Daoist Cultivation, Book 12 - The Secret of the Golden Flower: Translation and Commentary

The Secret of the Golden Flower is one of the well-known Daoist texts in the West. It describes many aspects of Daoist Inner Alchemy in detail. The text contains many Buddhist ideas and terms, as well as Confucian thoughts.

The very first translation was made by Richard Wilhelm in 1929 with commentaries by psychologist C. G. Jung. But, frankly, this is a poor translation, containing misleading information and misinterpreting many parts of the text. Since C. G. Jung's commentaries are based on this translation, there is no sense in commenting on it. In addition, the last five chapters, 9-13, have not been translated at all.

There is one more well-known translation by Thomas Cleary, but he didn't use traditional Daoist terms in his translation. For instance, instead of Yang and Yin, he used "positive energy" or "positivity" and "negative energy" or "negativity." But, frankly, Yin and Yang are special terms that include deeper meanings than just "negativity" or "positivity." That is why in my translation, I have left all the special terms as they are. Also, some fragments of the text were not translated by Thomas Cleary.

The text is accompanied by many of my commentaries, in which I explain difficult-to-understand terms, fragments of the text, or why I translated certain pieces in one way or another.