduction discusses Neo-Confucianism and the Ming dynasty, and includes biographical information that puts the main work in context. A substantial commentary on the journal discusses the obstacles and supports Wu encounters in pursuit of his goal, the conflict between discipline and restraint of the self and the nurturing and expanding of the self, Wu's successes and failures, and Wu's role as a teacher. Also included are a map of the Ming dynasty, a pronunciation guide, a chronology of Chinese dynasties, a glossary of names, a glossary of book titles, and suggestions for further reading.

Edition bilingue. "Reveiller les morts" est extrait du dernier recueil de nouvelles de Lu Xun "Histoires anciennes, revisitees." Cette edition bilingue s'adresse au lecteur de chinois de niveau intermediaire souhaitant progresser dans la lecture de textes litteraires relativement aises. Etre a (presque) soi tout seul le fondateur d'une philosophie et le precurseur d'une grande religion n'autorise pourtant pas toutes les fantaisies ni tous les caprices, et Tchuang Tseu apprend a ses depens que tous les ressuscites ne seront pas forcement reconnaissants... Sous la forme d'une petite piece de theatre en un acte court, critique anachronique des charlatans se revendiquant du taoisme et de la soumission au pouvoir, l'auteur s'attaque au mepris des gourous et des intellectuels pour le petit peuple. Lu Xun s'empare des mythes et legendes les plus anciens de la Chine traditionnelle pour denoncer avec une feroce ironie les nombreux travers de sa propre epoque et de ses contemporains... Les huit recits tires de "Histoires anciennes, revisitees" sont celebrissimes en Chine mais beaucoup moins connus en Occident que le reste de son oeuvre de fiction.

In this rare firsthand account of an individual's pursuit of sagehood, the early Ming dynasty scholar and teacher Wu Yubi chronicles his progress and his setbacks, as he strives to integrate the Neo-Confucian practices of self-examination and self-cultivation into everyday life. In more than three hundred entries, spanning much of his adult life, Wu paints a vivid picture, not only of the life of the mind, but also of the life of a teacher of modest means, struggling to make ends meet in a rural community. This volume features M. Theresa Kelleher's superb translation of Wu's journal, along with translations of more than a dozen letters from his personal correspondence. A general Introduction discusses Neo-Confucianism and the Ming dynasty, and includes biographical information that puts the main work in context. A substantial commentary on the journal discusses the obstacles and supports Wu encounters in pursuit of his goal, the conflict between discipline and restraint of the self and the nurturing and expanding of the self, Wu's successes and failures, and Wu's role as a teacher. Also included are a map of the Ming dynasty, a pronunciation guide, a chronology of Chinese dynasties, a glossary of names, a glossary of book titles, and suggestions for further reading.

In "Kwaio Religion," Roger Keesing examines how the Kwaio, challenged by 110 years of European colonialism and now by the militant Christianity of their own rapidly Westernizing nation, have managed to continue their ancestral ways. Drawing on fieldwork carried out over a lost 20 years, Keesing explores the phenomenological reality of world where one's group includes the living and the dead, where conversations with the spirits, and the sing of their presence and acts, are very much a part of everyday life. He describes conceptions of "mana" and "tabu" that shed revealing light on old issues regarding Oceanic religion. Keesing situates the elegant though largely implicit structures of Kwaio cosmology within a framework of the "political economy of knowledge," examining the distribution of expertise in the community and the uses of religion as ideology, and asking how symbolic systems are perpetuated and changed. Questioning some currently fashionable anthropological approaches to symbolism, myth, ritual, and cosmology--approaches Keesing characterizes as "cultural cryptography"-- "Kwaio Religion" challenges common assumptions about cultural symbols and shared meanings.

The Essential Mengzi offers a representative selection from Bryan Van Norden's acclaimed translation of the full work, including the most frequently studied passages and covering all of the work's major themes. An appendix of selections from the classic commentary of Zhu Xi--one of the most influential and insightful interpreters of Confucianism--keyed to relevant passages, provides access to the text and to its reception and interpretation. Also included are a general Introduction, timeline, glossary, and selected bibliography.

