Contact

 

Originally established in 2003, the Center for Daoist Studies is now the education and research branch of the Daoist Foundation, a non-profit religious and educational organization. Conventional correspondence may be addressed to either Louis Komjathy or Kate Townsend, our co-directors, and sent to the following address: Center for Daoist Studies, 4419 Green Cove Street NW, Olympia, WA 98502. Please click the following link for email correspondence.

 

 

Our Directors

 

Louis Komjathy (Kang Siqi 康思奇; Xiujing 修靜; Wanrui 萬瑞;  Ph.D., Religious Studies, Boston University) has been involved in Daoist Studies for over fourteen years. His inquiry into the Daoist religious tradition began under a Buddho-Daoist teacher in Hanover, New Hampshire as an exchange student at Dartmouth College (1991). After five years of intensive study and practice (1993-1998) at the Taoist Studies Institute (Seattle, Wash.), which included six months of travel in China, he pursued graduate studies at Boston University with an emphasis on Daoism under Livia Kohn. He is currently Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions at Pacific Lutheran University, Research Associate in the Institute of Religion, Science and Social Studies of Shandong University (PRC), and Co-chair of the Daoist Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion. He has published Title Index to Daoist Collections (Three Pines Press, 2002), a technical reference work for accessing classical Daoist texts; Cultivating Perfection: Mysticism and Self-transformation in Early Quanzhen Daoism (Brill, 2007), a scholarly monograph on that twelfth-century Daoist religious movement; and the forthcoming Handbooks for Daoist Practice (Xiudao shouce 修道手冊; Yuen Yuen Institute [Hong Kong]), a translation series for Daoist practitioners and students. His current research focuses on early Quanzhen 全真 (Complete Perfection) Daoism, contemporary Daoist monasticism, and the history of Daoist Studies. In 2006, he lived as a visiting Daoist in the Daoist monasteries of Laoshan 嶗山 (Mount Lao; near Qingdao, Shandong) and Huashan 華山 (Mount Hua; Huayin, Shaanxi) and  received initiation into the Huashan  lineage of Quanzhen Daoism. He lives in Olympia, Wash.

 

Kate Townsend (Tang Xiang'en 唐鄉恩; L.Ac., LMP) has been a student and practitioner of Daoism, Chinese medicine, and the healing arts since 1984. Over the last twenty years, she has studied with some of the foremost Daoist teachers in North America and has traveled and studied extensively in China, including two internships at the Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She is particularly interested in female Daoist cultivation and is currently working on a book on this topic. She also received classical Yoga training at Samadhi Yoga Center (Seattle, Wash.) and is a certified Yoga instructor. She lives in Olympia, Wash. and maintains a Chinese medical practice in the Laurelhurst area of Seattle and in the Cooper Point area of Olympia  that focuses on healthcare for women and children.