Description:"From Taoism's spiritual philosophy to its practical perspectives on life and death, self-cultivation, morality, society, leadership, and gender, Russell Kirkland brings to life the Taoist vision as expressed by followers through the centuries. Through attention to Taoism's key elements and examples from the lives of Taoist men and women, he reveals the real contexts of the Tao te ching and Chuang-tzu, and of Taoist understandings of life which still reverberate in modern practices such as feng-shui and t'ai-chi ch'uan. His guide to this long misrepresented tradition presents a new paradigm for understanding Taoism in the twenty-first century."--BOOK JACKET.