Beyond the Closed Door: Chinese Culture and the Creation of T'ai Chi Ch'uan Book

Beyond the Closed Door explains in clear layman's terms the evolution of Chinese culture and how it has profoundly influenced the 1 billion, 200 million Chinese, who comprise approximately one out of every four people living on this planet. It does so by framing Chinese ideas in the context of Western thought, pointing out the differences as well as the similarities. After reading Beyond the Closed Door, despite the differences of East and West, one understands that we share a common humanity.

Beyond the Closed Door is not a 'how to' book for someone wishing to learn T'ai Chi. Rather it posits that T'ai Chi is a child of Chinese culture and, as such, reflects and illuminates the root ideas of its heritage. T'ai Chi is the mirror image of its legacy. This is true to the extent that each time one does the T'ai Chi form, at the highest level, he or she is recounting the Chinese story of creation. To understand the origins and practice of T'ai Chi is to gain a profound insight into the culture from which it came.

If you want to know, for example, why the Chinese developed their unique system of martial arts, why the Chinese meditate and we in the West pray, what Tao is, or how Yin and Yang works, then this book is for you. Beyond the Closed Door will explain these ideas and more, root them in their cultural context, and finally show how they are actualized in the movements of T'ai Chi Ch'uan, "the dance of the warrior."