Why we travel, how we travel, how are we going to travel in the future? These topics and many more are discussed and reflected on. Hopefully every kind of travel enthusiast finds something entertaining and interesting to read. You have always time to finish one short story before your flight, train or bus departs. Bon voyage!

Zen is a spiritual journey that can transform and enrich our lives. Many of the great Zen masters were themselves world travelers, starting with Bodhidharma, who brought Zen from India to China in the sixth century. Divided into eight meditations, writer Eric Chaline examines how a deeper understanding of the Zen way of life can enrich every journey one takes, from a simple country ramble to an epic journey across the world.

In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture. First published in German in 1948 and translated into Japanese in 1956, Herrigel’s book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a traditional practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation as spiritual discipline. Turning to Ryoanji, Yamada argues that this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen. Westerners have had a part in redefining Ryoanji, but as in the case of archery, Yamada’s interest is primarily in how the Japanese themselves have invested this cultural site with new value through a spurious association with Zen.

"Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell," they say. Would you like to remain attached to that belief?

A novel about the causes of happiness and the secrets of enlightenment and Zen, set in the Zen Forest.

Zen and the Art of Local History is an engaging, interactive conversation that conveys the exciting nature of local history. Divided into six major themes the book covers the scope and breadth of local history: • Being a Local Historian • Topics and Sources • Staying Relevant • Getting it Right • Writing History • History Organizations Each chapter features one of Carol Kammen’s memorable editorials from History News. Her editorial is a “call.” Each is followed by a response from one of more than five dozen prominent players in state and local history. These Respondents include local and public historians, archivists, volunteers, and history professionals across the kaleidoscopic spectrum of local history. Among this group are Katherine Kane, Robert “Bob” Richmond, Charlie Bryan, and Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko. The result is a series of dialogues on important topics in the field of local history. This interactivity of these conversations makes Zen and the Art of Local History a unique offering in the public history field.

Zen and the Art of Subration is a three-part masterwork arising from the author’s thirty-five-year journey to overcome cultural conditioning and achieve the ultimate transformation: living on light and oxygen. Ashoka Annamaya Ishaya shares an intimate look into how she discovered tantric and Taoist practices for cultivating immortality and integrated them into her life. She follows up this first-person account with a teaching guide distilling knowledge and practices aimed at readers on their own transformative path toward achieving your immortal jing cycle. Ishaya believes that if a critical mass of humans commit to the process of sustainable immortality, we can affect the evolution of our entire species. Ishaya pursues an illuminating range of questions: • Are we as a species destined to be enlightened? • Can we apply mindfulness skills to evolve our physiology? • How can our health-care system better support the maturation of our species? • Can we become an immortal species? The treatise concludes with a scholarly overview of noted prophets from varied traditions and times who have taught and fostered transformation of consciousness and sustainability of culture.

"Zen and the Art of Running" shows how to align body and mind for success on-and-off the track.

As a spiritual seeker, you are on a quest for truth. This journey to find your truth has many names: becoming whole, self-actualized, enlightened, individuated, or authentic. All roads lead to the same destination: your essence, being, true nature, or original face. Here you will find your source of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. In our Western culture, our need for wholeness expresses itself through its greatest obstacle - the tension between survival and meaning. Resolving this tension is a large part of finding happiness and fulfillment in life. We need to achieve a harmonious balance between the objective goal-oriented world and the subjective intuitive world - a union between the mind and the heart. Much like the Zen tradition of pointing the way, author Charles McCauley points the way for you to navigate your unique quest for wholeness. He guides you on a spiritual and psychological journey that is, above all, a personal experience. By using a unique synthesis of Eastern and Western spiritual and psychological wisdom that addresses contemporary issues, Zen and the Art of Wholeness leads you towards discovering and fully experiencing the whole life you were born to have.