Book recommendation

[Shangshan]

Hi

 

I am very interested in learning about Daoism and would appreciate if you could help me to find suitable books. Maybe I should tell you more about myself:

I have studied TCM in China and can read both in Chinese and English. My interest in TCM started when as a teenager I learned to see auras and astral projection. I needed to learn more about how the universe and the human body work and that's why I went to China to study Chinese and TCM but now I realize that the kind of TCM that they teach in China is very superficial and even the teachers don't know much about the deeper concepts of TCM. Although I couldn't find much interesting things in school I fortunately had the opportunity to learn internal martial arts from good teachers. They also taught me qigong but since they were more focused on the practical combat techniques my knowledge about lian dan is very basic. Having those teachers taught me that the Chinese culture is very conservative and it's not easy to learn their real knowledge. Also there are lots of fake teachers who are just interested in the money. In martial arts it is easier to know who is real but I assume that it becomes much more difficult in Daoism. Now I don't have a teacher and I know there should be things that are impossible to learn without a teacher but for now please recommend some books that discuss Daoism profoundly either in Chinese or English.

[Chang]

Hello and welcome to the Tao Bums.

 

From your introductory post I suspect that you may well appreciate the work of Jerry Alan Johnson. You will find a good deal of of information regarding him on the forum. Before diving in however please take the time to read the two introductory posts pinned at the top of the Lobby and also take a look at the forum terms and rules http://thetaobums.com/topic/19575-forum-terms-rules/

 

Good luck and best wishes,

 

Chang

[Shangshan]

Thanks. Those books are expensive but they seem to be very rich in content. Are they suitable for self study or do they require a teacher at some point?

[Chang]

No book can ever take the place of a really good teacher. However I consider Johnsons written works to be of encyclopaedic value. With your history in TCM you would probably find them of great interest. As a start why don't you type his name in the forum search box and read some of the posts that come up.

[BaguaKicksAss]

To make your searching life easier, you may wish to go to google search and type in: site:www.thetaobums.com "jerry alan johnson" Google's search feature works better than ours .

 

Not too expensive, $65 for a 1000 page book...