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The Jade Emperor’s Mind Seal Classic: The Taoist Guide to Health, Longevity, and Immortality PDF

112 Pages·2003·1.84 MB·English
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THE JADE EMPEROR'S MIND SEAL CLASSIC - A Taoist Guide to Health, Longevity and Immortality - The Jade Emperor's MIND SEAL CLASSIC - A Taoist Guide to Health, Longevity and Immortality - Translation and Commentary by Stuart Alve Olson The Jade Emperor's Mind Seal Classic Copyright 1992 by Stuart Alve Olson All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address: Dragon Door Publications P.O. Box 4381 St. Paul, MN 55104, USA First Edition, February 1993 Second Printing, May 1993 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-73714 ISBN 0-938045-10-5 Printed on recycled paper Dedicated to the memory of Liang Shu-wen Acknowledgements Much appreciation goes to Master T.T. Liang for first giving me his copy of the Jade Emperor's Mind Seal Classic, for helping me initially with some of the more difficult con- cepts expressed in the work and for his contribution of the cover calligraphy. But mostly I wish to thank him for his years of instruction, guidance and friendship, which has made life itself more enjoyable. He is truly a living immortal. To Professor Wu Yi, who first taught me about Lao Tzu's thought during my residency at the City of Ten- Thousands Buddhas, my deepest gratitude for all his patient tutoring. Without question I must thank all the monks at the City of Ten-Thousand Buddhas. They changed the course of my life and by pure example revealed to me the meaning of self-cultivation. To them I bow in deep respect. To my wife, Loa Lian-hwa, for patiently typing out the first draft of this work and for her constant insistence that I finish this project before daring to enter my files of numer- ous other unfinished materials. To her I yield and say thank you. To John Du Cane, who again through his editing allows me to say what I mean, so that I may mean what I say. No easy task. Again, many thanks to the "book wizard" Randy Scholes for his book and cover design and to Mike Urseth for getting it all into and out of the computer the way it is supposed to be. To The Minneapolis Institute of Art and The John R. Van Derlip Fund for permission to use the photographs for the cover art and frontispiece. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the indispensable help given so generously during the many phases of this book by Jay and Page Cowles, Joanne Von Blon, Harry Cunliffe, Richard Peterson, Larry Hawkins, Lara Puffer, Fred Marych and, possibly, by the Jade Emperor himself. THE JADE EMPEROR'S MIND SEAL CLASSIC Introduction 13 Historical Background 17 The Jade Emperor's Mind Seal Classic 41 Commentary 45 The Three Treasures of Immortality 89 Chinese Phonetic Text, for Recitation 108 Translator's Afterword 111 The Jade Emperor seated in his court passing judgements. Introduction To my knowledge this is the first English translation of this popular Taoist text. Admittedly, when I first read through the text, I was not all that enthusiastic about translating it. It appeared to be no more than a jumbled collection of Taoist aphorisms, disjointed and unclear in purpose. For one reason or another I kept finding myself returning to it as a reference while working on other Taoist works. Eventually I realized why Taoist monks, especially of the Chuan Chen (Complete Reality) and Lung Men (Dragon Door) sects of the White Cloud Monastery, in Beijing, found it so valuable in their daily rituals and festival ceremonies. The text is, without question, a very concise overview of what each Taoist aspires to spiritually. Hopefully, as readers, you will come to share my belief in the importance of this text. I have, with limited knowl- edge, attempted to make clear the entire text, from the title to the passages. The real difficulty in doing this however is that the verses of the text are in the framework of mystical experience. The language of the mystic is very difficult to adapt into everyday language, for the very nature of mystical experience is beyond normal mundane experiences and lan- guage. Therefore, in order to further clarify the text I have added a work from the Lung Men sect, Three Treasures of Immortality, a discourse with various verses from accom- plished tao shih (Taoist masters) of the past, which reveals a great deal about Taoist thought, especially in connection with this text. The Chinese Phonetic Text, for Recitation has also been

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