Talk:Mantak Chia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Mantak Chia article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard. If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography Occult Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Occult, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to the occult on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OccultWikipedia:WikiProject OccultTemplate:WikiProject OccultOccult Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Taoism (inactive) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Taoism, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.TaoismWikipedia:WikiProject TaoismTemplate:WikiProject TaoismTaoism Thailand Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Thailand, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Thailand-related articles on Wikipedia. The WikiProject is also a part of the Counteracting systematic bias group aiming to provide a wider and more detailed coverage on countries and areas of the encyclopedia which are notably less developed than the rest. If you would like to help improve this and other Thailand-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.ThailandWikipedia:WikiProject ThailandTemplate:WikiProject ThailandThailand Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

• I am adding the official training video clips to Mantak Chia's workshops these are the ones officially created by Mantak Chia. There is a 36 DVD set of training workshops, I understand linking to the product page where you can buy them is not in line with wiki. However what about linking them to a page with a description of the workshop video and trainings with a 5 minute Video clip? Is that Wiki acceptable?* Krimezz (talk) 00:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Please stop lambasting this spiritual figure's name. He is highly respected all around he world. The plagiarism case failed, he is not conisdered new age, as these are ancient teachings*

FIRESTAR, Why do you keep deleting changes???

• • • The fact is that Master Chia is a very powerful healer and teacher. This is not new age, but ancient teachings brought to light. The sexual aspect of his teachings is a very small fraction, yet integral to the holistic taoist paradigm, in which the entire being is coordinated with the virtue, compassion and wisdom of true enlightenment. It makes me upset to see this teacher disrespected in this article.

I disagree

• You'll be amased, but his teachings really work. I recommend you the Cultivation of Male Sexual Energy --Gil Groe 15:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• This article seems totaly bias to me. Of course Jing is replenished!? New age? Tao is ancient! He is not a "self proclaimed healer" but VERY respected in the Chinese Martial Arts community and has MANY MANY documented healing cases for both himself and his students, the winner of a number of awards. Firestar, will you source ANY of these wrong accusations and stop preventing edits to WIKI! How do you justify! We need to discuss.

• I'd like to agree that this article at present has a pretty obvious western bias. Taoism is not New Age in any way.... the article is written in a way that makes it seem like this stuff is 'magical' or something. I myself (tho I know this won't count to most) have taken advantage of his teachings regarding male orgasm and ejaculation (which he does seem well known for). It works. If it works then these ideas are not magical hooey, they are just not well understood in a western framework. If you are into the scientific method, get one of his books on the topic out of the library, and put some work in yourself. I can't repeat my experiment; i cannot unlearn my understanding of sex and energy, and i'd rather retain it! the benefits of multiple and full body orgasm are huge folks..... I would recomment that the loaded language ('self-described healer', 'New Age') be removed the claim that 'His teaching is not without controversy especially within...' be backed up with something rather than nothing at all!... I've made the edits.

Basing your edits on your own experience is unfortunately original research. Chia's teachings are an idiosyncratic blend of sex-cult Tantrism and Taoism with some McDojo chicanery thrown in to boot. I am going to partially restore the earlier version. --Fire Star 火星 18:48, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Fire star, we need to talk? How can you be reached? How can you allege Chia is "new age" and and "mcdojo". Yes his teachings on sexual energy have been adopted for mainstream in the Orgasmic man/woman and Couples books, but overall his system draws from ancient sources. There have been countless scientific testaments to Chia's integrity in healing, enlightenment and martial arts. Mcdojo? That would be people NOT teaching about Chi. Master Chia introduced the INNER STRUCTURE of tai chi to the West. You must not be familair with his teachings if you are calling it Mcdojo because although they are not secret, they are esoteric and firstly revealed by Chia from ancient times. Yes his system is widespread and not hidden, does that make you mad? It is not so important that one learns 108 movements forms of tai chi, says chia, as long as they know how to do properl the 13 moves (with the inner structure.) If you call this new age Mcdojo and sex-cult, you are disrespecting history!!!!!!!!!! Nothing here is to do with original research but that experienced by numerous adepts. For example, look at the two books written by Solala Towler, placing Chia in the realm of the NI family...this is far from new age! The methods of converting ching to chi to shen are ancient!

