Zen Notebook

At last, a mindful book about money that anyone can appreciate and understand The Little Book of Zen Money: A Simple Path to Financial Peace of Mind delivers easy-to-follow steps for combining sensible saving strategies with mindfulness practices to achieving financial peace of mind. Finally, you can know how to fix your finances without feeling stressed out! In this book, you’ll find out that sound financial strategy is far more straightforward than the financial industry wants you to think. It reveals the path to mindful money simplicity, showing readers how to adopt behaviors that encourage responsible saving and spending. You’ll learn about: How to journal your spending and saving so you keep track of the money you have coming in and going out Easy mindfulness exercises, mantras, and meditations that keep you centered, rational, and calm when it comes to your money Simple explanations of the financial industry and how to invest responsibly that anyone can understand Perfect for anyone who doesn’t usually like books about money (or the complicated jargon they’re often filled with), The Little Book of Zen Money proves that you don’t need to be an expert, professional, or mathematician to get great financial advice.

Meticulously researched and drawing on original source materials written in eight different languages, this study fills a lacuna in the historiography of Christianity in Japan, which up to now has paid little or no attention to the experience of women. Focusing on the century between the introduction of Christianity in Japan by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in 1549 and the Japanese government's commitment to the eradication of Christianity in the mid-seventeenth century, this book outlines how women provided crucial leadership in the spread, nurture, and maintenance of the faith through various apostolic ministries. The author's research on the religious backgrounds of women from different schools of late medieval Japanese Shinto-Buddhism sheds light on individual women's choices to embrace or reject the Reformed Catholicism of the Jesuits, and explores the continuity and discontinuity of their religious expressions. The book is divided into four sections devoted to an in-depth study of different types of apostolates: nuns (women who took up monastic vocations), witches (the women leaders of the Shinto-Buddhist tradition who resisted Jesuit teachings), catechists (women who engaged in ministries of persuasion and conversion), and sisters (women devoted to missions of mercy). Analyzing primary sources including Jesuit histories, letters and reports, especially Luís Fróis' História de Japão, hagiography and family chronicles, each section provides a broad understanding of how these women, in the context of misogynistic society and theology, utilized resources from their traditional religions to new Christian adaptations and specific religio-social issues, creating unique hybrids of Catholicism and Buddhism. The inclusion of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese texts, many available for the first time in English, and the dramatic conclusion that women were largely responsible for the trajectory of Christianity in early modern Japan, makes this book an essential reading for scholars of women's history, religious history, history of Christianity, and Asian history.

In a collection of poetry, prose, journal entries, and even a screenplay, the Chicano poet fixes his gaze on his own life and times, invoking childhoods, neighborhoods, historical revisions, misfits and outcasts.

As Zen takes root in the West, new forms arise. For centuries Zen masters have tested their students with “koans” and “capping phrases.” A koan is a spiritual paradox that must be solved intuitively. A capping phrase is a trenchant comment. Both are meditative practices that reveal deeper truths about the self and, ideally, lead to enlightenment. In Zen Traces, Buddhist scholar Kenneth Kraft plays off these practices in a new idiom. He selects passages from four sources: traditional Zen, present-day Zen, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. When a koan-like story about a contemporary Zen teacher is paired with a pithy comment by Mark Twain, something fresh emerges. “In this lovely book, Ken Kraft provides a unique opening for American Buddhism and American wisdom in general. The reader will come to fresh and spacious new insights and enjoyments… Cheers for Zen in America and a deep bow to Ken Kraft!”—POLLY YOUNG-EISENDRATH, Ph.D., author of The Present Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Discovery “I highly recommend this delightful book of East-West wisdom—full of surprise, insight, wit, and piercing beauty.”—KATY BUTLER, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death

"As clear-seeing as a dustless mirror angled into a school of sun fish, the tiny poems of this book carry a multitude of reflections bright as mica, consummately free in spirit, and in equal measure comic and profound." -Jane Hirshfield, poet, translator, essayist After-"Best Book of 2006," Washington Post "Just what we need, and just when we need it: a holy madcap who wears ancestor Ikkyu's sandal for a rain hat, meets the world with wonder, laughs himself and everyone else awake, and prays your name like the petals of a rosary. When you look for him, he disappears; when you forget him completely, he startles you with a kiss. Richard Weekley's Already There is right on time." -Peter Levitt, author of Within Within and Fingerpainting on the Moon: Writing and Creativity as a Path to Freedom in addition to other books of poetry and translation, and founding teacher of Salt Spring Zen Circle on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia "...Zen Nam frolics down the trail of life, tossing petals of wisdom in his whimsical wake... reminding us it is the journey that matters because the arrival never comes." -Donald McLeod, widely published haiku poet and Butoh Artist (www.zenbutoh.com) Winner of the Haiku Society of America's International Book Award

Create your own original Zentangle patterns! Many an artistic soul has fallen in love with the beautiful, meditative art of Zentangle, an easy-to-learn way of creating pleasing images using repeating patterns. For enthusiasts ready to take it to the next level, Creative Tangle is the first book to show how to invent your own original patterns inspired by everyday items--rugs, pottery, scrapbook paper, fabrics in your clothes closet, a vine in your garden...virtually everywhere you look are shapes and patterns just waiting to be tangled! Turn to the fresh ideas in this book for showcasing your one-of-a-kind designs on a range of pretty, practical items. You will unleash your creativity and look at your world in a whole new, wonderfully tangled way! What's Inside: • A fun and simple 3-step process for designing your own tangles • 24 fantastic off-the-tile projects, from name signs, wine glasses and decorative wrappings to pendants, zendalas and tangled pet portraits! • Expert tips for embellishing preexisting patterns, creating themes, and adding color to your tangles • Inspiration photos, new patterns and templates

Slime is the answer. Fluffy. Crunchy. Smooth. Sparkly. Iridescent. Irresistible. Slime has arrived, bringing with it a tangible sense of serenity. It’s a beautiful substance, enjoyed on many levels: Discover the alchemy of making your own; chill out with slime-playing videos; and/or get inspired by playful presentations of every iteration slime can take. Whatever your pleasure, The Zen of Slime celebrates it with stunning art, secret recipes, interviews with Instagram sensations, and branding, packaging, and photography advice. Embrace the slime. Your journey has already begun.