Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide (Farsi)
I’m pleased to announce the (illegal!) Farsi translation of my book, Daoism; A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2008), published by Adyan Publications (1395/2016).
The book can be ordered online from http://shahreketabonline.com/products/15/170594
Available for pre-order on Amazon.com
As the world reaches a population of nearly 10 billion people in 2050, as climate change provokes unexpected transformations in weather patterns, as sea levels rise, and as water and food security become paramount concerns for nations, the question of how China manages these challenges are ones that have serious implications across the world. No one wants China’s vast economic, political and environmental experiment to fail. At the same time, it is evident that the way that contemporary Western and Chinese societies are structured together in a system of global finance, trade and economic exploitation is ultimately unsustainable and will lead to the drastic reordering of the fundamental relationships between the planetary biosphere and the species that inhabit it.
The source of this unsustainability is the inability of modern neoliberal ideology and its attendant cultural forms to conceptualize and operationalize a way of being in the world that inscribes human prosperity within the prosperity of planetary life. Rather we have come to conceptualize human prosperity in a way that is alienated from the ecological systems that make such prosperity possible. As a result, the modes by which we pursue human prosperity serve only to diminish its long term viability by destroying the ultimate foundations for prosperity, that of the capacity of the natural order to produce of its own accord the creative vitality that can support the flourishing and wellbeing of all species. Such a capacity I term the subjectivity of nature. By denying nature’s subjectivity and arrogating subjectivity and agency to itself alone, modern human culture has sowed the seeds of its own destruction.
China’s Green Religion develops a normative critique of this aspect of modernity from an ecocritical analysis of ideas and values found within Daoism, China’s indigenous religious tradition. It also aims to produce an alternative vision for a culture of sustainability that is of relevance to China and the world in the mid twenty-first century.
The book will be available from Columbia University Press in May 2017 and is available for pre-order now.
Learn more at www.chinasgreenreligion.com
James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer, eds. 2014. Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China. New York: Routledge.
This book sheds light on the social imagination of nature and environment in contemporary China. It demonstrates how the urgent debate on how to create an ecologically sustainable future for the world’s most populous country is shaped by its complex engagement with religious traditions, competing visions of modernity and globalization, and by engagement with minority nationalities who live in areas of outstanding natural beauty on China’s physical and social margins. The book develops a comprehensive understanding of contemporary China that goes beyond the tradition/ modernity dichotomy, and illuminates the diversity of narratives and worldviews that inform contemporary Chinese understandings of and engagements with nature and environment.
Gene Anderson reviews the book on Amazon.com
This edited volume deserves serious attention from those interested in China and in the environment, and I hope its absurdly high price will not discourage people from looking into it. Like most (if not all) collections of papers, it is uneven in quality, but the best papers are seriously important and worthwhile. I have too little space here to hit all the high points, but a few that are particularly useful and innovative include Deborah Sommer’s on early Chinese concepts of the earth (much more interesting than you might have thought); James Miller’s paper on an early Daoist sect; Chris Coggins on fengshui groves and their exceedingly important role in saving forests and large trees until the Communists destroyed most of them; Rebecca Nedostup’s on how borrowed western “rationalist” concepts of religion from 19th-century cultural evolutionism led to pernicious devaluing and attacking Chinese traditional religions; and Emily Yeh’s really stunning and wide-ranging paper on Tibetan attitudes toward the environment, the changes of these in modern times, and the various western-world idealizations of them. I am in awe of these papers; I’ve been working on this material for 50 years and I never got close to making all these points. There are many other valuable papers here.