Composed more than 2,000 years ago during a turbulent period of Chinese history, the Dao de jing set forth an alternative vision of reality in a world torn apart by violence and betrayal. Daoism, as this subtle but enduring philosophy came to be known, offers a comprehensive view of experience grounded in a full understanding of the wonders hidden in the ordinary. Now in this luminous new translation, based on the recently discovered ancient bamboo scrolls, China scholars Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall bring the timeless wisdom of the Dao de jing into our contemporary world.

Though attributed to Laozi, “the Old Master,” the Dao de jing is, in fact, of unknown authorship and may well have originated in an oral tradition four hundred years before the time of Christ. Eschewing philosophical dogma, the Dao de jing set forth a series of maxims that outlined a new perspective on reality and invited readers to embark on a regimen of self-cultivation. In the Daoist world view, each particular element in our experience sends out an endless series of ripples throughout the cosmos. The unstated goal of the Dao de jing is self-transformation–the attainment of personal excellence that flows from the world and back into it. Responding to the teachings of Confucius, the Dao de jing revitalizes moral behavior by recommending a spontaneity made possible by the cultivated “habits” of the individual.

In this elegant volume, Ames and Hall feature the original Chinese texts of the Dao de jing and translate them into crisp, chiseled English that reads like poetry. Each of the eighty-one brief chapters is followed by clear, thought-provoking commentary exploring the layers of meaning in the text. The book’s extensive introduction is a model of accessible scholarship in which Ames and Hall consider the origin of the text, place the emergence of Daoist philosophy in its historical and political context, and outline its central tenets.

The Dao de jing is a work of timeless wisdom and beauty, as vital today as it was in ancient China. This new version will stand as both a compelling introduction to the complexities of Daoist thought and as the classic modern English translation.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Tao of S is an engaging study of American racialization of Chinese and Asians, Asian American writing, and contemporary Chinese cultural production, stretching from the nineteenth century to the present. Sheng-mei Ma examines the work of nineteenth-century "Sinophobic" American writers, such as Bret Harte, Jack London, and Frank Norris, and twentieth-century "Sinophiliac" authors, such as John Steinbeck and Philip K. Dick, as well as the movies Crazy Rich Asians and Disney's Mulan and a host of contemporary Chinese authors, to illuminate how cultural stereotypes have swung from fearmongering to an overcompensating exultation of everything Asian. Within this framework Ma employs the Taoist principle of yin and yang to illuminate how roles of the once-dominant American hegemony-the yang-and the once-declining Asian civilization-the yin-are now, in the twenty-first century, turned upside down as China rises to write its side of the story, particularly through the soft power of television and media streamed worldwide.

Enduring Identities is an attempt to understand the continuing relevance of Shinto to the cultural identity of contemporary Japanese. The enduring significance of this ancient yet innovative religion is evidenced each year by the millions of Japanese who visit its shrines. They might come merely seeking a park-like setting or to make a request of the shrine's deities, asking for a marriage partner, a baby, or success at school or work; or they might come to give thanks for benefits received through the intercession of deities or to legitimate and sacralize civic and political activities. Through an investigation of one of Japan's most important and venerated Shinto shrines, Kamo Wake Ikazuchi Jinja (more commonly Kamigamo Jinja), the book addresses what appears through Western and some Asian eyes to be an exotic and incongruous blend of superstition and reason as well as a photogenic juxtaposition of present and past. Combining theoretical sophistication with extensive fieldwork and a deep knowledge of Japan, John Nelson documents and interprets the ancient Kyoto shrine's yearly cycle of rituals and festivals, its sanctified landscapes, and the people who make it viable. At local and regional levels, Kamigamo Shrine's ritual traditions (such as the famous Hollyhock Festival) and the strategies for their perpetuation and implementation provide points of departure for issues that anthropologists, historians, and scholars of religion will recognize as central to their disciplines. These include the formation of social memory, the role of individual agency within institutional politics, religious practice and performance, the shaping of sacred space and place, ethnic versus cultural identity, and the politics of historical representation and cultural nationalism. Nelson links these themes through a detailed ethnography about a significant place and institution, which until now has been largely closed to both Japanese and foreign scholars. In contrast to conventional notions of ideology and institutions, he shows how a religious tradition's lack of centralized dogma, charismatic leaders, and sacred texts promotes rather than hinders a broad-based public participation with a variety of institutional agendas, most of which have very little to do with belief. He concludes that it is this structural flexibility, coupled with ample economic, human, and cultural resources, that nurtures a reworking of multiple identities--all of which resonate with the past, fully engage the present, and, with care, will endure well into the future.

