Nourishing the Essence of Life: The Outer, Inner, and Secret Teachings of Taoism

With every book that I read, and study, by Eva Wong, my understanding of how Taoism and the Tao increases. I am looking forward to reading more of her books.

This book is a handy little reference guide that gives you little jolts of taoist wisdom very succinctly. As usual Eva's books are very nice and readable. Im not done with it at the moment so I will see how it progresses. Seems to go deeper as you read on.

The first section is an excellent guide to living mindfully, the later sections are advanced practices involving metaphors and alchemy.

A great source for understanding Taoism form one of the best authors available.

A truly amazing introduction to the daoist teachings of health and longevity for those who don't yet read Classical Chinese.

Really helpful tips

As advertised

This book provides a translation of some interesting Daoist (Taoist) texts. However, it's certainly not something a beginner can easily grasp or understand, even with the long introduction that Eva Wong provides.The way it presents Daoism is a little weird, and is primarily from the perspective of the Internal Alchemy (Neidan) branch of Daoism. This form of Daoism is represented mostly by Quanzhen and Nanzong schools. I just want to note that Eva Wong, along with many other authors, incorrectly state that these two are Northern Quanzhen and Southern Quanzhen. Nanzong is actually distinct from Quanzhen and has a variety of sects and lineages that are often older and have some differences from Wang Chongyang's teachings (the founder of the Quanzhen school in the 12th Century).The book begins with a translation of Wang Jie's "Mysteries of the Tao" (Daoxuan Pian), which is similar in content to ancient texts like Daode Jing and Huainanzi. This is posed by Eva Wong as "Outer teachings". Everyone can easily understand this text, but the next two texts are both relevant to Internal Alchemy and there is little transition into this extremely complex subject. The concepts of Internal Alchemy are something that people need to be eased into, not presented so suddenly. Westerners have little background in Chinese Daoist concepts and terminology, and frankly even most Chinese people have difficulty understanding Internal Alchemy because of its mysterious and complicated terminology.The second text, "Understanding the Mysteries", establishes some of the conceptual foundations of Internal Alchemy by teaching about the different forms and states of energies in the body and how they can be directed and regulated through meditation practices. However, even though it may seem like an introductory text on Internal Alchemy it is actually rather convoluted and not easy to grasp (which is typical of the Neidan literature, even the more straightforward ones).The third and last text ("Sacred Treatise on the Great Mystery") teaches the instructions on how to do the right meditation/Neidan practices to become an Immortal (Xian) by creating the "immortal fetus/embryo". This concept will seem bizarre to most people because essentially it sounds like it's saying you need to create a second soul to be immortal (Chinese folk religion already has the Pagan concept of multiple souls to begin with). However, it's better to say that it's more like creating a "spiritual body" that will survive and host your current psyche/spirit once your physical body dies (thus you can avoid reincarnation and be able to ascend to Heavenly realms of the Immortals).The things that Eva Wong won't tell you here, however, is that there are a variety of different instructions and requirements for Internal Alchemy depending on the sect/school and sometimes even the individual teacher lineage that you are learning from. Also, considering that Internal Alchemy only appeared in the 2nd or 3rd Century CE (after Buddhism as well as probably some Hindu ideas already came to China), I think it isn't fair to insist that it is the "Inner and Secret Teachings of Taoism", when it's possible that it didn't even exist before Indian influences on Daoism.On top of that, even up to the Tang Dynasty, the most commonly taught forms of Daoist meditation belonged to the Zuowang/Xinzhai and Qigong categories. These include various forms of simple Jingzuo ("Quiet Sitting"), breathing meditation, visualization, Qi circulation (Xingqi), and "Clarity-and-Stillness" (Qingjing) varieties of meditation. All of these predate Buddhism (as evidenced by early Daoist scriptures plus the findings at Mawangdui and Guodian), and after Buddhism vipassana or "guan" was adopted by some Daoists as well. All these methods are much simpler than Internal Alchemy yet were still claimed by Daoist masters to lead to Immortality or Attainment of the Dao (得道 / Dedao). So honestly it is questionable if all this difficult Internal Alchemy stuff is even necessary to begin with. I'm not saying that it doesn't work or is invalid, as I'm not qualified to make that judgement. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be posed as an absolute must for all "Daoist adepts", considering that different Daoist schools have vastly different teachings.

Ein ansprechend lehrreiches Buch. Die Vorstellungswelt im Taoismus wird umfassend beschrieben. Dabei ist derZentralpunkt die innere Kultivierung, das harmonische fließen der inneren Energie und die Spiegelung inder Umwelt.Einschränkend möchte ich darauf hinweisen, das man ohne Grundkenntnisse wenig Freude an dem Text hat.Mantak Chia verbindet Text und Skizzen ausdrucksstärker, womit ein besserer aktiver Einstieg ermöglicht wird.

Very lovely, concise, and fairly easy to follow. Good for those who may've read Tao te Ching, but are looking for more direct/easily applicable advice on living by Taoist principles. Note that this book is primarily based on the southern branch of the Complete Reality school of thought/tradition, and is broken up into short, easy to read chunks.

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Interesting to Taoist scholars but for me much too mystical compared to the fundamental text of Tao te Ching, which is of universal significance.