Aryana Libris

Author : Kohn Livia
Title : Chinese healing exercises The tradition of Daoyin
Year : 2008

Link download : Kohn_Livia_-_Chinese_healing_exercises_The_tradition_of_Daoyin.zip

Introduction. Human beings are by nature embodied creatures. The very foundation of our life is the concrete, material reality into which we are born and which we shape. As the basis of our existence, the body is a source of great pleasure and overwhelming pain, a giver of deep satisfaction and utter misery, the root of potential perfection and dismal failure. The Chinese have realized this fact and, over several millennia, have made the body the foundation of the great human endeavor of perfection: the perfection of health and well-being, the perfection of long life in youthful vigor, and the perfection of spirit in transcendence to an otherworldly realm. They have always understood the elementary need for accepting one’s basic inborn qualities while yet working to live up to one’s full potential, caring for and cultivating the body to the best of one’s abilities. To this end, they have developed a plethora of methods, called longevity techniques, that can restore health, enhance the quality of life, prolong life expectancy, and even aid in the ultimate goal of spiritual transcendence. Healing exercises, called Daoyin, constitute one form of these techniques. Documented already in Chinese antiquity, they have evolved and expanded over the centuries, are popular in China in their current forms of qigong (also chi kung) and taiji quan (also tai chi ch’üan), and have recently made inroads in Western health and spiritual circles. What, then, is the fundamental understanding of the human body in Chinese culture? What exactly are “longevity techniques” and how do they work? What is Daoyin, how is it done, where does it come from? And, finally, are there comparative methods in other cultures and the modern West that may be more familiar and thus help us explore the exact workings of the practice ? ...