Scholar Warrior [Paperback]

In /Scholar Warrior/, the reader is told both that the Taoist does not strive forcefully and instead flows naturally with life (wu-wei). Yet, there is much detail on how to meticulously plan the stages of your life from the present until the day you die. There's also a great deal of advice on striving to eliminate your "fatal flaw" - yet, if such a "flaw" exists, is it not a natural part of yourself and thus, a manifestation of the perfect Tao? I suppose the idea here is that all this advice is presented as a guide to the "natural" way that others have discovered - but isn't one of the core ideas behind Taoism that each must find their own unique way on the Way? This book seems too heavily centered on goals, which strikes me as very un-Taoist.

There's a lot of good information in this book, but there is also a lot that is simply not very usable. The sections on herbology, meditation, and the philosophies of Taoism seem very well done. However, a tremendous amount of space in the book is spent on Qigong, for example. The illustrations and descriptions are quite good, but this ignores a fundamental problem: you can't learn Qigong by gawking at illustrations in a book, and there's far too many steps involved to remember them with any effectiveness. So despite the quality of these parts of the book, they are ultimately not very useful.

I don't really mean to bash this book so much - there is a lot of good information in it, and it can inspire you to explore different branches of the Taoist path in more detail. The breadth and depth of this work is admirable, it's just a shame that a lot of it is very contradictory or not all that useful in the end. I'm glad I bought /Schollar Warrior/ though, and for one simple reason: it has inspired me to think more carefully about what my own path means for me. In that regard, it was a worthwhile purchase. Just be sure to approach this book with an eye out for contradictions, so you can figure out what the right direction is for *you*

In the very beginning of his book, he will tell you maximizing versatillity and such. Although it sounds great, I find his rhetoric absurd! He even says such a person strives to develop his skills to be good in all fields of study, even better than specialists in a particular field. First of all, that is a NON-TAOIST notion simply created out of egotism. Second of all, there is basically no such person like that. He probably just had to use his egotism in this work and create such ideas. His ignorance of true Taoist philosophy and ideals further contributes to the fact that indeed he is a Western man with a pen-name of Deng Ming-Dao (translated literally as Deng Understands Tao) who's only writing this book for commercial purposes. Then later in his book, he will tell you that Taoists are very knowledgeable men, and after they've trained their intellect, they will "abandon" their knowledge. I'd agree with this idea, which is only one of the few I would deem Taoist. While simply labeling Confucian ideals and his egotism and dreams Taoist, I did find the book knowledgeable on certain aspects. For the most part, the meditation exercises, the diet routines, and the qigong exercises in the book were all very informative. Just ignore the meaning of his proses and rhetoric and you'll actually find this book invaluable.