Gia-Fu Feng

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Gia-Fu Feng (* 1919; † 1985) was an American translator of classical Daoist literature and a Tao teacher of Chinese origin in the USA. He studied at the "National Southwestern Associated University" (西南 聯合 大學) in Kunming . Fritz Perls Gestalt therapy had a decisive influence on his later work, with Jack Kerouac , Abraham Maslow and Alan Watts he paved the way for a connection between Eastern and Western wisdom, e. B. Humanistic Psychology .

He was born in Shanghai in 1919 to a wealthy family. His father was a prominent banker and one of the founders of the Bank of China . In 1947 he came to the United States to do a master's degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania . Since the communists had conquered China and the Korean War began, he stayed in the United States. There he began to translate Chinese literature, e.g. B. for Alan Watts at the "American Academy of Asian Studies" (AAAS). Alan Watts later said that Gia-Fu was "The Real Thing".

Feng became part of the East-West philosophy and spiritual movement in California that arose around the AAAS (later known as the California Institute of Integral Studies ) and influenced the socio-cultural transformation known as the San Francisco Renaissance . Michael Murphy , one of the founding fathers of the Esalen Institute , was a student at the AAAS and at Stanford at the time . From this network came Esalen, in which Gia-Fu et al. a. served as an accountant, lifeguard, "Crazy Taoist". In 1966 he founded his own Stillpoint Foundation as a Daoist community, which moved to the Colorado mountains in 1977 . At the same time his regular and increasingly frequent visits to Europe began. The travel activity ended in 1982 when he contracted pneumonia in Germany, of which he died in 1985 in Stillpoint, Colorado.

Gia Fu Feng, shortly before his death, in Stillpoint, Colorado

Publications

  • Tai Chi, A Way of Centering & I Ching (1970)
  • Lao Tsu - Tao Te Ching with Jane English (1972)
  • Chuang Tsu - Inner Chapters with Jane English (1974)
  • Still Point of the Turning World: The Life of Gia-Fu Feng [Paperback] Carol A. Wilson (2009)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Feng, Gia-Fu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American translator of classical Taoist literature
DATE OF BIRTH 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Shanghai
DATE OF DEATH 1985