Much of this book (not the paper by Coggins or Yeh, however) represents book-driven, text-based approaches. My approach comes from human biology and has been field-driven and broadly materialist. So I had a lot to learn here. But, also, a thoughtful point emerges. Book-driven research inevitably leads to privileging elite positions and meditative, thoughtful takes on the world. This can lead to seeing the Chinese as sages living in a world of visions. No paper herein does that, but I can imagine casual readers being lulled into that view. In contrast, the field approach in human ecology can lead to a crassly materialist approach in which too much attention is paid to uses of plants and animals relative to the subtleties of the thought behind such environmental management. I have fallen into this trap on occasion, and Ole Bruun catches me up on it in his paper in this volume. Fair point, but essentializing traditional belief and religion is also shaky as a strategy, depriving us of the lessons we could be learning. That is my one real criticism of this book: there is very little on what the world can learn from China’s successes and failures in managing the environment, or from traditional Chinese (Han and minority) views and ideas about environments. This is a pity, since there is in fact a great deal that the world environmental and conservation community could learn–some good ideas and some (or many) cautionary notes. The editors would no doubt respond that this book is about documentation and analysis, not about recommendation, but in a world where long-predicted catastrophes and nightmare scenarios are rapidly becoming reality, can we afford to do that? Would a medical text on drug-resistant tuberculosis ignore the treatment side?
That said, this is a collection that no one interested in Chinese environmental history can afford to miss.
Read a fuller description of the book on my blog.
| Title | Author | |
| Acknowledgments | James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer | |
| Introduction | Dan Smyer Yu, with James Miller and Peter van der Veer | |
| Part I: Ecology and the Classics | ||
| 1 | Ecology and the Classics | Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim |
| 2 | Conceptualization of Earth and Land in Classical Chinese Texts | Deborah Sommer |
| 3 | “The Great Virtue of Heaven and Earth:” Deep Ecology in the Yijing | Joseph A. Adler |
| 4 | “Hard-Hearted” and “Soft-Hearted” Ecologies: A Rereading of Daoist and Confucian Classics | Chen Xia and Peng Guoxiang with James Miller |
| 5 | Gods and Nature in Highest Clarity Daoism | James Miller |
| 6 | When the Land is Excellent: Village Feng Shui Forests and the Nature of Lineage, Polity, and Vitality in Southern China | Chris Coggins |
| Part II: Imagining Nature in Modernity | ||
| 7 | Finding Nature in Religion, Hunting Religion from the Environment | Rebecca Nedostup |
| 8 | Globalizations and Diversities of Nature in China | Robert P. Weller |
| 9 | Is Chinese Popular Religion Compatible with Ecology? A Discussion of Fengshui | Ole Bruun |
| 10 | Ecological Migration and Cultural Adaptation: A Case Study of the Sanjiangyuan Nature Reserve, Qinghai Province | Qi Jinyu |
| 11 | Reverse Environmentalism: Contemporary Articulations of Tibetan Culture, Buddhism, and Environmental Protection | Emily T. Yeh |
| 12 | Earthwork, Home-Making, and Eco-Aesthetics among Amdo Tibetans | Dan Smyer Yu |
The Way of HIghest Clarity by James Miller
James Miller. The Way of Highest Clarity: Nature, Vision and Revelation in Medieval China, Magdalena, NM: Three PInes Press, 2008. US$34.95. ISBN 978-1-931483-09-4
The Way of Highest Clarity was a Daoist religious movement that flourished for a thousand years in medieval China. This book explains its chief religious ideas and practices through three key texts, translated into English for the first time.
“This is the first Western book to present the theology of the Highest Clarity (Shanqing) tradition, a Daoist lineage that originated in southern China in the fourth century c.e. and became the leading Daoist tradition in Tang times. To illustrate the fundamental tenets of Highest Clarity thought and practice, the author translates two of its earliest texts as well as Zhu Ziying’s (976-1029) preface to its fundamental Perfect Scripture of the Great Grotto. Both the translations and the eminently concise presentation of Shangqing worldview are not only essential for the Daoist specialist but also a ‘must read’ for scholars and students of comparative religion.”