Please cite these idea: Chia is new age, he is not well established, there is controversy over his teachings in China, the Jing-Qi question. Also, please remove any idea that Chia is a "self proclaimed healer" as he requires CNT and other teachers to have case reports showing the efficacy of their work. I am sure these could be made available if one is bias against Chia (for some reason) and not willing to beleive his integrity (or at least not wanting others to, for some reason.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.35.163 (talk • contribs)

These things you say are all claims that Chia makes. His books are sold primarily through New Age vendors and his claims that he teaches Iron Shirt Kung and the "inner structure" of T'ai Chi Ch'uan are unverfiable claims to sell those books, with nothing but his word to back them up in other words. It is fine to have them in the article, but they have to be qualified as claims. As for the sex-cult stuff, he has been on Rick Ross' and other cult watchdog lists for a while now. Again, that is a claim, and should be qualified too, but on the whole Chia is a subjective character, at best. --Fire Star 火星 22:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for clearing that up a bit. Yes New Age vendors such as which? Where does Rick Ross claim this sex cult idea? I think any Taoist scholar would tell you that Chias sexual techniques and respetability int he sacred Taoist tradition is respectable. The inner structure is an idea Chia made. Chang Sang Feng sis not say much of anything about, did he? Iron Shirt Chi Kung has thousands of different versions. How can we know which is the true one? All of them are valid. Master Chia is friends with Grandmaster Yuanming Zhang. He has been recognized in the East West world Qigong federation with the likes of other master qigong teachers like Lam Kam Chuen of Shaolin.

I've restored the earlier version, but took out the New Age bit. His books are usually in the New Age section of bookstores, but I agree that probably isn't enough. The latest version was loaded with way too many weasel words and had so many unlikely extensions (how could a sex-oriented teacher be associated with celibate Chan Buddhism?) that it looked like an advertisement more than an article. I haven't been able to find the Rick Ross thing (it may have been taken down, or perthaps my memry failed me) but there isn't any mention of it in the article anyway. Generally, we can't imply that Chia represents all of Taoism, as the recent edits seem to want to. Chinese Taoists simply don't obsess about sex the way Chia does, which is another aspect of his teaching which is more than a little New Age, although our readers will have to make that association here. The controversy bit has been changed to represent the plagiarism Chia is accused of and should stay. I myself am a Taijiquan teacher and a qigong teacher, having trained in China with the famous Wu family. Besides my personally regarding Chia's teachings as sensationalistic and more than a little sleazy, none of the Taijiquan families recognise Chia as a qualified Taijiquan teacher, let alone "master". The thing is, just like many other teachers of his type, his results are all based on claims. Because of that, the article has to have qualifying language. I am the same way about all of the qigong and traditional Chinese medicine related articles, regardless. I practise and teach martial arts and TCM, but not blindly. There is a lot of fraud and half-understood teaching out there, as there is simply no regulatory body for these things. Anyone can declare themselves a "master" if they have the right clothes. There is a need for valid criticism in our articles if they aren't to become simple ads for their subjects. --Fire Star 火星 13:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Tao Te Ching and Buddhist scriptures are relegated to the "New Age" sections of most book stores as well. It is hardly an accurate indication of the classification of Chia's teachings. A notation that in the West his teachings, like most Taoist teachings, are considered "New Age" *might* be appropriate. Chia's connections to Chan Buddhism are well-documented. The interrelation of Chinese folk religion, tantra and Chan Buddhism is also well-documented. Chia is admittedly on the more sex-energy focused end of the spectrum, however he is not outside of the normal range on that count. (I myself as a student of Tao have mocked Chia's sexual inclinations and do so with glee. However, that is a subjective point of view.) Asserting that the view of the taijiquan families is binding is against NPOV. Orthodoxy has no monopoly on legitimacy, correctness or such measures. Orthodox Christianity rejects the legitimacy and authority of Unitarian faith, but that does not mean Christian Unitarians are not Christian nor does it mean they are unable to speak with authority. I personally read Chia's writings after being taught Taoist "internal alchemy" by a Chinese sifu. While some of his teachings are aberrant, or heterodox, the differances between what I was taught and Chia's teachings are not greater than the differances I have observed among the various Taoist schools teaching "alchemy". You obviously have taken a non-NPOV biased against the teachings and legitimacy of Chia. We need to work out some balance between pro and con views so we can expand this article. If you would, please give me a summary list of things you would like to see added/corrected. Personally I would like to see:

