Sitting in Oblivion outlines the history and intricacies of zuowang, an essential form of Daoist meditation. It divides into two parts. “Discussion” begins by placing the practice in the larger context of the phenomenology of meditation and Chinese religious history....
This exciting new work translates two 12th-century texts associated with the legendary immortals Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, founders of the Zhong Lü tradition of internal alchemy. First, the Zhong-Lü chuandao ji, in dialogue format, outlines the cosmological parameters of...
This book contains three essays and five translations on the Song Daoist saint and immortal Chen Tuan. It is based on the author’s dissertation (Leben und Legende des Chen Tuan, 1981), which focused on questions of legend development and the...
Declarations of the Perfected is the first complete, annotated translation of Zhen’gao, Tao Hongjing’s (456-536) masterful compilation of the Shangqing or Higher Clarity revelations, setting the stage for the heyday of medieval Daoism. The present volume presents the Declarations’ second...
Internal alchemy has been the dominant system of Daoist spiritual practice since the Song dynasty. Its practitioners transform body energies into subtle levels of spirit, hoping to find illumination by returning to the fundamental order of the cosmos and in...
Highest Clarity (Shangqing) was a Daoist religious movement that flourished for a thousand years in medieval China. This book explores its chief religious ideas and practices through three key texts, translated into English for the first time. Together with introductory...
This book presents unique materials on the lives and religious quests of Daoist women in medieval China. Based on Du Guangting’s (850-933) extensive record of Daoist women’s biographies, covering the entire scope of medieval Chinese society and ranging from the...
In medieval Daoist practice as much as today, the alignment of the body and the harmonization of qi bring about the transformation of the emotions and the unfold-ing of spirit. In addition, progress along the path also requires the rethinking...
The Xiaodao lun (Laughing at the Dao) is a key document of medieval debates among Buddhists and Daoists. Written by the Daoist renegade Zhen Luan in 570, it aims to expose inconsistencies in Daoist doctrine, cosmology, ritual, and religious practice....
Daoism Excavated is a first detailed exploration of Daoist cosmology, philosophy, and political vision as found in recently unearthed bamboo slips and silk manuscripts. Presenting a detailed, and often carefully philological, examination ofthe Taiyi shengshui, Hengxian,Fanwu liuxing, and Huangdi sijing,...
