Blog
Stuart Alve Olson—beloved Taoist teacher, translator, author, and lifelong practitioner—passed peacefully from cancer on August 14, 2025, in Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by the love and care of his closest students and caretakers, Patrick Gross and Suzanne Nosko. Even through all he endured, his att...
I met Stuart in 1992—more than thirty years ago. Like a lot of people, I wanted to learn Tai Chi. I had started studying with Jim Lodal, a student of Master Liang’s and Stuart’s in Duluth, MN.
Jim told me that Stuart, newly married to Lian Hua and with his son Lee, on the way, had just moved back t...
When someone like Stuart, who devoted his life to the Taoist arts of vitality, passes in his 75th year, it can raise questions. How could a teacher of health and longevity die “relatively young”?
Stuart himself would have wanted us to look at this openly, without denial. For him, life as it is was ...
Sitting in meditation as done in Zuo Wang (Sitting and Forgetting) there’s really little to depend upon. I think this is why most people acquire real doubts about practicing meditation. We can go to many types of workshops and seminars to learn various things that seem to have some aspect of a tangi...
From www.science.org.au: “No one likes the thought of growing old. Despite our many human endeavors to escape or delay the process of aging, it seems to be an inevitable part of life.
But … why? Why do living things gradually fall apart when they grow older?
There is a word for it: senescence is t...
天 文 錄
Tian Wen Lu
Translation Copyright © 2014 by Stuart Alve Olson. From the Chinese book Non Action Tranquil Sitting Methods (無為靜坐法, Wu Wei Jing Zuo Fa) compiled by Master Xu Zhenru (徐真如. Xu Zhenru). Derived from the work compiled by Hunyizi (混一子). Published and printed by Zhen Shan Mei Book Com...
Over the years I’ve found myself drawn to stories about immortals. I think this attraction was due to having read Ge Hong’s (葛 洪) fourth-century work Master Who Embraces Simplicity (抱 朴 子, Bao Pu Zi ). In his book, Ge Hong makes credible arguments for the belief and existence of immortals, as well a...
Translation © 2023 by Stuart Alve Olson
These translations of the Scripture on Tao and Virtue by Lao Zi (道 德 經 著 老 子) include the rare commentary by Taoist Immortal Bai Yuchan (白 玉 蟾, 1194–1229 CE), more popularly called the Jade Toad Immortal. Bai Yuchan was the fifth patriarch of the Southern Sch...
This overview provides some explanation and history on the Yellow Court Scripture so that students will have some idea of the goal for learning it. The reason for practicing these teachings is to become an immortal, so it is important to understand what immortality means to a Daoist.
In the term “I...
“Hold on to being and keep to non-being” is an important verse in the Tao De Jing. The meaning is quite complex and can apply to various situations. But to help illustrate one of the meanings I will tell you an old story about a monk and a female benefactor.
There was once an old woman who took car...
During my last talk in the membership, I spoke a little on Wei Wu Wei, the Taoist idea of “active non-action,” or possibly better said, “active non-calculation.” However one wishes to translate this term, the concept of “doing nothing” always comes to mind, or as we might want to state it, “actively...
Originating sometime during the Tang dynasty in Shanxi province, this story is about an elderly man who sold herbal medicines in the marketplace of his village. Since no one in the village knew his name, they just called him the Old Herb Seller.
Wang Yu, a rich man in the village, was reserved, kin...
