Western Christians often despair of finding meaning in the paradoxical statement that God is both "One" and "Three". The problem, says Jung Young Lee, is not with the doctrine of the Trinity itself; rather, it is with the Western conceptual tendency to view reality in exclusive, "either/or" terms. The Trinity is at its heart an inclusive doctrine of one God who is nonetheless three distinct persons. In order to grasp this fact, we need different conceptual categories, not only with which to view God, but all of reality. The Asian philosophical construct of yin and yang can offer a way out of this problem, with its inherently "both/and" way of thinking. Drawing on a variety of East Asian religious traditions, Lee offers a creative reinterpretation of this central Christian doctrine. He shows how a global perspective can illuminate Western theological constructs as he establishes the necessity of a contextual approach to the doctrine of the Trinity.

'The Tao of Joy Every Day' contains Taoist sayings, wisdom, and stories all designed to bring awareness and understanding of what makes our lives meaningful, especially in a world that seems hurried and crazed.

Shinto is an ancient faith of forests and snow capped mountains. It sees the divine in rocks and streams communing with spirit worlds through bamboo twigs and the evergreen sakaki tree. Yet it is also the manicured suburban garden and the blades of grass between cracks in city paving stones. Structured around ritual cleansing Shinto contains no concept of sin. It reveres ancestors but thinks little about the afterlife, asking us to live in and improve the present. Central to Shinto is Kannagara or the intuitive acceptance of the divine power contained in all living things. Dai Shizen (Great Nature) is the life force with which we ally ourselves through spiritual practice and living simply. This is not asceticism but an affirmation of all aspects of life. Musubi (organic growth) provides a model for reconciling ancient intuition with modern science and modern society with primal human needs. Shinto is an unbroken indigenous path that now reaches beyond its native Japan. It has special relevance to us as we seek a more balanced and fulfilled way of life.

This volume makes available in English the seminal treatises in Korea's greatest interreligious debate of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. On Mind, Material Force, and Principle and An Array of Critiques of Buddhism by Confucian statesman Chong Tojon (1342-1398) and Exposition of Orthodoxy by Son monk Kihwa (1376-1433) are presented here with extensive annotation. A substantial introduction provides a summary and analysis of the philosophical positions of both Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism as well as a germane history of the interactions between these two traditions in East Asia, offering insight into religious tensions that persist to this day. Translator A. Charles Muller shows how, from the time Confucianism and Buddhism met in China, these thought systems existed, along with Daoism, in a competing relationship that featured significant mutual influence. A confrontative situation eventually developed in China, wherein Confucian leaders began to criticize Buddhism. During the late-Koryo and early-Choson periods in Korea, the Neo-Confucian polemic became the driving force in the movement to oust Buddhism from its position as Korea's state religion. In his essays, Chong drew together the gamut of arguments that had been made against Buddhism throughout its long history in Korea. Kihwa's essay met Neo-Confucian contentions with an articulate Buddhist response. Thus, in a rare moment in the history of religions, a true philosophical debate ensued. This debate was made possible based upon the two religions' shared philosophical paradigm: essence-function (ch'e-yong). This traditional East Asian way of interpreting society, events, phenomena, human beings, and the world understands all things to have both essence and function, two contrasting yet wholly contiguous and mutually containing components. All three East Asian traditions took this as their underlying philosophical paradigm, and it is through this paradigm that they evaluated and criticized each other's doctrines and practices. Specialists in philosophy, religion, and Korean studies will appreciate Muller's exploration of this pivotal moment in Korean intellectual history. Because it includes a broad overview of the interactive history of East Asian religions, this book can also serve as a general introduction to East Asian philosophical thought.

Towering over the Kanto Plain, the sacred mountain oyama (literally, "Big Mountain") has loomed large over the religious landscape of early modern Japan.

By the Edo period (1600-1868), the revered peak had undergone a transformation from secluded spiritual retreat to popular pilgrimage destination. Its status as a regional landmark among its devotees was boosted by its proximity to the shogunal capital and the wide appeal of its amalgamation of Buddhism, Shinto, mountain asceticism, and folk beliefs. The influence of the oyama cult--the intersecting beliefs, practices, and infrastructure associated with the sacred site--was not lost on the ruling Tokugawa shogunate, which saw in the pilgrimage an opportunity to reinforce the communal ideals and social structures that the authorities espoused.

