1 comments about Five Elements, Six Conditions: A Taoist Approach to Emotional Healing, Psychology, and Internal Alchemy.

1. As an acupuncture student, I find that most of my texts are pathology oriented. I found it refreshing and compelling to read about 5 element theory from such a holistic perspective. This book combines 5 element theory with chi kung pratices and meditations as well as creative truisms about the 6 conditions of healing. In addition, Gilles explains the correlations between different areas of the body and emotional patterns. I highly recommend this book for any who is wanting more self awareness. I also highly recommend this book to other chinese medicine students who are craving a way to integrate the art back into their study of chinese medicine.

No comments about Tao Te Ching: Six Complete Translations.

3 comments about Taoist Cosmic Healing: Chi Kung Color Healing Principles for Detoxification and Rejuvenation.

1. I have been looking for the one book that most clearly outlines ancient Chinese wisdom for a long time. This is the closest I've found. I got it two days ago and using the techniques described in the book to cultivate energy lead me to, last night, having the most creative time of my life.

   Do you want to have a higher degree of awareness, energy and focus than you ever thought possible? This book is a good place to start. Read it with your judgmental western mind on the backburner, and just try some of the techniques to feel who you are, then you'll easily discover the power of these teachings.




2. As a Massage Therapist and Reiki Master, I found this book to far exceed my expectations. This information will take my practice, and also yours, to a whole new level. The imaging for visualization, by it self is worth the price of the book. I have read other books by Mantak and I appreciate him sharing these "secrets" with the world. The information in the book, if you were to learn at a seminar would cost you thousands of dollars. If you are not into ritual, as he suggest, take his information and form your own preparation and routine.
   For those of you who do consciousness calibrations on their
   books, this callibrated at 915.Thank you Mantak Chia for the gift.



3. I don't know how he manages to write so many books, but I'm glad he does. This book is probably one of my favourites. As I teach qigong I have used it for myself and passed on the lovely meditations to others. The knowledge is invaluable. Thankyou.

1 comments about The Taoist Classics: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary, Vol. 3.

1. All four items in this Taoist series are superb. Thomas Cleary has done a magnificent job. now we can all read these wonderful writing in a wonderful language and with great expalnation of Mr Cleary himself.
   Thank you!

5 comments about Taoist Ways to Transform Stress into Vitality: The Inner Smile * Six Healing Sounds.

1. If you're not acquainted with Chinese techniques of meditation and soforth, this book may seem a bit odd - you'll read of things of moving energy into your Liver, the macrocosmic orbit, and healing sounds. However, there's a reason that Chinese traditions have survived so long - they work.

   This is a wonderfully no-silliness, no-fluff, practacal guide to some Taoist meditations that I've found work quite well. They may seem strange to western eyes, but if you give them a chance, I think you'll be pleased with the results.




2. I have reviewed three books by Mantak Chia:

   * Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao.
   * Taoist Secrets of Love.
   * Taoist Ways to Transform Stress into Vitality.

   Only the first of these safely describes the central MICROCOSMIC ORBIT, stating that the energy must be collected at the navel after exercising. Read that book!




3. This is a wonderful introduction to traditional Chinese medicine. The reader need have no previous experience with the subject, only an open mind. The techniques the author outlines are simple and very clearly explained, yet they are extraordinarily powerful. He obviously has tremendous experience in the field, and yet he has no trouble conveying what is important in a very practical way. I would recommend this book for anyone who is suffering from stress and/or anyone who feels not "in synch" with their body.



4. This book guides you through few basic, simple and effective Taoist practices for transforming negative energy into positive; removing the the obstacles in your energy field. More advanced practice of transmutation of negative energy is covered in the book Fusion of the Five Elements, however before you'd work with that one, you'd have to learn Microcosmic Orbit first.
   
   The first practice is called "inner smile". In essence this involves focusing upon the smiling, happy, energy and directing it to different parts of your body. As you relax your mind, emotions and body into this smiling energy, any stress and tension you may feel is bound to be released.
   
   The next set of practices covered in this book are six healing sounds. In Taoist tradition, specific emotions are associated with different organs in your body and so are different sounds which help to clear any energetic obstacles in these organs. Sounds, and accompaning movements are designed to clear and balance the energy of the particular organ. Working with healing sounds also involves focusing upon the imagery (in the simplest form a color) associated with the particular organ.
   
   Five healing sounds are associated with organs in the body - heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and spleen. Sixty healing sound is associated not with the organ, but with the triple warmed meridian. Working with this sixth sound will deeply relax you and if you suffer from insomnia, it may also help you to fall asleep.