1) More substantive information about what Chia teaches. There is no mention of such crucial practices as Fusion of the Five Elements or Innner Smiles. 2) More substantive information about Chia's relations with various teachers and groups. 3) More information about Chia's organization. 4) More biographical detail. Vassyana 04:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chan Buddhism is a vast subject and not all sects are celibate, for sure. One the art print from High Pine Mountain, it shows how Bodhidharma and Lao Tzu come together representing the Universal Tao, a modern Taoist group. A search on google for "Rick ross mantak chia" yields nothing, nothing at Ross's website too. I agree Chia does not represnt all of taoism. In the West, however, he is clearly the most popular teacher. The Tajiquan families are not representative of what Chia teaches. Chia is a Taoist and Tai Chia families are peoples who took the original tai chi (derived from either Chen or in my opninion more likely, Chang Sang Feng) lineage and changed it. True there is no way to measure a "master" excpet perhaps for personal opinion and looking at who tey studied with. Chia has studied with the great tai chi masters of our time, if you care to look into it. When you say "his results are all based on claims" where can you show evidence of the opposite for the supposed real teachers? Master Chia's lineage appears to be the most real...he explains how learning long 108 forms is not really what is important. The tai chi he teaches on his level two tai chi chi kung, he says, is derived from the palace guard (forgot what dynasty). The reason a shorter form is prefered is that it includes all the benefits when repeated and allows for more awareness of the inner structure. Master Chia covers the internal alchemy 9 times more deeply than any other tai chi "family" teaching and therefore his system, in my opinion, has a lot more integrity and usefulness. Without knowing the subtle aspects of tai chi and qi gong, a practitioner will certaintly hurt themself and die before they had to. What do you mean his results are all based on "claims"? What qualifies the opposite of a "claim"? What constitutes "blindly"? I have studied many forms and met with a few Wu teachers. I have been in touc with the chairman of the Wu taji research institute...numerous highly accomplished "family" stylists also have deep respect for Mantak Chia, who also studied with the families in addition to real taoists. He is friends with Grandmaster Yuanming Zhang. Tom Clancy wrote an article for his website. Tiger Woods is featured as a student at Tao Garden. I have never met Chia myself and have to inclination to "advertise" for him. I used to be addicted to sex and studying Mantak Chias system helped me control my energy and gain dicipline throug the study of taji and qigong. I can say I have been healed very deeply by studying Master Chias system. Although his teachings are not perfect (and cost a bit of money), he has done a tremendous serivice to many around the world who do not have access to the inner Taoist teachings. He will continue to heal many through these teachings. To see what level Chia's teachings are on, look at: http://www.taohealingarts.com/changsbio.html Mantak Chia, like Dr. Chang, teaches about semen retention. This is a subject that numerous Taoist teach about. Look at Dan Reid, Jolan Chang, and many others. I have also read that retention is a thing that Buddhists practice in the book "tao and longevity" and this book gives both pros and cons, Taoist and non. It is written by a Chinese. Another auther who touches on this point is Alex Anatole, he says that it is not natural to retain too much semen. In the end, it is a balance: to come or not to come. Yes, it does enhance martial power in potential. Young men, like myself, can afford to ejaculate once every 4 days or so. As you become older, like at 40, you need to slow down and ejaculate once every 2 weeks or so. Monthly after sixty...there are different guidlines for different people/ages, but the point is that this is a valid science and mentioned by Huang Ti. There is no doubt that Taoists transform jing to chi to shen, and then emptiness. The energy is replenished with qigong movements and taji that works with the three treasures, of course. Thank you for considering these points, it is fruitful to engage in this discussion.

