'In Japan we have an expression, 'Float like Cloud, Flow like Water'. Its meaning is: to live free and unconstrained' In this short introduction to Zen Buddhism, a practising Japanese monk shares the many lessons he has learned from life inside a temple. With charm and humour, he guides us through everything from meditation to tea-drinking ceremonies, the meaning of koans to preparing Zen food. Accompanied by the author's own illustrations, this book invites you to change your perception through the wisdom of monastic life.

This book explores how each of us knows what we know. It considers claims that we see only illusions and that behind it all there is an indescribably beautiful reality - both a God and a Nirvana. The book goes on to explain in simple terms how these two ideas, so different on the surface, may not be so different at all. Ranging across the centuries the book draws on the teachings of a wide variety of thinkers from vastly different cultural, philosophical and religious backgrounds. The message they each bring is distilled into one consistent story in which our everyday sense of reality can be thought of as a deceptive and rather pale reflection of what's really going on. And although our thinking processes are seriously limited, the book describes how we can all transcend these limitations and experience Ultimate Reality through the simple practice of mindfulness - for mindfulness meditation offers freedom from thinking.

If you're craving something uncommonly delicious, but uncomplicated to prepare, look no further. From the Now & Zen Restaurant in San Francisco comes an imaginative collection of recipes that harmoniously blends distinctive cuisines—French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Indian—in tempting vegan dishes. Acclaimed bakery chef and plant-based food innovator Miyoko Schinner shares her latest creations in this updated version of her popular gourmet vegan cookbook.

This indispensable guide to the daily aspects of being a vegetarian addresses the many circumstances of living as a vegetarian. Based on answers given to some of the 100,000 visitors to the VRG Web site (www.vrg.org), the book is designed to help non-vegetarians understand some of the issues that concern vegetarians. Included are 35 simple recipes.

If you ever feel: cluttered, scattered, distracted, unfocused, disorganized, preoccupied, overwhelmed, out of control, out of your mind... you can change your life! ConZentrate shows you how to master the art of paying attention, in thirty-five clear, practical, simple ways. Whether it's how to focus on a tedious task when the office is buzzing around you, or how to stop procrastinating, or how to keep your home from being a place of overwhelming clutter-- or ever how to tackle the challenges of A.D.D.-- Sam Horn's user-friendly book will inspire you to learn how to conzentrate, and discover the key to peak performance.

Hokusai’s “Great Wave,” as it is commonly known today, is arguably one of Japan’s most successful exports, its commanding cresting profile instantly recognizable no matter how different its representations in media and style. In this richly illustrated and highly original study, Christine Guth examines the iconic wave from its first publication in 1831 through the remarkable range of its articulations, arguing that it has been a site where the tensions, contradictions, and, especially, the productive creativities of the local and the global have been negotiated and expressed. She follows the wave’s trajectory across geographies, linking its movements with larger political, economic, technological, and sociocultural developments. Adopting a case study approach, Guth explores issues that map the social life of the iconic wave across time and place, from the initial reception of the woodblock print in Japan, to the image’s adaptations as part of “international nationalism,” its place in American perceptions of Japan, its commercial adoption for lifestyle branding, and finally to its identification as a tsunami, bringing not culture but disaster in its wake. Wide ranging in scope yet grounded in close readings of disparate iterations of the wave, multidisciplinary and theoretically informed in its approach, Hokusai’s Great Wave will change both how we look at this global icon and the way we study the circulation of Japanese prints. This accessible and engagingly written work moves beyond the standard hagiographical approach to recognize, as categories of analysis, historical and geographic contingency as well as visual and technical brilliance. It is a book that will interest students of Japan and its culture and more generally those seeking fresh perspectives on the dynamics of cultural globalization.

Finally, after nearly half a century from its release we get to know the true meaning of the most beautiful rock song ever produced, 'Stairway To Heaven' by Led Zeppelin. This book has not been written to win a Nobel Prize in literature, but has been written with passion and attention to details to solve one of the biggest mystery of the musical world. You will get to understand the inspiration behind the song, the beautiful and earthed comparison that the singer and author Robert Plant makes between Faith, Religion and Spirituality, topics which have got more questions than answers. Gently and respectfully Robert Plant has concentrated the life conundrum of the here and now and the possible afterlife options on a single page, while giving a deep meaning and a sense to the purpose of life itself, a result which religion has not been able to achieve in thousands of years. You will come to discover that this masterpiece, this beautiful song's secret is that it has no secrets. The linear and captivating story told in the lyrics represents all of us. It talks in the most humble and respectful way about our hopes and fears, doubts and certainty; it invites us to wonder, but above anything else, guides us gently to acquire a better understanding of the importance of tolerance in life. A song accused of the worst, lyrics with no coherent meaning being as abstract as a dream can be, to get to understand that it is really a dream at the end, the most beautiful dream that any person can ever have while wide awake. It calls in rationality and common sense to look at life and what it has become today, a competitive game with winners and loser, a frantic search for the missing item that can make us feel better, happier, to discover at the end that we are already having all that life needs to become a blessing, a beautiful adventure that we all should enjoy and cherish. Precisely the song that was supposed to have hidden and hideous messages to make people lose themselves, we are going to understand that it is a song that makes you to find yourself, gives you the courage to be yourself and become a person that can help others along the way. The deepest descent in the topics of theology and religion in which many of us can get confused, completely simplified and expressed with such a clarity and respect that will surprise many. A song which goes from the present to the future, leading us also into the afterlife, explaining to us how to grasp the importance of the here and now, essential to be able to maintain the delicate equilibrium of life on this planets, which starts from an interior equilibrium, inside oneself, made up of well-being and respect, joy and effort used to offer as a result a helping hand to others rather than asking for it. A book of simplified complications and complicated simplicity following the song that has spoken always directly to our heart, leaving the mind "Dazed and Confused". Not only you'll get to love 'Stairway to Heaven' more than you ever did before just because of the real simple meaning of it, but you will as well acquire more respect for the author that has made one of the most beautiful and comprehensive yet concise talk about the enormous topic which is spirituality. On top of which, he also laid those few words on one of the most iconic melodies, one of most beautiful musical composition that you can ever hear. If you thought that the song was the most beautiful one of the last 50 years, you will get to appreciate the fact that eventually it will be the most beautiful song ever, full stop. Get ready to be surprised, because at the end you will see that the story narrated in the lyrics, it is a story to which you can relate with easy, actually, you already related with this strangely familiar lyrics from as long as you can remember. This book is here to explain to you the reason why, because the story told in the lyrics, is actually your story.

Explores the relationship between the philosophical underpinnings of Advaita Vedanta, Zen Buddhism And The experiential journey of spiritual practitioners.