5. This book has been very helpful to me. I have read other books from different masters and this is a very informative and useful practice that will help de-streess and change your attitude towards your body, life and other humans as well.
   Should make it a required reading for politicians and other leaders.
   I still recommend working and learning from a with a Qi Gong master.

3 comments about Tao: The Pathless Path.

1. It didn't seem strange to me that this little book had no other reviews at the time I started to write mine. Why, it's an excelent book and not so recently published. But my experience was, as I tried to express my sincere admiration for it, that the words simply became hard to find. I felt in a situation in which I had to "describe what can't be described".

   I'm still reading the book, and from time to time, I just start it over again. There is so much in it. Definitely, the book is a door opener into our own insights. Into the unexpected, the unmanifest. Only a man of Osho's stature could bring us, westerners, the treasures of those ancient, pristine, unpartisan, unadorned revelations. Tao's. Or rather, only he could take us there, close to them: this is spiritual seeker's stuff, no joke. Food for meditators. And at the same time, it is a smart exposition to what I regard as Osho's core views of human development.

   For anyone wishing to flex his/her insight and mediation skills, and then harvest handsomely, I highly recommend it.




2. If you ever wander into the eastern philosphy section of the bookstores in search of "the" tao book that is waiting to catch your eye....This is one of you. This book now follows me around my house and hates living on my bookshelf.
   
   A word of warning to those very deeply rooted in other beliefs...this book could grate at your nerves. This is probably not a very good introduction book for you. Pick up the Tao of Pooh...I own it and love that one too. Tao: The Pathless Path speaks about other religions in a not so positive light. To me I understand completely where the author is coming from in saying these things. Some it has to do with other world religions being too strict as well as blood shed for their beliefs and comparing it to taoism being on the opposite end.
   
   You be the judge. But hopefully you'll give it a chance.
   
   PL&H



3. CAVEAT: Rajneesh was a rather polarizing guru. People seem to have either loved him or hated him. Personally, I am not the personality cult type. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. It is just that I feel the Wizard, the Guru, the Priest, etc., can't give me anything I don't already have. A guru can tell me how to wake up, but only I can open my eyes. All I know for certain where Osho is concerned is that my awareness seems to increase every time I read one of his books. I have epiphanies. I do not believe a person has to be a saint before they can be of spiritual help to others.
   
   In my opinion Osho's musings are a concentrated dose of reality, a lightning bolt of spiritual insight, a slap across the face of our group amnesia, and yet he usually manages to leave the reader with a word of encouragement where our place in reality is concerned. I may have read somewhere that Osho was a designated walker in a world full of sleepwalkers. Some people definitely loved him. It seems to me that we often find the best face of a person in their writtings. Writing tends to focus one's thoughts. Writing can be a window into a person's soul. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. We know a person's heart by their fruit, not by their words. The fruit of the spirit is love. I am not so spiritually gifted nor too proud to learn from others. Books on Philosophy and Religion can be a great help, they can also be a hindrance and a crutch. Moderation in all things. I digress.
   
   A spiritual rebel Osho pulled no punches where orthodox thinking is concerned. I am reminded of Morpheus in the movie "The Matrix". He wanted us to take the "Red Pill". To wake up and disconnect ourselves from the Matrix of self-deception. To free us from the nightmare world of separation from the whole of existence. To realize that we, like "Neo", are the "One", an inseparable part of the whole. To trust in the Providence of Nature and not in the self-serving machinations of so-called leaders and experts who are themselves lost in a maze of their own devices. To be free to take responsibility for and control of our own lives by simply letting go and following the grain of reality. To be awake. Aware of the process of our awareness. Taoism can seem a bit paradoxical at times.
   
   In this book Osho discusses the essence of Taoism and how it is distinguished from most religions in that it is not so much a religion as it is a way of life. The way of the "Watercourse Way" of Taoism. The path of least resistance. The path that is not a path for there is no place we need to go, no place we truly can go, other than where we already are. Like the eye of a storm our center is still. Our deepest center that is without a surface, the center that is the center of all centers. Osho discusses the "via negativa" way of meditation, of sitting silently and being empty, waiting for God. The way of the Mystics, East and West. He also discusses the "via positiva" approach to theology. The way of the Ascetics. The way of prayer and form. Osho leaves it to us to decide for ourselves which is our tendency. Osho wants us to examine our lives so that we can be true to our own inner natures, rather than merely true to our cultural milieu. (For a more in depth discussion of the Four Paths, the via "positiva", "negativa", "creativa", and the "transformativa", you may want to take a look at Matthew Fox's book "Original Blessing".)
   