I really think this article needs to be mosty re-written for accuracy. The paragraph about sexual energy is really not very helpful to the reader. Also, the claim that Chia addresses te spiritual side of a human being is unfounded. The UT system addresses both physical and spiritual holisticaly...while most teacher address one or the other, Chia is among the rare few who address both polarities of Heaven and Earth.

You have your opinion. And I have my opinion. What we have to follow, regardless of opinion, is Wikipedia policy, especially WP:Not. There are many links to health studies done on traditional Taijiquan at that article, as well as a reporting of the various theories of the origin of Taijiquan as well as why the Taijiquan families are considered representative of the art internationally. But these are all things in the public domain, nothing that our editors have made up or are directly espousing in the articles. To make a point about how our encyclopaedia works, for example, while I personally wholeheartedly agree with the Zhang Sanfeng Wudangshan origin theory, I also know it is only my opinion and would never report it here as fact, even at the Zhang Sanfeng article. We can report that others believe it (and we have to say who and add links to verify it) but we can't ourselves say that Zhang Sanfeng actually invented Taijiquan in the 12th century by watching a fight between a snake and a crane. I hope that gives you an idea where I am coming from. --Fire Star 火星 16:04, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a fan of Mantak Chia personally - while I like the fact that he openly shares a lot of material that has been kept secret for a long time I've found his work to miss details - perhaps this is also his style of expression. I not sure why someone who doesn't seem to like him very much would want to put a wiki up here though.

Wow, this terrible short article has spawned such a lively discussion! Why not create a separate, maybe long, section for criticism?

As an outsider (who an encyclopedic article should be written for), I couldn't care less who respects who. Looks like all can agree he's a businessman and not a monk or a pastor, so why not describe what he does for a living and who he's done it for? In particular, why is he notable if his teachings are so indistinguishable from his peers that plagiarism could plausibly go either way? Potatoswatter 07:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why did someone delete the reference to Lee Erwin's article and regarding Yudelove, Lewis and Win? Whats up?

I've restored that sourced statement. I've also restored other deleted info and provided references. Vassyana 13:15, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recently there have been some additions to the article with enthusiastic descriptions of Chia's services. Unfortunately, while sourced from Chia's site, they aren't sourced from anywhere else and sound like they came from a travel brochure, so I've toned them down quite a bit. They, and other bits of the article that stem exclusively from primary sources, will eventually be removed if adequate citations can't be found. --Bradeos Graphon Βραδέως Γράφων (talk) 15:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have the time to edit this article down to the facts, but I think someone should do it.

As a Chi Kung teacher, I can say that Mr Chia is not an outright fraud: he really does have some valuable knowledge. On the other hand, it is undeniable that he does charge a lot of money (as of course do a lot of other people selling other products such as iPhones, expensive watches, sex toys etc, that no-one is forced to buy: it's unclear to me at what point one draws a line and says that this is something other than the simple and appropriate functioning of the law of supply and demand).

The following seem to me to be inappropriate in the main body of the article:

Praising the benefits of the practice

Comparisons to other authors and teachers - favorable or unfavorable - unless designed to illuminate lineage

Recounting of Mr Chia's views on subjects other than his main area of expertise, unless perhaps corralled in a separate suitably-labeled section.

Perhaps what this article needs is for all expressions of opinion, positive and negative, to be removed from the main text, placed in a 'controversies' section, and properly sourced. 174.21.159.152 (talk) 18:46, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• : ) Randomspirit (talk) 03:55, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

15 seconds into this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlGXQftctJ0 he says that he was born July 1944. --VanBuren (talk) 12:30, 16 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I added the POV maintenance template because this article reads like an advert. In particular there seems to be very little in terms of dissenting or skeptical discussion of the subject matter. I think there's a lot of room for improvement. Fragglet (talk) 17:43, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.universal-tao.com/master_chia.html. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:28, 1 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Mantak Chia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120709062528/http://www.universal-tao.com/world_tour/masterchia_worldtour.html to http://www.universal-tao.com/world_tour/masterchia_worldtour.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:50, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]