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...

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...

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...

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...

“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...

For a long time now I’ve been wanting to tell this Taoist story about a young girl who wanted to learn Taoist magic and become an immortaless. It really has good advice about self-cultivation of Taoism and goes like this:

In the province of Sichuan there was a very rich man, who had a young daughte...