—Stephan-Peter Bumbacher, Universität Tübingen
The Esoteric Biography of Perfected Purple Yang documents the life of a Daoist saint who travels through China encountering a wealth of immortals and gods who aid him in his quest for transcendence. They transmit esoteric scriptures to him, including the Central Scripture of the Nine Perfected, also translated here. This text explains a meditation technique that involves visualizing gods descending into the organs of the body at certain times of the year. The book also translates the preface to the Perfect Scripture of the Great Grotto, a theological reflection on the practices of Highest Clarity, which connects the tradition back to the fundamental principles of the Dao.
Together with the introductory essays on the concepts of nature, vision and revelation, the book provides an overview of a unique and fascinating religious imagination, which will be of interest to anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of China’s cultural heritage.:
| Introduction |
1
|
| 1. The Way of Highest Clarity |
12
|
| 2. Nature |
30
|
| 3. Vision |
56
|
| 4. Revelation |
81
|
| 5.The Esoteric Biography of Perfected Purple Yang |
103
|
| 6. The Central Scripture of the Nine Perfected |
161
|
| 7. Preface to the Perfect Scripture of the Great Grotto |
211
|
| Bibliography |
224
|
| Index |
233
|
Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies edited by James Miller
James Miller, ed. Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO Press, 2006. Print US$85.00 1851096264; eBook US$90.00 1851096310
Chinese Religions in Contemporary Societies is a comprehensive introduction to the resurgence of religion in China and Taiwan since the end of the Cultural Revolution and a wide-ranging examination of the impact of religious traditions on Euro-Americans and Chinese immigrants in present-day North America.
“Chinese Religions In Contemporary Societies by James Miller … has brought together in a single work an in-depth survey of the forces that have shaped Chinese religious practices, along with the prevalence, adaptations, and transformations of these practices in North American communities from Confucianism to Falun Gong. Also covered are such practices as self-mortification, exorcism, spirit-writing, healing, counseling, changing fate, and self-cultivation. A core addition to academic library History of Religion reference collections, Chinese Religions In Contemporary Societies also traces the adoption of Chinese religious practices by Euro-Americans and is an invaluable resource for students of Chinese history and comparative religions, as well as non-specialist general readers with an interest in contemporary Chinese culture and social issues.”–Midwest Book Review
| James MILLER | Introduction |
1
|
| James MILLER | 1. The historical legacy of Chinas religious traditions |
9
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| James MILLER | 2. The opium of the people: religion, science and modernity |
31
|
| TAM Wai Lun | 3. Local religion in contemporary China |
57
|
| Ven. Jing Yin | 4. Buddhism and economic reform in mainland China |
85
|
| KIM Sung-Hae | 5. Daoist monasticism in contemporary China |
101
|
| Alison MARSHALL | 6. Shamanism on contemporary Taiwan |
123
|
| David PALMER | 7. Body cultivation in contemporary China |
147
|
| Francis YIP | 8. Protestant Christianity in contemporary China |
175
|
| Terry WOO | 9. Women in contemporary Chinese religions |
207
|
| Jonathan LEE | 10. Contemporary Chinese-American religious life |
235
|
| Elijah SIEGLER | 11. Chinese traditions in Euro-American society |
257
|
| HE Xiang and James MILLER | 12. Confucian spirituality in an ecological age |
281
|
| Index |
301
|
|
| About the authors |
317
|
Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide by James Miller
Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications 2008). 192pp. ISBN-13: 978-1851685660. US$14.95
This is a republication of my earlier book, Daoism A Short Introduction. (Oxford: Oneworld Publications 2003). Pp. xviii+174. ISBN 1-85168-315-1, US$17.95
Italian translation by M. Ghilardi. Daoismo: una introduzione. (Roma: Fazi editore 2005). xiv+234. ISBN 8-88112-604-4. €13
Farsi translation مقدمه ای کوتاه بر آیین دائو (Adyan Publications, 2016).
