The Zenki Way

Softies--simple cloth characters to sew with basic tools--are popular worldwide for good reason: easy, fun designs give the successful results that inspire a new generation of kids to sew. This guide to the zenki way, from the founder of Sew a Softie, helps parents, teachers, community organizations, and kids make a good thing even better! Using the zenki method, everyone can create huggable softies--and more importantly, design their own. The zenki secret? Two squares of felt, only four straight lines to sew, and a key design feature: wide seam allowances, allowing arms, legs, wings, hair, and more to be cut from the border (no inserting or pinning). Try it with these 14 different zenki characters to make, brimming with quirky personality and ready for your own touch. Each project builds designing know-how and has clear photo-by-photo instructions. Learn the zenki way to become an unstoppable softie designer, and a lifelong sewing lover.

This book brings together 17 Sew a Softie designers from around the world. Each designer has come up with a delightful new hand-sewn project to inspire moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and teachers of all kinds. No expensive machines are required, and each project uses stitches and techniques that can easily be mastered by first-time sewers. Get together with kids and enjoy time together sewing a wide range of softies, including a Taco, a Painted Flower, a Tooth Tiger, Bluey Koala, a Toucan, Seashells, Lucky Spiders, and many more. Sew a Softie is a worldwide community that works to teach a whole new generation to sew, and to transmit a love of sewing and an appreciation of its enormous potential to nurture creativity, independence, and a sense of community in our children. Sew a Softie events have inspired thousands of people, especially young children, to begin sewing.

Provides patterns and detailed instructions for constructing a teddy bear and offers tips on assembling and adding character to each bear

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Significant...The book is both instructive and surprisingly moving.” —The New York Times Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business—and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. In 1975, Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. Dalio himself has been named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way, Dalio discovered a set of unique principles that have led to Bridgewater’s exceptionally effective culture, which he describes as “an idea meritocracy that strives to achieve meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical transparency.” It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio—who grew up an ordinary kid in a middle-class Long Island neighborhood—that he believes are the reason behind his success. In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency,” include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses, and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve. Here, from a man who has been called both “the Steve Jobs of investing” and “the philosopher king of the financial universe” (CIO magazine), is a rare opportunity to gain proven advice unlike anything you’ll find in the conventional business press.

Cara is part of the Chatsfield family, the owners of a chain of luxury hotels. On the orders of the new CEO, Cara heads to Las Vegas in order to entertain customers at a hotel casino. This is Cara’s chance to restore her honor after having been labeled “the shame of the Chatsfield family.” But it doesn’t go smoothly! On top of her plane arriving late, superrich businessman Aidan Kelly practically mows her down, and he calls her a pink-haired prostitute! What an arrogant pig! Then just a few hours later, Cara meets Aidan again, and things go from bad to worse!

During the first half of the twentieth century, Zen Buddhist leaders contributed actively to Japanese imperialism, giving rise to what has been termed "Imperial-Way Zen" (Kodo Zen). Its foremost critic was priest, professor, and activist Ichikawa Hakugen (1902–1986), who spent the decades following Japan’s surrender almost single-handedly chronicling Zen’s support of Japan’s imperialist regime and pressing the issue of Buddhist war responsibility. Ichikawa focused his critique on the Zen approach to religious liberation, the political ramifications of Buddhist metaphysical constructs, the traditional collaboration between Buddhism and governments in East Asia, the philosophical system of Nishida Kitaro (1876–1945), and the vestiges of State Shinto in postwar Japan. Despite the importance of Ichikawa’s writings, this volume is the first by any scholar to outline his critique. In addition to detailing the actions and ideology of Imperial-Way Zen and Ichikawa’s ripostes to them, Christopher Ives offers his own reflections on Buddhist ethics in light of the phenomenon. He devotes chapters to outlining Buddhist nationalism from the 1868 Meiji Restoration to 1945 and summarizing Ichikawa’s arguments about the causes of Imperial-Way Zen. After assessing Brian Victoria’s claim that Imperial-Way Zen was caused by the traditional connection between Zen and the samurai, Ives presents his own argument that Imperial-Way Zen can best be understood as a modern instance of Buddhism’s traditional role as protector of the realm. Turning to postwar Japan, Ives examines the extent to which Zen leaders have reflected on their wartime political stances and started to construct a critical Zen social ethic. Finally, he considers the resources Zen might offer its contemporary leaders as they pursue what they themselves have identified as a pressing task: ensuring that henceforth Zen will avoid becoming embroiled in international adventurism and instead dedicate itself to the promotion of peace and human rights. Lucid and balanced in its methodology and well grounded in textual analysis, Imperial-Way Zen will attract scholars, students, and others interested in Buddhism, ethics, Zen practice, and the cooptation of religion in the service of violence and imperialism.

Sir Ernest Satow's well-known best-seller "A Diplomat in Japan" (first published in 1921) which is still widely available in paperback is based mainly on his diaries ("journals") for 1862-69. The unabridged diaries in this volume, carefully transcribed from original documents held at the U.K. National Archives and published for the first time on lulu.com, tell the story of Ernest Satow's subsequent years in Japan (and home leaves in Britain, France, Germany and Italy) up until the start of 1883. This fully annotated book includes an introduction by former U.K. Ambassador to Japan Sir Hugh Cortazzi, six black & white illustrations, a map, a select bibliogaphy, a chronology and an index. (This book is part of a series in which some of the extensive and hitherto unpublished Satow Papers are being made available in print to scholars and the general reading public by Ian Ruxton.)