I haven’t had time to blog much. Busy funding a new retreat center, planning a China Dream Trip, polishing my book on Primordial Tai Chi and Tao Cosmology (delayed by my re-focus to include inner alchemy), and researching a 50 page essay: Are you an Authentic or Fake Taoist?
The essay is for serious Taoists. It digs very deep, deals with Chinese vs. Western ideas of Tao. Is lineage necessary to authenticity, or is it enough to follow principles of Qi flow? It’s also a review of Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Crisis of Modern Spirituality by David Palmer and Elijah Siegler.
You definitely want to read it, there’s a kindle edition. They spent 12 years writing it, but there’s a lot still un-said. I’m accused in it by one Western scholar of being a “fake” and “responsible for the death of Taoism”. So there will be some spice in my essay. 🙂
This raises an underlying question: Is Taoism a philosophy, a religion, or a method? The curious thing is that in Lao Tzu’s time, about 2500 years ago, the Chinese had no word/concept for either “philosophy”or “religion”. The only science that existed was waidan gong, External (laboratory) alchemy. Modern scholars want to put Taoism into a neat box, but it won’t fit.
Tao is a religious path to salvation in the sense of connecting us directly to Divine source, named Tao/Way. It offers a deep and unique philosophy that embraces natural process as the basis for discovering truth. Plus, it’s a simple, practical, grounded Way of Life. How to breathe, walk, play with the Qi Field to maximize health, pleasure, and integrity. If you practice a method that is systematic and shareable, it can be called a science (Latin root “to know”).
If you roll this all together and modernize it, Tao becomes a universal and multi-dimensional Loving Energy Science. That’s the path, the Way that I walk.
Westerners are hungry for historical context. I’m often asked, “What’s the best book on Taoism?”. Isabelle Robinet’s Taoism: Growth of a Religion is superb, but only covers up to 14th century, but has excellent insights into neidan. Too busy for a whole book?
I’ve posted to my Articles Page (Daoist Scholars section) a brilliant, long piece by top inner alchemy scholar Fabrizio Pregadio: 3000 Years of Taoist History, Cosmology, & Practice: an Overview. It captures in brief stokes the vast, deep and diverse river called Taoism.
May all this inspire you to live and love more deeply by creating your own Juicy Way. I invite you to jump into a “live cauldron” at a work shop or summer retreat. https://healingtaousa.com/workshops/current-teaching-schedule/