He draws upon the teachings of his own mother and also provides an historical overview of the roles of men and women in the world.

    Discusses not only how spiritual improvement can become an integral part of one's life but how one can realize a Heavenly life on Earth.

    Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but ultimately independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism.

    Written by an unknown author in the fifth century A.D., it closely resembles the Tao te ching in structure and contents. Edited and commented on several times until the twelfth century, the text played an important role in Taoist religious thought.Kohn presents the first Western introduction to this aspect of traditional Chinese religion and culture. Through her careful textual study and fully annotated translation of the Scripture of Western Ascension, she delineates the history, structure, and contents of what mystical thought meant within the Taoist religion. She also discusses the religious background of the text and provides detailed analyses of the philosophical concepts of "The Physical Universe," "Mind, Knowledge, Language," and "The Way of the Sage."