The Secret of the Golden Flower

A Chinese Book of Life

By: Richard Wilhelm, C.G. Young

Narrated by: Scott R. Pollak

The Treasured Guide to Spiritual Growth and Enlightenment

The Secret of the Golden Flower is an ancient Chinese text, passed on for centuries, in which Taoist mystics reveal the path to true enlightenment. The first written version was believed to have originated with Lü Dongbin, a legendary scholar, poet, and spiritual master. Lü Dongbin was the founder of the School of the Golden Elixir of Life during the Tang dynasty. In the text, symbols for light represented awareness, which is normally directed outward toward externals. The method of redirecting one’s consciousness inward towards the self through a straightforward form of silent meditation and breathing was known as “turning the light around”. Through this process of channeling energy beyond the limits of the discriminating intellect, one’s psyche—indeed one’s very fundamental being—can gradually open and bloom. This leads to a pure awakening of the mind and spirit. The result can be metaphorically pictured as a bright “golden flower” mandala, representing the rewarding end goal of a personal alchemy of inner transformation.

This remarkable and important work, first published in the United States in 1931, is Cary F. Baynes’ elegant English translation of sinologist Richard Wilhelm’s 1929 German translation of the original Taoist texts. It is nothing less than a spiritual seeker’s road map to discovering the secret to peace of mind. The simple method described has been called “Zen with details”.

This edition includes insightful philosophical commentary by psychologist Carl Jung that helps explain the metaphysical aspects of the text, providing valuable insights for Westerners. For many generations, The Secret of the Golden Flower has been an invaluable tool and guide for personal and spiritual growth.

Like a practical workbook for achieving enlightenment, this clearly written meditation manual explores foundational techniques to help you experience elevated states of consciousness; repeated listening will serve as an incomparable source of insight and inspiration.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1962 Richard Wilhelm (P)2022 Licensing Management, Inc.

his accent was terrible 哎呀

I gave up when he was talking about trigrams. I'm interested in Daoism, and I've got a good grasp of the language. I could not understand a single word he said when he was pronouncing the Chinese names of things. That section was totally useless to consume as an audiobook for that reason.

Terrible Narration

The narrator has absolutely no idea how to pronounce Mandarin Chinese words, and should have prepared himself by taking a day to learn Pin Yin prior to engaging in this undertaking. He mispronounces some of the most basic things central to this title, for example Tao and Taoist should be pronounced with more of a D sound like Dao or Daoist, but the narrator uses the hard T. Another example is mispronouncing Lao Tzu’s name several times. This addition of this sacred text may be good in written form, but I couldn’t bring myself to stick with it in audio book form and feel as though I wasted my money.