Commentary on the Mirror for Compounding the Medicine: A Fourteenth-Century Work on Taoist Internal Alchemy (Masters)

Though not a reader or speaker of Chinese, to me this seems an excellent translation in that it is direct and clear, with footnotes sufficient for understanding the ideas and their genealogy/s (issues of translation and specific sources are noted, unlike in some of the more popularly-marketed Taoist books). However, in reading these internal-alchemy books, I'm usually still left wondering, "but what are you actually supposed to do? how do you progress from one stage to another? what the heck does a firing-times (et al.) really mean since it's just a metaphor? etc." And this one was similar. I get the allegories and the symbolic system at this point, but frankly I still don't really quite know what it entails in "real life". Most such texts purport to reveal something, but end up reverting to: "this is secret, so you need to find a teacher for direct oral transmission." But that's not possible for everyone. In fairness, this book was not as heavy on the "get a teacher" emphasis as many others are, it's just that the commentary is no more specific or plain than the original poem-series. Don't get me wrong, I still liked reading it, and some of the symbols are really interesting poetic images in themselves. It's just that obviously there's something I'm missing. Actually, the commentator (Wang Jie)'s own poem at the end spoke to me a tiny bit more than his commentary. And, this press also has published Wang Mu's 'Foundations of Internal Alchemy' (also tr. Pregadio), which really did just about explain it all. So perhaps in re-reading these two in conjunction, and doing the work....

Extraordinary book for those who already know something of navigating the celestial pathways. Inner teachings translated to a level far more readily understood by fairly experienced students.

Of scholarship and translation and this is no exception. Simply the best in English and in terms of clarity I suspect in any language including Chinese (because these classical texts do require translation, explication and interpretation).

Ottima traduzione letterale di un testo ermetico taoista, consegnato puntuale nonostate i disagi del maltempo e le innondazioni, complimenti a tutti.