The early Chinese text Master Zhuang (Zhuangzi) is well known for its relativistic philosophy and colorful anecdotes. In the work, Zhuang Zhou ca. 300 B.C.E.) dreams that he is a butterfly and wonders, upon awaking, if he in fact dreamed that he was a butterfly or if the butterfly is now dreaming that it is Zhuang Zhou. The text also recounts Master Zhuang's encounter with a skull, which praises the pleasures of death over the toil of living. This anecdote became popular with Chinese poets of the second and third century C.E. and found renewed significance with the founders of Quanzhen Daoism in the twelfth century. The Quanzhen masters transformed the skull into a skeleton and treated the object as a metonym for death and a symbol of the refusal of enlightenment. Later preachers made further revisions, adding Master Zhuang's resurrection of the skeleton, a series of accusations made by the skeleton against the philosopher, and the enlightenment of the magistrate who judges their case. The legend of the skeleton was widely popular throughout the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and the fiction writer Lu Xun (1881-1936) reimagined it in the modern era. The first book in English to trace the development of the legend and its relationship to centuries of change in Chinese philosophy and culture, The Resurrected Skeleton translates and contextualizes the story's major adaptations and draws parallels with the Muslim legend of Jesus's encounter with a skull and the European tradition of the Dance of Death. Translated works include versions of the legend in the form of popular ballads and plays, together with Lu Xun's short story of the 1930s, underlining the continuity between traditional and modern Chinese culture.

Most people think of the Tao Te Ching as a book on philosophy or a treatise on leadership. Yet there is a little-known treasure hidden within the familiar passages of Lao Tzu's work: step-by-step practical guidance for the spiritual journey. With Practicing the Tao Te Ching, renowned teacher Solala Towler reveals a new facet to this spiritual classic, offering accessible instructions paired with each of the 81 verses of the Tao Te Ching. "Tao is a way of deep reflection and learning from nature, considered the highest teacher," writes Towler. "It teaches us to follow the energy flows within the heavens, the earth, and our own bodies." With lucid instruction and deep insight, he guides you through meditations, movement and breathing practices, subtle energy exercises, and inner reflections-all to help you to embody Taoist wisdom in every aspect of your life.

HEALTH / MARTIAL ARTS The Lesser Enlightenment of Kan and Li practice combines the compassion of the heart energies (yang/fire) with sexual energies originating in the kidneys (yin/water) to form and feed the soul or energy body. Practice of the Chinese formula Siaow Kan Li (yin and yang mixed) uses darkness technology to literally "steam" the sexual energy (jing) into life-force energy (chi) by reversing the location of yin and yang power. This inversion places the heat of the bodily fire from the heart center beneath the coolness of the bodily water of the sexual energy of the perineum, thereby activating the liberation of transformed sexual energy. Darkness technology has been a key element of Taoist practice--and of all Inner Alchemy traditions--throughout the ages. A total darkness environment stimulates the pineal gland to release DMT into the brain. The darkness actualizes successively higher states of consciousness, correlating with the accumulation of psychedelic chemicals in the brain. In the darkness, mind and soul begin to wander freely in the vast realms of psychic and spiritual experience. Death is no longer to be feared because life beyond the physical body is known through direct experience. The birth of the soul is not a metaphor. It is an actual process of converting energy into a subtle body. Developing the soul body is the preparation for the growth of the immortal spirit body in the practice of the Greater Enlightenment of Kan and Li. A student of several Taoist masters, MANTAK CHIA founded the Universal Healing Tao System in 1979 and has taught and certified tens of thousands of students and instructors from all over the world. He is the director of the Tao GardenIntegrative Medicine Health Spa and Resort training center in northern Thailand and is the author of 31 books, including Cosmic Fusion, Sexual Reflexology, and the bestselling The Multi-Orgasmic Man.

Daoism is the indigenous higher religion of traditional China. Growing from a philosophical root and developing through practices of longevity and immorality, it has found expression in communal organizations, ritual structures, and age-old lineages. A multifaceted tradition, Daoism in the 2,500 years of its history has related to women in a number of different ways matching the complexity of other religions, where the relationship to the female is often ambiguous and ambivalent. They commonly see motherhood, sexuality, fertility, esoteric knowledge, and secret powers as closely linked with the feminine and evaluate these aspects positively. But many religions also relegate women to inferior status, considering them of a lower nature, impure and irresponsible, and often suppressing them with greater or lesser severity. The complexity of women's positions is particularly poignant in the Daoist case, since the religion is caught between its ideal cosmological premise of the power of yin and the realities of a strongly patriarchal society following the Confucian model. That is to say, cosmologically Daoism sees women as expressions of the pure cosmic force of yin, necessary for the working of the universe, equal and for some schools even superior to yang. Daoism also links the Dao itself, the force of creation at the foundation of the cosmos, to the female and describes it as the mother of all beings. Within the religion there is a widespread attitude of veneration and respect for the feminine, honouring the cosmic connection as well as the productive and nurturing nature of women.

