The Tao of the West: Western Transformations of Taoist Thought

Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Preface......Page 10
'The Way that can be told': introduction......Page 14
Ways and means......Page 22
The way to the West......Page 25
'The meaning is not the meaning': on the nature of Daoism......Page 29
The 'Three Teachings'......Page 35
Historical origins......Page 41
'Cramped scholars': Western interpretations of Daoism......Page 50
Reading Daoism......Page 63
'The Great Clod': Daoist natural philosophy......Page 76
Cosmology: the standard picture......Page 82
Science: a new paradigm?......Page 87
Environmentalism: new ways?......Page 94
'Going rambling without destination': moral explorations......Page 103
The ethics of self-cultivation......Page 108
The politics of anarchism......Page 116
Women and gender......Page 124
'The transformation of things': the alchemy of life, sex and health......Page 130
The Way of inner cultivation......Page 135
The Way of sexuality......Page 141
The Way of good health......Page 149
'The Way is incommunicable': transcendence......Page 153
Mysticism made visible: landscape painting......Page 162
Transcendence......Page 172
'The twitter of birds': philosophical themes......Page 179
Scepticism, relativism and irrationalism......Page 188
Postmodernism......Page 197
'Journey to the West': by way of concluding......Page 207
Beyond Daoism......Page 216
Chinese dynastic chronology......Page 225
Wade  Giles/Pinyin conversion table......Page 226
Notes......Page 227
Bibliography......Page 247
Name index......Page 272
Subject index......Page 278