Lars Bo Christensen

Lars Bo Christensen - 1964.

I love early Chinese philosophy and poetry. I have also practiced Tai Chi every day for more than 40 years, I studied with Kai-Ying Tung since 1982. I live in Denmark, and I have a master's degree from University of Copenhagen where I specialized in Classical Chinese.

TAI CHI

My book on the history and principles of Tai Chi is centered around the Li Family Manuscripts that were discovered in Tang Village in the Henan Province in 2004. These texts are no doubt genuine and they are very important, but also purposely ignored by the large Tai Chi organizations in China, obviously for political reasons. Tai Chi is very big business in China now, and also has a huge importance in culture and tourism and is taken very seriously by authorities. Tai Chi has become a UNESCO World Heritage, and the version of Tai Chi history they have always promoted is of course not likely to be changed. The Li Family Manual texts tell a different story about the creation of Tai Chi, and they contain the original versions of the Tai Chi Classics that describe the original principles.

I CHING

When I was introduced to the I Ching it never made any sense to me. I could not understand people's fascination with this confusing book. But in 1991 I was in New York and was invited to visit the Tai Chi master Da Liu, he was then 87 years old. Da Liu encouraged me to study the I Ching and gave me old coins and his own translation of the I Ching and then some parts of the text actually began to make sense.

I supplemented with John Blofeld's translation and of course Richard Wilhelm's. I was fascinated, but I also realized that there were so many places in these books that obviously made no sense and were not correctly translated. So I decided that one day I would make a better translation.

THE CORE I published this short version of my I Ching translation with my own interpretations. It is handy on your mobile phone for example.

DAO DE JING I have made my own translation of the Dao De Jing which I am very proud of. I aimed to make it simple, and I believe the concept of each chapter stand out very clearly.

ZHUANG ZI My translation of Zhuang Zi is listed under “Zhuang Zhou (Author)” and “Mr. Lars Bo Christensen (Translator)”. Zhuang Zi is the second most important book about Daoism next to the Dao de Jing. It is full of wisdom and I enjoyed translating it immensely.

Additional material can be found on thetaichiworkshop.dk, www.zhouyi.dk and www.dao-de-jing.dk.