Daoism is an organised religious tradition that has been continuously developing and transforming itself through China Korea and Japan for over two thousand years. Now it has spread around the globe from Sidney to Toronto and includes among its followers people from a whole range of ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. Day by day, Daoism is truly becoming a world religion, but as it does so, it seems to resist being pinned down in neat categories. Not many people know what Daoism is, and when people do have an understanding of it, often it is quite different from someone else’s. One reason for this is that the history of Daoism is a marvellous history of continuous change rather than a linear progress or development. Daoism has no single founder, such as Jesus or the Buddha, nor does it have a single key message, such as the gospel or the four noble truths. Rather Daoism bears witness to a history of continuous self-invention within a vast diversity of environmental contexts.
In fact the human experience of change or transformation in our bodies and in the world around us lies at the heart of the Daoist experience in much the same way that faith in an eternal, unchanging deity lies at the heart of the Jewish-Christian-Islamic religious system. Whereas Western religionists seek to place their trust in an unchanging and invisible stability that somehow transcends the fleeting experience of time, Daoists recognize and celebrate the profound and mysterious creativity within the very fabric of time and space itself.
The most influential Daoist text, Daode jing (Scripture of the Way and its Power, c. 4th century B.C.E.) names this mysterious creativity “Dao”, which can be translated quite straightforwardly as “way” or “path.” The first line of the standard version of the text enigmatically warns, however, that “Dao can be spoken of, [but it is] not the constant Dao.” No wonder, then, that Daoism has taken a vast array of forms within the East Asian cultural context. This book is a short introduction to Daoism that takes seriously the task of naming the Dao, all the while acknowledging the constant change that continues to take place within Daoism. The way I have chosen to do this is to settle on eight keywords or fundamental themes that I believe lie at the heart of Daoism in its various cultural and historical forms. In each chapter I focus on one of these themes using it as a lens or a spotlight to illuminate a key aspect of the Daoist tradition.
Table of Contents
Reviews of Daoism: A Short Introduction“The author is consistently thoughtful about how to reach undergraduates: “To understand what Daoism means, then, it is instructive to pay attention to our own cultural milieu, the values and concepts that we take for granted in our day-to-day lives. But on the other hand we must also look for the ways in which the various Daoist traditions operate quite differently than the cultures we are familiar with” (x-xi). This approach is likely to encourage vigorous class discussion.
The book is not at all professorial in tone, and is knowledgeable about Daoism today in the Occident (with interest- ing examples from Canada). Its organization is thematic, and, I believe, serviceable. Its chapters on identity, Way, body, power (political connections of Daoist movements), light (its centrality in meditative Daoism), alchemy, text (scriptures and revelations), and nature (the role of the envi- ronment) are an excellent choice, likely to engage the inter- ests of most readers. One may read them in any order. I found the book intriguing and open-minded, generous with fresh insights.” Nathan Sivin, University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies Review 2010, vol. 36 (1) pp. 31-50.
“As the preface explains, the book is intended largely for college students, and Miller’s presentation is clearly shaped by the author’s classroom experience regarding questions and concerns raised by students encountering Daoism for the first time. For example, Miller observes that “Daoists construct their ways of being religious in quite different ways than we might expect” (x). The work is filled with useful heuristic generalizations regarding such differences, such as the following: “the human experience of change or transformation in our bodies and in the world around us lies at the heart of the Daoist experience in much the same way that faith in an eternal, unchanging deity lies at the heart of the Jewish-Christian-Islamic religious system” (ix). Teachers and students of comparative religion will thus find here an excellent starting point for looking at Daoism as today’s scholars now understand it. … [A]s a comprehensive “short introduction,” this nuanced and well-informed book succeeds extremely well.” Russell Kirkland, University of Georgia, in Daoist Studies(Internet: December 2, 2004).
