Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 299.5140924
EAN num: 9780062502261
ISBN number: 0062502263
Label: Harpercollins
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
Quantity: 1
Printing Date: 1986-10
Publishing house: Harpercollins
Sale Popularity Level: 646023
Studio: Harpercollins
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Rated by buyers 
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i enjoyed this and was able to read it through in a single sitting. very entertaining
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"The Wandering Taoist" by Deng Ming Dao, © 1983
Such a wild and crazy life some people lead. Kwan Saihung grew up in the 1920's. His was a life of a cross between imperial China and modern China. This is his biography. His education was at the hands of one of the many Taoist monasteries. At first, he is only nine years old, he is taken to the monastery for a yearly ceremony. He is taken back, tricked to accompany his Taoist monk guides. He gets scared to finish the journey, childish fears, so he is tricked again to finish his trip and he begins his life's journey.
Kwan is trained in the tradition of this monastery and meets a lot of people and learns from masters of all sorts of fields, especially martial arts. It is quite a story. In the end he finds his purpose, and the meaning of all that he has been studying of Taoism, deep in meditation in a cave. It reminds me of the womb we all come out of, a rebirth like all Christians, only different.
It does give some of his experience during the war with Japan (World War II). That is interesting. It is not often you get an eye witness account of what happened in such horrible times.
Rated by buyers 
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A friend recommended this book to me; in retrospect, his intent was clear. Like the Bhagavad Gita, Deng Ming Dao's The Wandering Taoist emphasizes the necessity to cut all worldly ties, however strong, however steeped in tradition, however "right" and "just" those ties may appear. For in the final analysis, we are all here to learn life's lessons, face them squarely, and move on to better things - in this life or the next.
Like the Don Juan novels of Carlos Castenada, a series of logically impossible phenomena and events are recounted that take place on the edge of our knowledges. Unlike those novels, The Wandering Taoist presents a very evocative and informative picture of Taoism.
While the very first few chapters may be slow-going, the book "reads itself" quickly.
Recommended for anyone interested in Taoism.
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Example- From Poul Andersen, A Visit to Huashan in Cahiers d'Extreme Asie 5 (1989-90): pg. 349 - 354:
"It may be added in this connection that the book [Hedda Morrison's Hua Shan: The Taoist Sacred Mountain in West China], with its fascinating pictures of monks and landscapes, has evidently served as one of the sources for an interesting forgery concerning Huashan, namely Deng Ming-Dao's The Wandering Taoist (San Francisco, 1983). The latter publication contains the biography of one Kwan Saihung, a teacher of martial arts somewhere in the United States, who was ostensibly brought up on Huashan and there initiated into the Zhengyi Huashan sect (sic). The biography is presented as based on stories allegedly told by the master himself. Thus on p. 59 we read, as part of the hero's account of his experiences during his very first ascent of Huashan: "The East Peak Monastery was plain stucco and tile and was composed of groups of four-square buildings set in quadrangles. There were also smaller huts of fibre and clay. As they passed a hut set behind an iron bell topped with a stone cup that collected dew, Saihung saw a willow-thin man sunning himself on the terrace. He wore grey robes and a grey hat with a jade rectangle sewn to its front. The accolytes told Saihung that he was a sorcerer." But comparison with Plate 38 in Morrison's book makes it clear beyond peradventure that the description is based upon this photograph, and not possibly on independent observation at Huashan. No doubt the picture shows the dew-collecting stone cup above the iron bell, but closer scrutiny reveals that in fact the cup is standing at some distance behind the bell. It is thus only the photographic angle that makes it possible to see "an iron bell topped with a stone cup" (in itself, of course, a rather unlikely concept). "
I'd like to get a copy of Hedda's pictorial book and check out this description. http://www.daoiststudies.org/scholars.php?cmd=list&userid=936
Anyways, I enjoyed the book a lot.
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Not only is this an engaging story, it also has good info on Taoism. I found it very inspiring to do more reserch on Taoism.
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