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Explores the religion developed by the Quanzhen Taoists, who sought to cultivate the mind not only through seated meditation, but also throughout the daily activities of life.
Using a wide variety of original sources, this book examines how and why early Taoists carried out such ascetic practices as fasting, celibacy, sleep deprivation, and wilderness seclusion.
By the eleventh century, communities of religious practitioners in China had developed a theory and practice of meditative self-cultivation that combined the so-called Three Teachings. By the seventeenth century, Wu Shouyang created a synthesis of the various lineages of this “inner alchemy,” combining it with elements from Buddhism and Confucianism. By the late nineteenth century, his writings had become bestsellers in the genre and his became the standard account of this tradition. This first book-length English-language study of Wu Shouyang’s life and works introduces his remarkable life and formulates answers to fundamental questions about this important tradition.
Fasting An Exceptional Human Experience Since prehistory, fasting has been used in various ways as a means of transformation. As a spiritual practice, it is the oldest and most common form of asceticism and is found in virtually every religion and spiritual tradition. In psychology, studies have suggested that fasting can alleviate the symptoms of some psychiatric conditions, including depression and schizophrenia. In medicine, fasting is one of the most promising therapies, with research suggesting that fasting can cause certain drugs, such as chemotherapy, to work better while reducing drug side-effects. Hunger striking, sometimes called political fasting, may be the most powerful applicat...
Employing a comparative religious studies approach, this book provides a comprehensive discussion of early Quanzhen as a Daoist religious movement charactized by asceticism, alchemical transformation, and mystical experiencing. Emphasis is placed on the complex interplay among views of self, religious praxis, and religious experience.
An anthology of English translations of primary texts of the Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) school of Daoism.
An overview of Daoist texts on passive meditation from the Latter Han through Tang periods.
Asian Case Studies on Translating Christianity brings historical expressions of Asian Christianity into contemporary theological conversation. The book offers case studies of Jingjiao Christianity in Tang China, the Jesuit mission in Ming China, indigenous theology in colonial Korea, and contemporary Asian-American theology. The case studies especially examine how the names and understandings of the Trinity have been changed in the processes of borrowing, erasing, and elevating the meanings of Eastern local concepts to translate the message of Christianity. Not only are these diverse expressions of Christianity unique and valuable in and of themselves, but they testify that diverse understandings are a God-given phenomenon. Heejun Yang draws on contemporary theological hermeneutics to argue that it is the self-communicative nature of God that helps articulate the diverse understandings of God in these cases. Yang posits the Triune God as both the starting and ending points of the Christian hermeneutic process and claims that this understanding can be a way for the church to embrace different Christian communities while moving forward in their own unique complexities.
This study presents the first complete translation of Liu Chuxuan's (1147-1203) commentary on the Yellow Emperor's Scripture of Hidden Contracts (Huangdi Yinfujing Zhu). Liu Chuxuan numbers among the famous seven disciples of Wang Chongyang, who is Quanzhen Daoism's founder and one of the most revered figures in religious Daoism. Today one of the two surviving Daoist sects, Quanzhen Daoism was a revolutionary religious movement when it began in the days of the Jin-dynasty. Liu Chuxuan's commentary constitutes an important document for the history of Quanzhen Daoism. First of all, it is one of the few surviving commentaries on a classical Daoist scripture written by a proponent of early Quanz...
Religious ideas, practices, discourses, institutions, and social expressions are in constant flux. This volume addresses the internal and external dynamics, interactions between individuals, religious communities, and local as well as global society. The contributions concentrate on four areas: 1. Contemporary religion in the public sphere: The Tactics of (In)visibility among Religious Communities in Europe; Religion Intersecting De-nationalization and Re-nationalization in Post-Apartheid South Africa; 2. Religious transformations: Forms of Religious Communities in Global Society; Political Contributions of Ancestral Cosmologies and the Decolonization of Religious Beliefs; Esoteric Tradition as Poetic Invention; 3. Focus on the individual: Religion and Life Trajectories of Islamists; Angels, Animals and Religious Change in Antiquity and Today; Gaining Access to the Radically Unfamiliar in Today’s Religion; Religion between Individuals and Collectives; 4. Narrating religion: Entangled Knowledge Cultures and the Creation of Religions in Mongolia and Europe; Global Intellectual History and the Dynamics of Religion; On Representing Judaism.