   Osho tells us that because the mature Taoist lives in the central still point of existence he or she is not controlled by the vacillations of the outside, but by the calm of the inside. The Taoist is a lover of Freedom. For the Taoist life is worth living. Death is as natural as life. Taoism is an Agnostic faith based upon experience as opposed to doctrine. Taoism is a Democratic way of life. He or she does not believe that ultimate reality can be absolutely known. That the mystery of life is not so much a problem to be solved as a reality to be experienced. Meditation is the art of dying to everything that separates us from the whole of existence, from the eternal Tao, from God. Though we cannot know God with our heads, we can experience God in our hearts. "The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao". Lao Tzu. God is ineffable. The "I AM THAT I AM" of Exodus 3:14. No one has a patent on God, but we all share the same last name. We are each sons and daughters of reality. Both of the natural and the supernatural. The Kingdom of God is found within. "Be still, and know that I am God". Psalm 46:10.

2 comments about Practical Taoism.

1. The culmination of Cleary's work in Taoism and Life. A guide to the Way in today's world.



2. I found this collection of translations to be very helpful. I read Cleary's books from a student's perspective and not from a Taoist scholar's perspective. The insights gleaned from this book are priceless. It is a great wonder how our present age and society has fallen into such a moral decline even though these scriptures have been around since man's early days. Read and apply. These teachings may seem cryptic but they turn into truths once they are applied to our lives.

5 comments about Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits.

1. This book reads like an adventure story but it is all true...Bill Porter speaks Mandarin and has many friends in China so he could travel into territories where few Westerners are able to go without a guide. He won the trust of many hermits high up in the mountains of China and tells a wonderful tale of their survival against all odds...Sadly, they are a dying breed and the last of a generation who dedicated themselves to a monastic life of meditation and living without wordly goods. A really good read! Marilynn Seits



2. I enjoyed this biographical account of extraordinary journeys made by the author, Bill Porter, and his friend Steven Johnson in 1989. Their quest was into the heart of a range of mountains in China rumored by a few to be home to some modern Chinese Buddhist and Taoist hermits. But these hermits have been thought to be long gone, even by Buddhist and Taoist folk living in the local monasteries. Bill Porter followed his heart and a few good leads and encountered some, including some who were unaware that there had been a Maoist "cultural revolution." He was able to interview a number of these sages of the mountains, and here shares them with us plus his own studies and insights into the traditions of Chinese hermits. More exciting than fiction, here is the real deal. Quiet lives hidden away in stark, sparse, cold places, content with a dirt floor and a small fire for tea, not the romantic images I had encountered in reading the ancient poets. You should know that this is more a travelogue of incredible journeys than a book of inspiring insights into Buddhism or Taoism. Jim Harrison calls this book "a startling reminder of how far we have gone astray" and "a part of any serious Zen or Taoist library." I heartily agree.



3. This book is a great account of traveling in communist China and searching for the remnant hermit monks in the country's rugged mountains. I've noticed many reviewers apparently expected all sorts of different things from this book - Porter as enlightened writer weilding his pen as a delusion-cutting sword, hermit wisdom never before heard in the west that offers instant nirvana, etc. But the book is just what the title says it is: encounters with Chinese hermits, who, by going deep into the mountains and saving the essentials of their practice are "on the road to heaven."
   
   It is refreshing to know that in China there still are hermit monks and nuns, clarifying their insight away from the world's distractions.
   
   The hermits Bill Porter encounters in China have all survived communism, which is one subject of the book. The hardships the monks and nuns faced under communism is not a suprise, what is a suprise is the monks, nuns and temples now being sold as tourist attractions by the Chinese government. An entirely different threat - capitalism - now rears its exhausting head, and the hermits move deeper into the mountains to save their practice from becoming part of a Human Buddhist Zoo.



4. "You can't be in a hurry. You have to be prepared to devote your whole life to your practice," says Master Hsueh T'ai-li after forty-five years on the slopes and summits of Huashan. "This is what's meant by religion. It's not a matter of spending money. You have to spend your life."
   "Road to Heaven, Encounters with Chinese Hermits" by Bill Porter provides a fleeting image of the cloud people, the Chinese hermits who have turned their backs on this world of red dust - and survived.
   There is a stark, and sad, contrast between the monks and hermits, and the busy American writer who is rushing about asking homely questions like: "Were you upset when the Red Guards burned your library?" or "Do you get any mail?"
   "Taoism is very deep. There's a great del to learn, and you can't do it quickly. The Tao isn't something that can be put into words. You have to practice before you can understand," reiterates Master Hsueh.
   And yet I find myself returning to this "Road to Heaven" because it captures a few anecdotes, gems and asides about famous and unknown hermits that makes it worthwhile reading. Searching for a lost quote, I return to the hasty interviews with abbots and nuns standing guard at old temples and crumbling shrines. And I find more layers to their brief stories than first meets the eye.
   There is stillness and tranquility in the frugal lives of these Chinese hermits, and a firm and unwavering grip on the essentials of a religion. They represent the last living flicker of the spiritual wisdom originating with Lao-tzu thousands of years ago. And now their world is vanishing into the darkness, like the last sparks from a windswept fire.