“His stated goal is not only to introduce Daoism generally, but “specifically to introduce what it means to someone, like myself, who lives in the twenty-first century Western cultural context” (p. x). Indeed, one of the strengths of this work is its discussion of the interplay between the history of Daoism and contemporary Western attempts to make use of Daoist ideas and practices. … The structure of the book makes it relatively easy to use as a classroom text. It does not have to be read in a linear fashion, and so it will work well as a supplement to primary texts and lectures regardless of the order in which various themes are discussed. It will also be a good tool for leading students away from popular one-dimensional views of Daoism.” Erin Cline, Baylor University, in Journal of Chinese Philosophy 31.4 (December 2004): 547-9.
“This book has a host of strengths, not the least being its combination of brevity and thoroughness. Writing such a book is not easy and Miller has done us all a great favor. Although he eschews an historical approach to his subject, Miller’s “Historical Introduction” (just over fourteen pages) is excellent by itself and I can easily see instructors using it when covering Daoism in “world religions” surveys…. Overall Miller’s Daoism: A Short Introduction is excellent and I am eager to try it out. Reading it has also stimulated new ideas for my own scholarly explorations – something I did not expect from an introductory text.” John M. Thompson, Christopher Newport University, inTeaching Theology and Religion 8.2: 123-4.
Daoism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Publications 2008). 192pp. ISBN-13: 978-1851685660. US$14.95
Daoism and Ecology edited by N. J. Girardot, James Miller and Liu Xiaogan
Daoism and Ecology: Ways within a Cosmic Landscape edited by N. J. Girardot, James Miller and Liu Xiaogan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 2001. Pp. lxxiii+476
Cloth edition: US$36.95 / £24.50 / €36.95 ISBN 0-945454-29-5
Paper edition: US$24.95 / £16.50 / €24.95 ISBN 0-945454-30-9
Chinese translation Daojiao yu shengtai. Nanjing, China: Jiangsu jiaoyu chubanshe 2008.
N.B. Also check out my new book, China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future.
Daoism and ecology are often invoked as natural partners in contemporary discussions of environmental issues in the West. When looking to the religious and intellectual resources provided by various “world religions,” it has therefore been a commonplace assumption that the Chinese tradition conventionally known as “Daoism/Taoism” reveals an obvious and particularly compelling affinity with global ecological concerns. For most Western commentators until recently, Daoism primarily referred to the “mystical wisdom” found in several ancient “classical” texts (especially the Daode jing and Zhuangzi) and was seen to be fundamentally in tune with heightened contemporary fears about the increasingly fractured relations between humanity and the natural world. Popular testimony would even whimsically suggest that Pooh Bear and Piglet affirmed the profound ecological sensibility of the ancient Chinese Daoists.
Unfortunately there has been very little serious discussion of this beguiling equation of Daoism and ecology. Too much has been simply, and sometimes fantastically, taken for granted about what is finally quite elusive and problematic—both concerning the wonderfully ‘mysterious’ tradition known as Daoism and, in this case, the ‘natural’ confluence of Daoism and contemporary ecological concerns. Among the shelves of Western books and articles written in the past twenty-five years about the religious, ethical, and philosophical implications of a worldwide “environmental crisis,” there have been many passing allusions to a kind of Daoist ecological wisdom (often associated with native American and other tribal-aboriginal perspectives, as well as with Poohish themes and the free-floating and universalized “Suzuki-Zen” of an earlier generation). However, there is still no single work that is grounded in a scholarly understanding of the real complexities of the Daoist tradition and is also devoted to a critical exploration of the tradition’s potential for informing current ecological issues.
Even in works generally well informed about various religions and ecological issues, a certain kind of romantic infatuation with a “classically pure” and timelessly essential Daoism (embedded within one or two ancient texts and connected with a few key themes) has tended to shape the overall discussion of how this tradition can be “applied” to the problems of the contemporary world. The question remains whether there is anything to be learned beyond various vague appeals to Laozi’s enigmatic little treatise on the “Way and Its Ecological Power,” to Zhuangzi’s playfully insightful parables about “useless” trees and gourds, or to popular visions of a Yoda-like Chinese sage wandering amidst a mist-laden cosmic landscape of craggy mountains, swaying bamboo, and lofty waterfalls. Despite these ongoing reveries, Daoism is increasingly being recognized as an exceedingly rich religious tradition with an immense textual and historical lore that defies any attempt to reduce its meaning to a few ancient texts or Forrest Gump platitudes. It is clear that many popular assumptions about Daoism say less about the real significance of the tradition for ecological concerns than they say about the desire and dominion of Western regimes of both scholarly and popular understanding which, in the words of the Daode jing, tend to “see only that which they yearn for and seek” The difficult truth is that there is much that has not been named or known either about Daoism itself or about its possible contribution to recent environmental problems.
