Introducing Myself:

About the Author:

With so many new subscriptions to Immortality Study lately, I think I should take a moment to introduce myself and this project so you will have a better idea of who I am and what this blog is all about.

My name is Robert Coons, I am a resident of Toronto Canada and have lived off and on in China for the last decade studying Chinese language, philosophy, Meditation, Qigong, the Internal Martial Arts and Tea culture.

My pedigree as a practitioner of Daoist arts mainly comes via my teacher Hai Yang, a leading figure in the Chinese Internal Martial Arts community, and lay disciple of Daoist Meditation who studied under many well known masters including Cao Zhenyang, past abbot of the White Cloud Temple in Beijing.

I began my study with Master Yang in 2005 in the martial arts of Baguzhang and Xingyiquan, and began formal study of Daoism with him in 2010.

Master Yang is a proponent of a modern take on the secular tradition of Daoism and is especially influenced by the works of Chen Yingning, the founder of the Immortality Study sub-branch of Daoist Meditation practices.

Chen Yingning was a twentieth century luminary who was the only person in his generation to read the entire Daoist Canon.

He codified what he felt to be the most useful works of Daoism into a system which he called Xian Xue, or Immortality Study.

Immortality Study is the study of becoming a Xian Ren, or Immortal Human being.

The word Xian is often translated in English as Immortal, but in reality it really means a person who transcends the regular boundaries of human life and consciousness through intentional cultivation of spiritual energy and ultimately returns to the Dao.

The concept of Dao is based on the idea that there is an original creative energy which generates all things and nourishes life, acting as its energetic root.

Daoism holds that this original state of affairs is contained deep in non being and emptiness, and it is this root which creates being and reality in a burst of positive energy.

In modern times this idea has been compared to the big bang, but Daoism holds that the Dao is in fact always present and always creating new things and new living beings.

The practice of Daoist meditation uses the return to the original quiet and stillness which predated the creation of the universe as a means by which to cultivate some of the energy of the Dao in the bodies of its practitioners.

I have been practicing this genre of meditation now for more than a decade and have written extensively on the subject while also taking a deep dive into the original documents of the genre.

Because the majority of Daoist Meditation documents have not been translated or explained in English, I've taken it upon myself to both translate and explain as many of them as possible.

Daoism is a big genre which contains much more than meditation and philosophy, but this is the section of the school that I am knowledgeable about, so I choose to confine myself here in hopes of serving as a means by which other people can discover these arts if they wish to.

The Immortality Study Blog came about as a result of COVID 19 keeping us all stuck inside for the last two years.

I had taught a few classes in Internal Alchemy and Daoist theory and realized that there was a place online for a public discussion of Daoist topics of this variety, and thus decided to start writing this blog.

At first Immortality Study was a mish mash of whatever I wanted to translate or write about, but it eventually became focused on the core document of the Dao De Jing, which is the first and most important Daoist document and which the majority of Daoist philosophy and practice is based.

In the public part of this blog I have decided to annotate each chapter of the Dao De Jing and make two posts a week on the subject.

I suspect this process will take about six years to complete and try to use the Dao De Jing as a text book for Meditation.

I am far from the first person to do this and have thus enlisted the help of various traditional thinkers on this subject.

This comes in the form of translations and annotations of documents such as Dao De Jing Chan Wei, a famous annotation of the Dao De Jing which uses its theory to explain the process of Daoist Meditation.

I also translate other documents as well, and those typically go into the subscriber's posts which come out together with each public post each week.

Because those posts are direct instruction on Daoist Meditation, and because it takes a lot of work to translate and comment on them, I've decided to create a subscriber's program where they can be accessed. It costs $7 a month or $70 a year and if you compare it to the average price of a trip to starbucks, it comes out to about ten trips to starbucks a year.

The reason why I charge so little money for the subscription is because it is a common problem in the Daoist Meditation community that high level instruction with famous teachers or their disciples often costs thousands of dollars to complete, and often times those teachers and their disciples hold back information from students, or make up entire new genres of practice so they can keep profiting.

I don't view this as very fair, so the low price of subscription to Immortality Study is meant to reflect my own preferred values of equality, and fraternalism.

Whether you choose to subscribe, or just join the mailing list, or you only want to visit from time to time to look at the public articles, its all good, I hope that this blog helps you improve your meditation practice!

I have some other plans in the works for the near future in regard to topics as diverse as Qigong, Taiji, Tea Culture, and Chinese Medicine and will let you know when they come to fruition.

I also hope that after COVID is over, we can all get together and meditate on Pheonix Mountain in Lugu Taiwan, a place with great energy and great Oolong Tea, but we'll have to wait a little while before that can happen :)

So now you know a little more about me,what Immortality Study is all about, and why I write this blog the way I write it.

If you enjoy Immortality Study, please join the mailing list so you can receive two articles every week. If you really like it, please subscribe so you can receive the Meditation classics and instructions along with the public articles.

Also, feel free to drop me a line with any questions you have about the blog, practice, or collaboration, I'm always happy to chat.

I wish you all the best and that you attain longevity and well-being!

Sincerely,

Robert Coons,

Creator of Immortality Study Blog.