Gia-fu Feng (Chinese: 馮家福; January 10, 1919 – June 12, 1985) was a prominent translator of classical Chinese Taoist philosophical texts, founder of an intentional community called Stillpoint, and leader of classes, workshops, and retreats in the United States and abroad based on his own unique synthesis of tai chi, Taoism, and other Asian contemplative and healing practices with the Human Potential Movement, Gestalt therapy, and encounter groups.

He was associated with Alan Watts, Claude Dalenberg, and the American Academy of Asian Studies; Jack Kerouac, Joanne Kyger, Gary Snyder, and the Beat Generation; and Abraham Maslow, Fritz Perls, Dick Price, Michael Murphy, and the Esalen Institute.

When he was twelve years-old his older siblings converted to Christianity, and at their recommendation during his first time living away from home as a young adult he was baptized and participated in a fervently puritanical church group, but he drifted away after a year.

He lived in and managed a villa that hosted many prominent Chinese and foreign visitors, where he met Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, General Claire Chennault, US Vice President Henry A. Wallace, and Lady Mountbatten, among others, and successfully navigated a difficult political environment.

Yet in his memoirs he noted that he was also profoundly affected by the extremes of wealth and poverty he encountered then, especially the grinding misery of laborers forced to work on construction of the Burma Road, and the horrors of war he witnessed in Kunming and Shanghai.

[1] But with his prospects for advancement limited by his visa status, and feeling alienated and unhappy in New York, he set out across the country driving his "jalopy", seeking a new way of life and a new understanding of his place in America.

[1] In 1954 he stayed in Berkeley with a Quaker friend from Pendle Hill, Margaret Olney, and then began living, working, and attending classes at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, after hearing a lecture by Alan Watts that he found life-changing.

[1] For the first time he encountered a Westerner presenting Taoism, Zen, and other ancient Eastern thought as an approach to modern everyday problems, and he declared the study of comparative religion his calling.

And he enrolled in classes at the Academy offered by Watts, Gi-ming Shien, Frederic Spiegelberg, Haridas Chaudhuri, C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, Judith Tyberg, Rom Landau, Saburo Hasegawa, and G. P.

[2][3][1] In 1956 Feng co-founded East-West House, an intentional community in San Francisco, with a group from the Academy led by Ananda Claude Dalenberg, all moving on because Alan Watts was leaving the school.

No longer doing translation for Watts, Feng studied banking at San Francisco State University and supported himself with a variety of odd jobs, including accounting, substitute teaching, and dog walking.

A 1962 advertisement in New York's Village Voice for Emerson College of Pacific Grove was headlined with his name: "Gia Fu Feng is there, teaching culture east and west on the beach in Monterey".

With her husband John Heider, who led encounter groups under Will Schutz, she trained in Esalen massage and discovered Feng's tai chi classes.

[8] He was encouraged by books published over the previous two years by other Esalen figures: Fritz Perl's In and Out of the Garbage Pail,[9] and massage guru Bernard Gunther's Sense Relaxation: Below Your Mind.

[11]) Jerome Kirk, UC Irvine professor of sociology and anthropology, wrote the introduction — a deep dive into the historical and metaphysical context — and helped with the I Ching translation.

The sequence was the 24-movement simplified form developed from the movements of Yang-style tai chi by a Chinese government-appointed committee in 1956, and in his introduction to this chapter Feng referenced a 1961 official Beijing publication.

Years later she commented that she could have performed much better after she trained with traditional tai chi master Wu Ta-yeh, a disciple of Tung Hu Ling and founder of the Taijiquan Tutelage of Palo Alto.

Asked about this, one Stillpoint community member familiar with Feng's unique blend of tai chi and Taoism with Gestalt therapy, encounter and more said he was less "master" and "more the trickster...like a character from a Chuang Tsu story...the one who wipes you out.

A typical routine also included predawn seated meditation, which struck one observer as a "quiet chaos" in which each participant was free to practice Zazen, chanting, or other techniques, yet also much like Quaker silent meeting.

Each morning there was a community gathering, which another participant remembered as an "encounter group" session, in which members worked through interpersonal issues, chore selection, project planning, and more while Feng listened quietly.

As his biographer states, Feng did not want to be considered a "spiritual master" and was "most certainly not a Buddhist" despite his interest in Beat Zen, but he and Trungpa found much to share and discuss, and there would be further "occasional visits in the future".

[21][22] The Stillpoint group spent the winter of 1971-72 in Mineral Hot Springs, Colorado, where Feng corresponded with Lippe on the final editing of the Tao Te Ching, and English shot a roll of film in the nearby Great Sand Dunes from which she later selected twelve photos for their next book, Chuang Tsu / Inner Chapters.

The Tao Te Ching had been published in many languages around the world, which in turn led to invitations to lead camps in Europe, including England, Scotland, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, France, and Spain, and in 1982 also Australia and New Zealand.

Throughout this period the group continued and deepened their tai chi, meditation, and other contemplative and healing practices, as well as their focus on health foods, natural living, and enjoyment of the outdoors.

Feng continued to facilitate cooperation and personal breakthroughs with his fierce techniques based on Gestalt therapy and encounter, blended with Taoism and other traditional Asian thought.

[23] Also published by Knopf under the Vintage Books imprint, the design matched that of the Lao Tsu volume, with Feng's translation and calligraphy paired with English's black-and-white photographs and layout.

A newspaper reviewer found the photographs "nothing short of superb - serene in composition and sensitively executed", and well-matched with the "fables, humor, poetry, and riddles" offering "kernels of everlasting truth".

[20] In 1983 Feng married Sue Bailey in a ceremony at Stillpoint surrounded by the community and many columbine flowers, led by a friend certified as a minister of the Universal Life Church.

For almost twenty years the center produced a series of poetry readings, writer workshops, author talks, music programs and other events at Wetmore and in Boulder, Colorado.

After thirteen years of research and interviews in the United States and China she released a biography, Still Point of the Turning World: The Life of Gia-fu Feng, through Amber Lotus Publishing in 2009 and as a Kindle e-book in 2014.