…
Daoists may not always be the first to act in times of crisis, nor are they likely to work out elaborate theories of engaged social action, but they have always known that it is imperative to take up a way of life that responds in a timely and imaginative fashion to the dangers of neglect, imbalance, distortion, and degradation that inevitably affect human relations with the natural and cosmic worlds. What is needed is a bodily and spiritual resurrection of what Tuan Yi-fu calls a “topophilia”—that is, an aesthetic respect and a practical love for one’s particular life-scape, a love that has general ecological import because of its rootedness in the specific topography of a lived body and local environment. Coming to the end of our journey within the confusing realms of Daoism and ecology is, then, only to be in a position to begin the work of knowing and healing again. In time and because of time, all things—including the natural world itself—require attentive cultivation and responsive care. This, after all, is the “natural” way of things. It is one of the ways—which might be called a “Daoist” or transformative way—to live gracefully, reciprocally, and responsibly within the cosmic landscape of life.
Introduction: Daoism and Ecology. Ways Within a Cosmic Landscape, N. J. Girardot, James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan
Prologue: The Calabash Scrolls, Stephen Field
Section I: Framing the Issues
Section II: Ecological Readings of Daoist Texts
Section III: Daoism and Ecology in a Cultural Context
Section IV: Toward a Daoist Environmental Philosophy
Section V: Practical Ecological Concerns in Contemporary Daoism
Epilogue:Dao Song, Ursula K. Le Guin .
“Certainly the greatest accomplishment of this volume is that it initiates public dialogue involving writers of Daoism in at least three ways: They have had ot address the issue of any possible Daoist contribution to the question of environmental crisis and ecological responsibility, their eessays are directly accountable to scholars in the wider field of religious studies, and the juxtaposition of scholarly and popular writings has served to partly bridge the long-lasting impasse in which scholars degrade the popular writers and the popular writers ignore the scholars
…
Reading these essays was something like witnessing a hibernating bear awaken to a new horizon of spring; the challenges posed to scholars of Daoism to take account of wider themes and issues in the field of contemporary studies of religion will continue to be painful but in the end will open new vistas of cogent engagement with the academy at large; the standards of excellence set by this volume will be the measure ot assess all future contributions from the field of Daoist studies.”
Thomas Michael, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “Closing the Gap between Daoist Studies and Religious Theory; Two Recent Publications.” The Journal of Religion 82.3 (July 2002), 424-426.
“The editors of this extraordinary collection of Daoist materials wisely chose to operate with a broad and inclusive understanding of Daoism, one that honors the philosophical, sociological, and religious distinctiveness of the various Daoist sectarian traditions. While some may feel that this approach begs the definitional problem of “Daoism,” the overwhelming advantage of this decision is to avoid the common reductionism of Daoism to the Lao-Zhuang tradition narrowly defined.
…
This work makes numerous contributions to our understanding of Daoist environmental philosophy, but there is also much offered to the reader in terms of methodology for studying and applying Daoism in general. The text makes a very important contribution to both the practitioner and academician. Strongly recommended for scholars of Daoism, individuals interested in religion and ecology, and general readers. All libraries should have this book.”
Ronnie Littlejohn, Belmont College. “Review of Daoism and Ecology.” Daoist Studies (Internet: http://www.daoiststudies.org/dao/node/670), March 15, 2003.
