Daodejing Practice Group (Online)

with Scott Park Phillips

The Daodejing (Tao Te Ch’ing) is the central and most sacred book of the Daoist Religion. Assembled into 81 short potent verses around 350 BCE, the Daodejing has been the subject of over 2000 commentaries in Chinese and has been translated into English more than a hundred times in the last hundred years. Its central idea is called wuwei, roughly translated not-doing, or without-intent, and repeatedly points to a type of practice or cultivation which is self-revealing (ziran). 

Members of this group recite the Daodejing as a solo practice in conjunction with stillness. It requires a commitment to daily recitation and an hour of sitting or standing still. Many elements of Daoism are covered in this group and there is a wide range of literature we draw on. The main method being transmitted is called Zuowang (sitting and forgetting). After a year or so of practice we naturally transition into Jindan (the golden elixir). 

The group began in July 2017 and is still going. A second group began in 2021 and will remain open to new students with a sincere interest. We meet by live video using the Zoom platform so that group discussions can take place while easily referring to the written commentaries.

We meet once a month for 2 hours on Zoom, and I make myself available for consultations throughout the month.

$50 a month

email gongfuguy@gmail.com

phone 415-200-8201

Depth

This is a committed group. If you are interested, contact Scott to inquire if this is an appropriate group for you. It requires specific Daoist commitments, an appetite for Daoist practice, and a willingness to create free-time. 

Bio

Scott Park Phillips is a Somatic Historian, and the author of Possible Origins, A Cultural History of Chinese Martial Arts, Theater, and Religion (2016). He lives in Boulder, Colorado. Scott began training in 1977, under Bing Gong - a senior student of Kuo Lien-Ying, one of the first Chinese 'internal' martial artists teaching in the United States. Scott is also a long term student of George Xu.

With a background in Dance Ethnology, Performance and Improvisation, Scott has been teaching children and adults for the last 25 years, including 5 years at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and 10 years with Performing Arts Workshop.  He has performed in several dance traditions, including the Congolese dance traditions taught by Malonga Casquelourd and the Kathak (Indian Classical) tradition of Chitresh Das. He has also studied Circus Daoyin with Paulie Zink.

Scott is founding member of Orthodox Daoism in America where he studied the five orthodox methods of religious Daoism with Liu Ming intensively for nine years.