Barbara Ambros provides a detailed narrative history of the mountain and its place in contemporary society and popular religion by focusing on the development of the oyama cult and its religious, political, and socioeconomic contexts. Richly illustrated and carefully researched, this study emphasizes the importance of "site" or "region" in considering the multifaceted nature and complex history of religious practice in Tokugawa Japan.

A beautifully clear and accessible explanation of how to live a Taoist life--by reknowned Taoist master Eva Wong.

Taoism isn’t a spiritual extracurricular activity, it’s an integral practice for living all of life to the fullest. The modern Taoist adept Eva Wong is your guide to living well according to the wisdom of this ancient system. She uses the ancient texts to demonstrate the Taoist masters’ approach to the traditional four aspects of life--the public, the domestic, the private, and the spiritual—and shows how learning to balance them is the secret to infusing your life with health, harmony, and deep satisfaction.​

In this overview, Eastern philosophies scholar Alan Watts offers an entertaining and brilliant synthesis of Taoism as it is portrayed in the teachings of some of its most classic works--including the "The Art of War," the "I-Ching," "Tao te Ching," and "Zhuangzi." Through a lively explanation of the essential ideas and concepts of Taoist thought, Watts presents Tao as a personal practice of liberation and explains the role that corresponds to every person as an individual endowed with free will in a world whose norms change constantly. This exploration" "demonstrates the reach that this ancient Eastern wisdom can have on hectic modern lives. "En esta perspectiva general, Alan Watts, erudito en filosofias orientales, ofrece una sintesis amena y brillante del taoismo, tal y como aparece en las ensenanzas de sus grandes clasicos: ""el" Arte de la Guerra," "" el "I-Ching," ""el" Tao te king" y el "Zhuang Zi." A traves de una exposicion viva de las ideas y los conceptos esenciales del pensamiento taoista, Watts presenta al Tao como una practica personal de liberacion y explica el papel que le corresponde a cada persona como un individuo dotado de libre albedrio en un mundo cuyas pautas cambian continuamente."" Esta exploracion muestra el alcance que esta antigua sabiduria oriental puede tener en la ajetreada vida actual."

Written during the Golden Age of Chinese philosophy, and composed partly in prose and partly in verse, the Tao Te Ching is the most terse and economical of the world's great religious texts. In a series of short, profound chapters it elucidates the idea of the Tao, or the Way, and of Te - Virtue, or Power - ideas that in their ethical, practical and spiritual dimensions have become essential to the life of China's powerful civilization. The Tao Te Ching has been translated into Western languages more times than any other Chinese work. It speaks of the ineffable in a secular manner and its imagery, drawn from the natural world, transcends time and place. The application of its wisdom to modern times is both instructive and provocative - for the individual, lessons in self-awareness and spontaneity, placing stillness and consciousness of the word around above ceaseless activity; for leaders of society, how to govern with integrity, to perform unobtrusively the task in hand and never to utter words lightly; for both, the futility of striving for personal success. D. C. Lau's classic English version remains a touchstone of accuracy. Informed by the most impressive scholarship this is a translation both for academic study and for general readers who prefer to reflect on the meaning of this ancient text unencumbered by the subjective interpretations and poetic licence of more recent 'inspirational' translations. Sarah Allan's masterly introduction discusses the origins of the work, sheds light on the ambiguities of its language, and places it firmly in its historical and philosophical context. The Everyman edition uses Lau's translation of the Ma Wang Tui manuscripts (discovered in 1973) in the revised 1989 version published by The Chinese University Press. The iconic text is presented uncluttered by explanatory notes. A chronology and glossary are included, together with the translator's informative appendices.

The political influence of temples in pre-modern Japan, most clearly manifested in divine demonstrations, has traditionally been condemned and is poorly understood. In an impressive examination of this intriguing aspect of medieval Japan, Mikael Adolphson employs a wide range of previously neglected sources (court diaries, abbot appointment records, war chronicles, narrative picture scrolls) to argue that religious protest was a symptom of political factionalism in the capital rather than its cause. It is his contention that religious violence can be traced primarily to attempts by secular leaders to re-arrange religious and political hierarchies to their own advantage, thereby leaving disfavored religious institutions to fend for their accustomed rights and status. In this context, divine demonstrations became the preferred negotiating tool for monastic complexes. For almost three centuries, such strategies allowed a handful of elite temples to maintain enough of an equilibrium to sustain and defend the old style of rulership even against the efforts of the Ashikaga Shogunate in the mid-fourteenth century.

