Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity

Isabelle Robinet

Apr 1993 · State University of New York Press

About this ebook

Isabelle Robinet's Taoist Meditation is the first and only scholarly study to discuss the ancient Mao-shan Taoist tradition of visionary meditation while, at the same time, helping to clarify the little understood relationship among the early Taoist classics, the Buddhist tradition, and the later Taoist religion. Most importantly, Taoist Meditation is a pioneering study that fully and accurately describes the unique visionary cosmology, bodily symbolism, astral journeys, internal alchemy, meditational techniques, and ritual practices of the Mao-shan or Shang-chi'ing (Great Purity) movement—one of the most important foundational traditions making up the overall Taoist religion.

This English version of Robinet's work is more than a simple translation.Taoist Meditation presents a significantly expanded edition of the original French text which includes up-to-date bibliographies of Robinet's work and other Western scholarship on Taoism, additional illustrations, and a newly compiled list of textual citations.

About the author

Isabelle Robinet is Professor of Chinese History and Civilization at the University of Aix-Marseille. Julian F. Pas is Professor of Chinese Religions at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Norman J. Girardot is Professor of Comparative Religions at Lehigh University.