5. The over all knowledge displayed by the Author Bill Porter
   is Exclent,and the knowledge of China.

2 comments about Energy Balance through the Tao: Exercises for Cultivating Yin Energy.

1. Former student of several Taoist masters, founder of the Universal Healing Tao System, and director of the Tao Garden Integrative Medicine Health Spa and Resort Mantak Chia presents Energy Balance Through The Tao: Exercises For Cultivating Yin Energy, an exercise book that incorporates both the Western principles of physical fitness and the Eastern principles of balancing body, mind, and spirit. The goal of Tao Yin is to revitalize body, mind, and spirit by balancing internal and external energies, and help the practitioner become more pure and full of energy. Energy Balance Through The Tao offers 45 Tao Yin exercises to Western readers, each fully illustrated with black-and-white photographs. The exercises promote flexibility, and once mastered, foster improved strength in movements and standing postures. A superb supplement to exercise and health regimens, offering ideal exercises for warm up and cool down during workouts.



2. Many of the BIG problems in Health, Psychology and Relationships can be said to originate in an excess of Yang energy. Not just the excesses of aggression, winning, and dominating, but the whole frenetic race toward ever more energy draining and attenton demanding multi-tasking. Our society is becoming progressively more hypomanic and it sometimes seems that it is only a matter of time before everyone will start to show symptoms of attention deficit disorder! Some of the illnesses that are becoming more prevalent, including some of the disorders of immune function, digestion and thermoregulation, can also be thought of as consequences of a rampant and unbalanced Yang force.
   
   It is desperately important for us to try and balance those excesses in our own lives, and it is a tough call with so many demands on us. The exercises in this book are all designed to balance the Yin and Yang energies of our bodies. Cultivating Yin energy is particularly important for men and these exercises really fit the bill. What I have always liked about Mantak Chia's work, is that he tries to provide explanations for the exercises, rather than just providing a catalog of techniques. And some of the exercises can have potent effects.
   
   Some of the exercises require some strength and flexibility, so I recommend that people should have a discussion with their health care provider before starting this kind of new program.
   
   This is a reprint of the book Tao Yin: Excercises for Revitalization, Health & Longevity, which was published in Thailand in 1999. There are only some minor differences between the two.
   
   If you don't have the earlier book, you will find a lot of valuable material here.

3 comments about Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China.

1. A. C. Graham's "Disputers of the Tao" is an excellent introduction to pre-Qin philosophical argumentation. I would highly recommend it for personal study; it would serve well as a textbook for an advanced-level seminar in Chinese thought. The chapter on "The Cosmologists" has a thought-provoking response to the oft-debated question of why, after such a promising, world-leading start in science, the Chinese fell behind the West in later centuries of the Common Era. My major criticism of this book is that the editing could have been a lot tighter: there are a number of inelegant and often nearly incomprehensible sentences. Perhaps it was thought to honor Professor Graham by giving him free rein to his personal expression, but if so, that was a mistake. Otherwise, this is a wonderful book.



2. A.C. Graham's Disputers of the Tao became an instant classic when it was published in 1989. Graham was the foremost scholar in his field in his day, and this book is still the standard study of early Chinese philosophy. (My understanding was that this title is out of print, so if it is still available, snatch it up quickly.)

   However, the book is becoming more and more out of date with every passing year. This process of obsolescence is not due to any fault in the work itself, but to the continual discovery of new texts that Graham could not have taken into account, and to the improvement in our understanding of the received texts that the new ones have made possible.




3. I had high expectations for this book. However it's language and syntax is horrible. The language is heavy, boring and badly written. One should not think that something like this would be given out by any publisher.(Hopefully a better book on philosophical in ancient china will be written soon)
   The author also tends to quote throughout an amount of sites, but without any good explanations or lack of any explanations at all this is totally useless. And if you are beginner to philosophical argument in China you are ought to lay of this book. Graham writes about things extremely more heavyily and complex than they really are. So my advice is to searh for another book. You will spare both time, frustration and money.
   This book gives the history of China a bad name.