Customer Reviews

Cosmic Fusion: The Inner Alchemy of the Eight Forces

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The extensive high quality color illustrations gracing most every page of COSMIC FUSION help to elevate what might otherwise have seemed to be an esoteric book on advanced Taoist alchemical energy meditation practices to a very high level of practical applicability. The numerous exercises in COSMIC FUSION help the reader master working with the Taoist eight forces and directions, yet this book also does an excellent job of describing Taoist concepts and cosmology, and how to transform "negative" emotions such as anger, frustration and guilt into kindness with simple techniques such as smiling to one's organs.

We are extremely fortunate that Destiny Books is publishing Mantak Chia's comprehensive works describing Taoist energy practices, and that COSMIC FUSION includes so many high quality illustrations on the finest paper. The illustrations are extremely useful for understanding the basic concepts involved in the exercises and the relationships between various forces and energies, and the text provides delightful overviews, stories and practical guidelines for all concepts covered. Chia has created a true masterpiece in COSMIC FUSION by clearly describing the most important basic steps one needs to follow in order to achieve clearly observable positive results in one's health, vitality, peace of mind, and overall prosperity.

I especially loved the question and answer section in this book, as it covers such a wide variety of topics, from how to energetically protect oneself to how diet influences one's energy (with raw foods contributing to yin, and meat and dairy to yang), to master Chia's pursuit of the elusive secret of how to transfer one's consciousness to the next life through one's energy body... which lives forever.

COSMIC FUSION is an excellent book for all energy practitioners and advanced meditators seeking to live healthier, more harmonious lives, and I give it my highest recommendation!

If you have followed any of the Mantak Chia system in the past, this book is truly worth practicing. Not for beginners, it builds on the practices detailed in almost a dozen other books on Taoist Meditation and brings the various teachings together. Be prepared to learn about the pa kua symbol in detail and use it to its fullest extent to bring different energies together in new ways and move to the next level of your meditation practice. You can also look forward to detailed instructions on how to open the thrusting routes and belt routes. This is a must have for the serious practitioner of taoist energy meditation.

I found this book to be useful in terms of understanding Chia's approach to Taoist inner alchemy work and integrating more of the practices into my own work. At the same time, it seemed like this was just a much more convoluted version of the Fusion of the five element techniques, with a lot of extra and somewhat unnecessary steps included. I found that I needed to boil away a lot of the extra steps and once I did so still was able to achieve the desired and expected results for doing this practice. I'm not sure the material presented in this book warranted an entirely new book. It's still useful material and worth learning in order to refine your inner alchemical work.

Cosmic Fusion does look like one esoteric alchemical book that seems quite irrelevant to common folks with a regular 9-5 job. But if one could strip away the mythical or metaphysical parts (like streaming in cosmic energy from the Big Dipper!), Mantak Chia's system does can benefit one's physical/mental health as well as help to promote one's spirituality. The followings are areas that I find very interesting (and Chia's meticulous presentation is certainly comprehensive and useful):

1. Opening the thrusting channels: the text explains the classic Taoist approach of clearing the thrusting channel up from the perineum to "below the heart", PLUS clearing it down through gulping-action of intense saliva swallowing. In addition, a modified Indian yoga approach of clearing the thrusting channels (plus opening the crown) through single nostril pranayama technique is also included. Very comprehensive.

2. Opening the belt channel: Again, the classic Taoist approach of tuning and strengthening the "circumference" of the lower dan tien is introduced. The text also extends the action to become a spiraling action on the whole trunk, under Indian yoga influence. Again, comprehensive.

3. The classic Taoist approach is an avoidance of driving chi to/across the heart (i.e. safer approach), with joining the heart energy and dan tien energy only through mind-directed meditation focusing on the area between the eye brows (or the third eye, as commonly being referred to). Chia also warns against driving too much chi to the heart.

4. Meditation to cultivate compassion: Ultimately Tao goes beyond good and bad, but cultivation of compassion is certainly an important middle station of a Taoist's spiritual practice. Here a Buddhist uses similar techniques as the Taoist. Nowadays, some Christians also use meditation to cultivate their morality (interested reader can refer to The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus by Dalai Lama). Having said that it would be foolish to assume that one can cultivate one's compassion through meditation ALONE. To this spiritual end, one needs first to have a conscious determination to cultivate one's morality (be it religious or mere spiritual). Without such determination, one would likely to become "love thy neighbor as thyself" ONLY during one's meditation session! Needless to say, it will be useless and a waste of time if such kind heart can't be translated into real life (at worse, it would needlessly strengthen one's ego, be it kind or selfish!) Needless to say, Chia's method to strengthen one's compassion is just one of the possible methods.