In this richly illustrated book Stanley Abe explores the large body of sculpture, ceramics, and other religious imagery produced for China's common classes from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. Created for those of lesser standing, these works contrast sharply with those made for imperial patrons, illustrious monastics, or other luminaries. They were often modest in scale, mass-produced, and at times incomplete. These "ordinary images" have been considered a largely nebulous, undistinguished mass of works because they cannot be related to well-known historical figures or social groups. Additionally, in a time and place where most inhabitants were not literate, the available textual evidence provides us with a remarkable view of China through the eyes of a small and privileged educated class. There exists precious little written material that embodies the concerns and voices of those of lower standing.
Situating his study in the gaps between conventional categories such as Buddhism, Daoism, and Chinese popular imagery, Abe examines works that were commissioned by patrons of modest standing in specific local contexts. These works include some of the earliest known examples of Buddha-like images in China; a group of small stone stupas from the northwest; inscribed image niches from a cavernous Buddhist cave temple; and large stele with Buddhist, Daoist, and mixed Buddhist-Daoist iconography from Shaanxi province. In these four case studies, Abe questions established notions of art historical practice by treating the works in a manner that allows for more rather than less contradiction, less rather than more certainty. Sensitive to the fragmentary nature of the evidence and hisposition in a long tradition of scholarly writing, the author offers a sustained argument against established paradigms of cultural adaptation and formal development.
Sophisticated and lucidly written," Ordinary Images" offers an unprecedented exploration of the lively and diverse nature of image making and popular practices.

A contemporary translation remaining faithful to the original collection of tales, poems and parables of Taoist philosophy. The collection covers a wide range of issues, from ambition to politics, and is accompanied by an introduction on the author and his place in Chinese thought and history.

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.

Although the study of traditional Chinese medicine has attracted unprecedented attention in recent years, Western knowledge of it has been limited because, until now, not a single Chinese classical medical text has been available in a serious philological translation. The present book offers, for the first time in any Western language, a complete translation of an ancient Chinese medical classic, the Nan-ching. The translation adheres to rigid sinological standards and applies philological and historiographic methods. The original text of the Nan-ching was compiled during the first century A.D. by an unknown author. From that time forward, this ancient text provoked an ongoing stream of commentaries. Following the Sung era, it was misidentified as merely an explanatory sequel to the classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Huang-ti nei-ching. This volume, however, demonstrates that the Nan-ching should once again be regarded as a significant and innovative text in itself. It marked the apex and the conclusion of the initial development phase of a conceptual system of health care based on the doctrines of the Five Phases and yinyang. As the classic of the medicine of systematic correspondence, the Nan-ching covers all aspects of theoretical and practical health care within these doctrines in an unusually systematic fashion. Most important is its innovative discussion of pulse diagnosis and needle treatment. Unschuld combines the translation of the text of the Nan-ching with selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors from the past seventeen centuries. These commentaries provide insights into the processes of reception and transmission of ancient Chinese concepts from the Han era to the present time, and shed light on the issue of progress in Chinese medicine. Central to the book, and contributing to a completely new understanding of traditional Chinese medical thought, is the identification of a "patterned knowledge" that characterizes-in contrast to the monoparadigmatic tendencies in Western science and medicine-the literature and practice of traditional Chinese health care. Unschuld's translation of the Nan-ching is an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists as well as general readers interested in traditional Chinese medicine-but who lack Chinese language abilities-will at last have access to ancient Chinese concepts of health care and therapy. Filling an enormous gap in the literature, Nan-ching-The Classic of Difficult Issues is the kind of landmark work that will shape the study of Chinese medicine for years to come. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.

Although the study of traditional Chinese medicine has attracted unprecedented attention in recent years, Western knowledge of it has been limited because, until now, not a single Chinese classical medical text has been available in a serious philological translation. The present book offers, for the first time in any Western language, a complete translation of an ancient Chinese medical classic, the Nan-ching. The translation adheres to rigid sinological standards and applies philological and historiographic methods. The original text of the Nan-ching was compiled during the first century A.D. by an unknown author. From that time forward, this ancient text provoked an ongoing stream of commentaries. Following the Sung era, it was misidentified as merely an explanatory sequel to the classic of the Yellow Emperor, the Huang-ti nei-ching. This volume, however, demonstrates that the Nan-ching should once again be regarded as a significant and innovative text in itself. It marked the apex and the conclusion of the initial development phase of a conceptual system of health care based on the doctrines of the Five Phases and yinyang. As the classic of the medicine of systematic correspondence, the Nan-ching covers all aspects of theoretical and practical health care within these doctrines in an unusually systematic fashion. Most important is its innovative discussion of pulse diagnosis and needle treatment. Unschuld combines the translation of the text of the Nan-ching with selected commentaries by twenty Chinese and Japanese authors from the past seventeen centuries. These commentaries provide insights into the processes of reception and transmission of ancient Chinese concepts from the Han era to the present time, and shed light on the issue of progress in Chinese medicine. Central to the book, and contributing to a completely new understanding of traditional Chinese medical thought, is the identification of a "patterned knowledge" that characterizes-in contrast to the monoparadigmatic tendencies in Western science and medicine-the literature and practice of traditional Chinese health care. Unschuld's translation of the Nan-ching is an accomplishment of monumental proportions. Anthropologists, historians, and sociologists as well as general readers interested in traditional Chinese medicine-but who lack Chinese language abilities-will at last have access to ancient Chinese concepts of health care and therapy. Filling an enormous gap in the literature, Nan-ching-The Classic of Difficult Issues is the kind of landmark work that will shape the study of Chinese medicine for years to come. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986.