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Tag: Japan

Book Review

Seasonal Japan: Emi H. Takahashi on the 72 Micro-Seasons and Their Hidden Meanings

January 27, 2026January 27, 2026 Trent Thomson

By Trent Thomson. A review of Emi H. Takahashi’s poetic book, Seasonal Japan: 72 Micro-seasons and Their Hidden Meanings.

Tagged awareness, ginko, Japan, ko, mindfulness, nature, Poetry, poetry practice, Practice, writing practice2 Comments
Micro Gallery

For I Was

March 8, 2025March 8, 2025 Vanessa Able

Lua Kobayashi's exploration of the Japanese-American experience, captured through personal narratives and treasured belongings.

Tagged community, family, hapa, history, incarceration, issei, Japan, Japanese Culture, Japanese-American, narrative, personal, sansei, war, yonsei1 Comment
Featured Poetry

Jovan Virag – Torii Gates

July 14, 2024July 12, 2024 Nicholas Trandahl

California poet Jovan Virag serves readers as a guide up to a mountaintop Shinto shrine in Japan with her poem "Torri Gates".

Tagged climb, Japan, pilgrimage, pilgrims, Poem, poet, Poetry, Shinto, shrine, Stillness, Suffering, ZenLeave a comment
Featured Poetry

Christine Andersen – Forest Bathing

January 21, 2024January 18, 2024 Nicholas Trandahl

Christine Andersen's poem "Forest Bathing" lusciously invites readers into the slow simple peace of the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku.

Tagged connection, earth, forest, forest bathing, forests, Japan, nature, Poem, poet, Poetry, shinrin yoku, slow living, slownessLeave a comment
Featured Poetry

Joshua St. Claire & Amber Winter – Out Into the Light

December 3, 2023November 30, 2023 Nicholas Trandahl

Poets Joshua St. Claire and Amber Winter weave together a collaborative duet, offering a traditional kasen renga with “Out Into the Light”.

Tagged Basho, Buddhism, Japan, life, Poem, poet, Poetry, renga, ZenLeave a comment
All About Love

To Walk the Stones

March 4, 2022March 24, 2022 Vanessa Able

BY MATTHEW WILLIS - What the stones at Kyoto's Jishu Jinja shrine can teach us and warn us about love in our lives

Tagged eros, games, Japan, Kyoto, love, philia, ritual, romance, shrine, stones, theaterLeave a comment
Janwillem van de Wetering
Book Bits

You Have to Have a Cup

March 22, 2021March 22, 2021 Vanessa Able

The Empty Mirror is Janwillem van de Wettering's memoir of his time at a Japanese Zen monastery where he stayed for over a year in the late 1950s.

Tagged Buddhist monk, discipline, Japan, monastery, student, Teacher, ZenLeave a comment
Stuart Gunter
Featured Poetry

Stuart Gunter – The Wind Telephone

March 21, 2021March 21, 2021 Vanessa Able

Stuart Gunter's poem, The Wind Telephone, engages with one of the more poignant symbols of the thousands of deaths following the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

Tagged connection, Death, grief, Japan, loss, love, telephone, tsunami, windLeave a comment
Yagyu Munenori
Book Bits, The Masters

The Moon in the Water, the Body in the Mirror

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021 Vanessa Able

Samurai Yagyu Munenori uses the popular Zen image of the moon reflected in the water to explain its application in martial arts training.

Tagged art of war, buddhsim, Immediacy, Japan, Mind, Moon, quiescence, reflection, samurai, Water, ZenLeave a comment
Sawaki and boy
Book Review

Kodo Sawaki Gathered Together: Arthur Braverman’s ‘Discovering the True Self’

November 3, 2020November 4, 2020 Vanessa Able

Arthur Braverman gathers all of Kodo Sawaki's teachings together in his impressive new book on the Zen Master.

Tagged arthur braverman, biography, Book, Homeless Kodo, Japan, Kodo Sawaki, okesa, robes, Teacher, zazen, Zen1 Comment

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TOP POSTS

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    This is the Life: Annie Dillard Asks, Then What?
  • Shaomei Yu - The Closed Door
    Shaomei Yu - The Closed Door
  • John O'Donohue - Beannacht / Blessing
    John O'Donohue - Beannacht / Blessing
  • Mary Oliver - Teach the Children
    Mary Oliver - Teach the Children
  • Mary Oliver - When Death Comes
    Mary Oliver - When Death Comes
  • Wislawa Szymborska - Conversation with a Stone
    Wislawa Szymborska - Conversation with a Stone
  • Billy Collins - The Dead
    Billy Collins - The Dead
  • What is Love? Love is a Verb - bell hooks
    What is Love? Love is a Verb - bell hooks
  • David Whyte - The Bell and the Blackbird
    David Whyte - The Bell and the Blackbird
  • Letting Go of Hope - Pema Chodron
    Letting Go of Hope - Pema Chodron

- BOOK BITS -

  • Don’t Waste Suffering: Ramiro López Larroy on Opening the Doors of Liberation
    How can we use the things that give us difficulty in our lives to learn and grow, rather than avoiding them, or trying to push them away?
  • Rick Ruben
    “Expanding the Universe” – Rick Rubin on Awareness in Creativity
    What is the role of awareness in creativity and how can we cultivate it to make our world a bigger and clearer place?
  • Thich Nhat Hanh
    The First Door of Liberation: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Vision of Emptiness and Interbeing
    Rather than signifying a lack or a void, Thich Nhat Hanh took emptiness to be a state of inextricable and fundamental interconnectedness.
  • Mike Travisano – Bob’s Tattoos
    A short story on the power of three simple words and how much they can mean and embody.
  • Shunryu Suzuki
    Sharing the Feeling: Zen Teacher Shunryu Suzuki on Becoming Ourselves
    The importance of keeping an empty mind for savoring the present and expressing ourselves in our most authentic way.


- POETRY-

  • Shaomei Yu – The Closed Door
    Chinese-American poet Shaomei Yu reflects on loss and transition with Zen-like sparseness in her poem "The Closed Door".
  • Claudia Kessel – Samsara
    In her epic "Samsara", poet Claudia Kessel leans the ancient tenants of Buddhism against the gritty reality of the 21st Century.
  • A Year of Kō: 16th Sekki
    16th Sekki poems by COLEMAN DAVIS, MADISON WILLIAMS and SHAOMEI YU
  • Bob Rama – Ascetic Aesthetics
    Translator and poet Bob Rama shines a little candlelight on ascetic renunciation in his pleasingly-titled poem "Ascetic Aesthetics".
  • Emily Tong – Girlhood Ghazal
    Using the ancient poetic form of the ghazal, Asian-American poet Emily Tong searches for home in her "Girlhood Ghazal".
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