A beautifully clear and accessible explanation of how to live a Taoist life--by reknowned Taoist master Eva Wong.

Taoism isn’t a spiritual extracurricular activity, it’s an integral practice for living all of life to the fullest. The modern Taoist adept Eva Wong is your guide to living well according to the wisdom of this ancient system. She uses the ancient texts to demonstrate the Taoist masters’ approach to the traditional four aspects of life--the public, the domestic, the private, and the spiritual—and shows how learning to balance them is the secret to infusing your life with health, harmony, and deep satisfaction.​

This first Western-language translation of one of the great books of the Daoist religious tradition, the Taiping jing, or Scripture on Great Peace," documents early Chinese medieval thought and lays the groundwork for a more complete understanding of Daoism's origins. Barbara Hendrischke, a leading expert on the Taiping jing in the West, has spent twenty-five years on this magisterial translation, which includes notes that contextualize the scripture's political and religious significance. Virtually unknown to scholars until the 1970s, the Taiping jing raises the hope for salvation in a practical manner by instructing men and women how to appease heaven and satisfy earth and thereby reverse the fate that thousands of years of human wrongdoing has brought about. The scripture stems from the beginnings of the Daoist religious movement, when ideas contained in the ancient Laozi were spread with missionary fervor among the population at large. The Taiping jing demonstrates how early Chinese medieval thought arose from the breakdown of the old imperial order and replaced it with a vision of a new, more diverse and fair society that would integrate outsiders in particular women and people of a non-Chinese background.

In this volume, an interdisciplinary group of scholars explores the social history and anthropology of Daoism from the late nineteenth century to the present, focusing on the evolution of traditional forms of practice and community, as well as modern reforms and reinventions both within China and on the global stage. Essays investigate ritual specialists, body cultivation and meditation traditions, monasticism, new religious movements, state-sponsored institutionalization, and transnational networks.

How to connect with universal energy for inner peace, happiness, and individual and global healing
- How to transform the energy around us into positive loving energy
- How to perform the World Link meditation to unite with global consciousness
- How to fuse the observing mind, the conscious mind, and the mind of awareness
Western science now recognizes the three "minds" associated with the three tan tiens of Taoism: the observing mind centered in the brain, the conscious mind centered in the heart, and the mind of awareness centered in the lower abdomen. By unifying the three minds--what in Chinese is called "Yi"--we can transform the energy around us into positive loving energy and be empowered to manifest our goals and dreams. This can lead to a more balanced, less negative way of life and offers a way to gain inner peace, wholeness, and happiness as well as the ability to heal yourself and others.
In "The Healing Energy of Shared Consciousness," Master Mantak Chia shows how to fuse the three minds and form the Protective Sacred Circle of Fire, which creates a seal around us allowing in only good energy and intentions. He explains step-by-step how to perform the World Link meditation to connect with global and universal energy for inner peace, happiness, and healing. Accessible even for those who have never worked with the Universal Healing Tao, this practice offers a way to unite people all over the world in a form of shared consciousness that amplifies collective loving energy to benefit the world.