The first book on Japanese calligraphy from the significant Momoyama and Edo periods (1568–1868), 77 Dances examines the art of writing at a time when it was undergoing a remarkable flowering, as illustrated by over one hundred sumptuous illustrations. Everything...

In the last decade of his life, while living as a hermit-monk in dialogue with the world, Thomas Merton created a body of visual art that has remained largely unknown and little studied in the nearly forty years since his death. With this book, Merton's art at last moves out of the shadows to be...

The original purpose of iaido was to slay an opponent with one stroke of the sword upon unsheathing; today it is practiced as a martial art, one that improves concentration, develops strength and coordination, and cultivates awareness of an ancient culture and its traditions. This manual of Eishin-Ryu...

This best-selling book of advice on how to achieve personal and professional success is valued for its timeless insights on how to make one's way in the world. Written in the seventeenth century by a Spanish Jesuit, these teachings are strikingly modern in tone, putting strategy above ethics while...

What is "Basic Japanese"?

This book presents some very basic words and phrases along with some that are not usually considered "basic" at all. In fact, some of the material in this book is not typically presented until the student is well into his or her study of the Japanese...

Poignant, practical, and profound, The Best Buddhist Writing 2006 offers an eclectic and thought-provoking mix of Buddhist-inspired writing published during 2005. This year’s collection includes fiction, personal stories, essays on such themes as love, parenting, and social, political,...

When Ingrid, a young nun serving in the infirmary at Greyleigh Abbey, discovers by accident that she can work miracles of healing, the world acclaims her as a saint. Ingrid is not so sure. Her secret doubts intensify when Jack, a rowdy, womanizing troubadour, as famous for sin as Ingrid is for sanctity...

It's 1888, and Paris is drunk on its own beauty and scientific and artistic accomplishment. The city is poised to host the Universal Exposition, a testimony to French power and colonization, and to unveil its extraordinary centerpiece, the Eiffel Tower.

Philippe Normand is a modest,...

Shin is the uniquely Japanese flowering of the type of Buddhism known as "Pure Land." It originated in the thirteenth century with the charismatic and prophetic figure Shinran (1172-1263), whose interpretation of the traditional Pure Land teachings were extremely influential in his own...

With more than two thousand years of Buddhist history, Burma (the country now called Myanmar) is heir to one of the richest traditions of Buddhist art in the world—images of the Buddha are almost everywhere one turns, from huge monumental statues to tiny votive figures. Jean-Pierre Grandjean's...

Embarking from England in the early 1800s, seventeen-year-old Lavinia Andrews and her family land in the tiny Newfoundland settlement of Cape Random, a remote fishing outpost set in a stark, rocky landscape on the edge of the sea. Here the Andrewses find themselves among a strange and intriguing...

The spiritual exploits of Anthony the Great—the prototype of the Christian "Desert Father"—have been immortalized in stories and art since the fourth century. Here is the stunning account of a modern seeker's quest to get beneath the legends that surround Anthony and to determine...

The Elements of Japanese Design is a library of traditional Japanese design motifs in the form of more than 2,700 family crests (mon) compiled and drawn by a Kyoto publisher and bookseller early in the twentieth century, and selected and interpreted by John Dower, a leading American...

For artists, designers, and all with an interest in Buddhist and Tibetan art, this is the first exhaustive reference to the seemingly infinite variety of symbols found throughout Tibetan art in line drawings, paintings, and ritual objects. Hundreds of the author's line drawings depict all the major...

The ensō is one of the most prevalent images of Zen art, and it has become a kind of symbol of the clean and strong Japanese aesthetic. It has been subject to a rich variety of interpretations—seen as everything from a rice cake to a symbol of infinity. But regardless of how it is understood,...