This book provides a systemic introduction of Daoism in China. Subjects includes the spirituality in early China, establishment and lineage of the celestial masters, Daoist deities, temples, and sacred places, the influence of Daoism in culture and customs. With black and white photographs, including shrines, temples, and deities.

A long-awaited textbook that introduces the major schools, teachings, and practices of Daoism, this work presents a chronological survey that is thematically divided into four parts: Ancient Thought, Religious Communities, Spiritual Practices, and Modernity. The work offers an integrated vision of the Daoist tradition in its historical and cultural context, establishing connections with relevant information on Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, popular religion, and political developments. It also places Daoism into a larger theoretical and comparative framework, relating it to mysticism, millenarianism, forms of religious organization, ritual, meditation, and modernity. The book makes ample use of original materials and provides references to further readings and original sources in translation. It is a powerful resource for teaching and studying alike.

This text considers the prevalence of Lao-Zhuang Daoism and Huang-Lao Daoism in late pre-imperial and early imperial Chinese traditional thought. The author uses unique excavated documents and literature to explore the Huang-Lao tradition of Daoist philosophy, which exerted a great influence on China ancient philosophy and political theories, from the Pre-Qin period to the Wei-Jin periods. It explains the original and significance of Huang-Lao Daoism, its history and fundamental characteristics, notably discussing the two sides of Huang-Lao, namely the role and function of Lao Zi and the Yellow Emperor, and discusses why the two can constitute a complementary relationship. It also provides a key study of the Mawangdui silk texts, bamboo slips of the Heng Xian, Fan Wu Liu Xing, considering both the theory of human Xing and of Qi.

A celebration of Taoist art traces the influence of philosophy on the visual arts in China.

How can Daoism, China's indigenous religion, give us the aesthetic, ethical, political, and spiritual tools to address the root causes of our ecological crisis and construct a sustainable future? In China's Green Religion, James Miller shows how Daoism orients individuals toward a holistic understanding of religion and nature. Explicitly connecting human flourishing to the thriving of nature, Daoism fosters a "green" subjectivity and agency that transforms what it means to live a flourishing life on earth. Through a groundbreaking reconstruction of Daoist philosophy and religion, Miller argues for four key, green insights: a vision of nature as a subjective power that informs human life; an anthropological idea of the porous body based on a sense of qi flowing through landscapes and human beings; a tradition of knowing founded on the experience of transformative power in specific landscapes and topographies; and an aesthetic and moral sensibility based on an affective sensitivity to how the world pervades the body and the body pervades the world. Environmentalists struggle to raise consciousness for their cause, Miller argues, because their activism relies on a quasi-Christian concept of "saving the earth." Instead, environmentalists should integrate nature and culture more seamlessly, cultivating through a contemporary intellectual vocabulary a compelling vision of how the earth materially and spiritually supports human flourishing.

An insightful socio-cultural analysis of the differences in Chinese and Western relationships to the public and the private spheres.

The modern history of Chinese temples and Daoism go hand in hand, and while both temples and Daoists serve Chinese society, the relationship between the two has yet to be thoroughly analysed. This book questions whether temples and Daoism are two independent aspects of modern Chinese religion, or if they are indissolubly linked. Using an interdisciplinary approach combining historical research and fieldwork, the book focuses on urban centres in China, as this is where socio-political changes came earliest and affected religious life to the greatest extent, and also where the largest central Daoist temples were and are located. It examines how Daoism interacted with traditional urban social, cultural and commercial institutions, and pays close attention to how it dealt with processes of state expansion, commercialization, migration, and urban development in modern times. The book goes on to examine the evolution of urban religious life in modern China, particularly the ways in which temple communities, lay urbanites, and professional Daoists interact with one another. Comparing case studies from central, eastern and southern China with published evidence and research on other Chinese cities, the book presents a useful analysis as to how modern history has changed the structure and organisation of religious and social life in China, and the role that Daoism plays in this.

Confucianism and Daoism absorbing and mutually transforming new horizons, especially Buddhism; attention to the writings of Matteo Ricci and potential Christian contributions to modern development in Chinese culture.

This ambitious book presents a new interpretation of Chinese thought guided both by a philosopher's sense of mystery and by a sound philosophical theory of meaning. That dual goal, Hansen argues, requires a unified translation theory. It must provide a single coherent account of the issues that motivated both the recently untangled Chinese linguistic analysis and the familiar moral-political disputes. Hansen's unified approach uncovers a philosophical sophistication in Daoism that traditional accounts have overlooked.