Handbooks for Daoist Practice

Translated and introduced by Louis Komjathy (Ph.D., Religious Studies; Boston University), Handbooks for Daoist Practice (Xiudao shouce 修道手冊) is a series of translations of nine important, representative, and practice-oriented Daoist texts. Each work has been selected for its relevance to self-cultivation. Each translation follows a standard format, consisting of a historical and technical introduction, the translation proper, and the original Chinese text.

 

 

The handbooks are as follows: (1) Inward Training; (2) Book of Venerable Masters; (3) Yellow Thearch's Basic Questions; (4) Scripture on Clarity and Stillness; (5) Scriptural Statutes of Lord Lao; (6) Scripture for Daily Internal Practice; (7) Scripture on the Hidden Talisman; (8) Redoubled Yang's Fifteen Discourses; and (9) Book of Master Celestial Seclusion. Handbooks for Daoist Practice consists of these nine booklets plus an introductory booklet discussing the translation series as a whole. The introductory booklet is intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the study and practice of Daoism (Taoism). The published set also includes a handcrafted storage case.

Handbooks for Daoist Practice is currently unavailable, but the final manuscript proofs were just corrected. If all goes well, the collection should be published by the Yuen Yuen Institute (Hong Kong) in May of 2008.