A few questions about Taoism

[7words]

Greetings everyone.

I've been loosly studying Taoism the past year in an attempt to balance and better myself. I just happened to stumble on the forums, searching for a means of broading my views of the religion/philosophy. A few mentions of Taoist Alchemy immediately caught my attention, and I was wondering if anyone could suggest a few, if any, books on the subject or anything beyond my current copy of Tao Te Ching. Advanced thanks....

[Vajradhara]

Namaste 7words,


thank you for the post.

the school that i practice is the Northern Complete Reality school, as such, most of the texts that i can recommend are from this schools point of view. the main differece, in my view, between the Northern and Southern schools is the age of the practiconers and thus, thier preliminary praxis are different.

the Northen school tends to have younger beings take up the praxis whereas the Southern school tends to have older beings take up the praxis, for those beings, the Water Wheel practice is heavily emphasized in the beginning.

there are several texts that you could read, though i don't know how easy it will be to find them all.

in my view, Awakening to the Tao by Liu I-ming, is superlative and has contributed a great deal to my own practice.

the text Chin tan ssu pai tzu chieh, which is called the Inner Teachings of Taosim, in English, by Chang, Po-tuan.

the Book of Balance and Harmony, by Thomas Cleary.

those three should provide a good foundation for setting up the caludrun and for discering the firing time and the bathing process.

[Tungp'o]

I practice a more traditional form of Taoism as taught by Hua-Ching Ni. He offers many good books on the subject on a purely Taoist perceptive and give clear connections between the ancient teachings and modern life. You can find many of his books in most book stores and his translation of the Tao-Te-Ching usually is held in stock at most stores.

You can find more of his books if you wish at Seven Star Communications. This is the publishing company that hold all of Master Ni’s books.

[Kelcie]

Originally Posted by 7words

Greetings everyone.

I've been loosly studying Taoism the past year in an attempt to balance and better myself. I just happened to stumble on the forums, searching for a means of broading my views of the religion/philosophy. A few mentions of Taoist Alchemy immediately caught my attention, and I was wondering if anyone could suggest a few, if any, books on the subject or anything beyond my current copy of Tao Te Ching. Advanced thanks....

Hi 7words,

"The Tao of Health and Longevity" translated by Eva Wong, Gives a very good overview on inner alchemy. It is in dialogue form between two of the immortals. Her introductions gives a few tips on how to digest the information because it is very colourful in description and has a lot of numerics.

Have fun discovering alchemy.

Kelcie