A record of the assembled immortals and gathered perfected of the Western hills

[Mudfoot]

I have almost finished "A record of the assembled immortals and gathered perfected of the Western hills", translated by Richard Bertschinger. 

 

I have read other books on daoist cultivation. The Eva Wong collection (gave it away, years ago), the Cleary collection (gathers dust on the shelf), Pregradio translations, and so on(You get the picture). I even printed out a copy of Voids favourite. 

 

At the time I read them, most (with the exception of Wang Mu Foundations of internal alchemy) were totally in comprehensive. 

 

This book is different. It actually explains stuff instead of piling codewords higher and deeper. 

 

And, perhaps because my practice has evolved considerably the last few years, I also have an idea of what the core ideas is about. 

 

I cannot say that my idea is what the authors tradition had in mind, so I will not state that I am having a dawning understanding of Nei Dan. But there is a considerable amount of the content in this book that fits very well with my practice. 

 

I would recommend beginners to buy this one, and Wang Mu's book, before trying to dive in the more known classics. 

I will read it again. 

 

[nonee]

So you only recommend these two as beginners? what you think are the right recommendations for intermediate and advanced stages?

Edited January 24, 2019 by nonee

[Mudfoot]

On 2019-01-24 at 12:23 PM, nonee said:

So you only recommend these two as beginners?

No. You added "only" here. I recommend them for beginners. Not the same thing. 

On 2019-01-24 at 12:23 PM, nonee said:

 

what you think are the right recommendations for intermediate and advanced stages?

Find a teacher. Learn a method. Practice. 

 

I would not recommend anything to a Nei Dan practitioner since that is beyond the scope of my practice. The books above can be interpreted as describing processes in my practice which is based on buddhist tantric methods, likely with daoist influences (Shaolin, you know.....), so their usefulness can be beyond the area of daoist Nei Dan, IF you have a method. 

 

Wu Ming Jen who practices this have stated that his teachers told him to avoid books. 

Taoist Texts on the other hand seems to feel that books are useful, and the russian WLP group that had a short presence here (two years ago?) also liked books.