Taoist Yoga [antikvár]

Chapter 1 Introduction Many Westerners are under the impression that the Chinese do things back to front or the wrong way round. Agreed, the front of a Chinese book, for instance, is what in the West would be the back, and the Chinese read from top to bottom instead of from left to right. This, however, has to do with the type of script being used. Neither the Chinese nor the Western method is any "better", or more logical, than the other. In other fields too, though, the Chinese have always maintained what may seem to Westerners to be a back-to-front approach. If spots suddenly appear on his skin, a Chinese does not rub ointment onto them to make them disappear, and then watch them come back another day. He does not take a pill to ease a migraine attack one day, only to have to go through the same routine again the week after. Instead, he goes to the cause and root of the trouble, tackles it, and so seeks to put paid to it for good. The Chinese have followed this principle throughout their very long history. In the period 10,CX)0-3,000 BC, which is generally known as the Primitive Period (Yuan Shi She Hui), the Chinese were very, very superstitious, and this led them to explore the depths of the supernatural, spiritualism, physical and spiritual alchemy, psychic forces, the spheres of the occult, the many directions and channels of the mind, the different pathways in meditation, and the vast and different energies and vitalities that exist within ourselves and within all phenomena in the universe. This vastly