By acknowledging temples and monks as legitimate co-rulers, The Gates of Power provides a new synthesis of Japanese rulership from the late Heian (794-1185) to the early Muromachi (1336-1573) eras, offering a unique and comprehensive analysis that brings together the spheres of art, religion, ideas, and politics in medieval Japan.

The Lieh-tzu is a collection of stories and philosophical musings of a sage of the same name who lived around the fourth century BCE. The subjects of Lieh-tzu's teachings range from the origin and purpose of life, the Taoist view of reality, and the nature of enlightenment to questions about training the body and mind, communication and understanding, and the importance of personal freedom.

This distinctive translation presents Lieh-tzu as a friendly, intimate companion speaking directly to the reader in a contemporary voice about life and death, fortune and misfortune, gain and loss, and questions to problems that we want to solve in our everyday lives. By providing answers to these practical questions, Lieh-tzu builds the foundations that are necessary for the higher levels of Taoist training.

This book presents the American encounter with Asian religions through a wide range of documents - written and visual from elite and popular culture- dating from 1788 to the present. The entries are divided into four chronological periods. The first section traces the initial attempts to map the earliest contacts, up to 1840; the second section, from 1840 to 1924, presents the first real passages-from east to west and west to east; the third, from 1924 to 1965, sketches a drifting period when immigration had stopped and Euro-American interst in Asian religions was minimal; and the final section, which takes us to the present, covers a time when the encounter intensifies greatly.

This text provides a careful examination of "mizuko kuyo", a Japanese religious ritual for aborted foetuses. Popularized during the 1970s, when religious entrepreneurs published frightening accounts of foetal wrath and spirit attacks, mizuko kuyo offers ritual attonement for women who, sometimes decades previously, chose to have abortions.;In its exploration of the complex issues that surround this practice, the text takes into account the history of Japanese attitudes towards abortion, the development of abortion rituals, the marketing of religion and the nature of power relations in intercourse, contraception and abortion. Although abortion in Japan is accepted and legal and was commonly used as birth control in the early postwar period, entrepreneurs used images from foetal photography to mount a surprisingly successful tabloid campaign to promote mizuko kuyo. Adopted by some religionists as an economic strategy, it was rejected by others on doctrinal, humanistic and feminist grounds.

The Qianlong emperor, who dominated the religious and political life of 18th-century China, was in turn ruled by elaborate ritual prescriptions. These texts determined what he wore and ate, how he moved, and above all how he performed the yearly Grand Sacrifices. In this study, Angela Zito offers an analysis of the way ritualizing power was produced jointly by the throne and the official literati who dictated these prescriptions. Forging a critical cultural historical method that challenges traditional categories of Chinese studies, Zito shows that in their "performance", the ritual texts literally embodied the metaphysics upon which imperial power rested. By combining rule through the brush (the production of ritual texts), with rule through the body (mandated performance), the throne both exhibited its power and attempted to control resistance to it. Encompassing Chinese history, anthropology, religion, and performance and cultural studies, this book seeks to bring a new perspective to the human sciences.

The Tao is the ancient Chinese "Way" that has inspired numerous books, from "The Tao of Physics " to "The Tao of Sex ." This book might be called "The Tao of Tao." In 142 brief meditative essays, the author uses simple language and natural imagery to express the essence of the wisdom that holds the key to success in every human endeavor.
Liu I-ming (b. 1737) was a Taoist adept and a scholar of Buddhism and Confucianism. He is the author of commentaries on several Taoist classics that have been published in English, including "The""Taoist I Ching ," also translated by Thomas Cleary.

In this rare firsthand account of an individual's pursuit of sagehood, the early Ming dynasty scholar and teacher Wu Yubi chronicles his progress and his setbacks, as he strives to integrate the Neo-Confucian practices of self-examination and self-cultivation into everyday life. In more than three hundred entries, spanning much of his adult life, Wu paints a vivid picture, not only of the life of the mind, but also of the life of a teacher of modest means, struggling to make ends meet in a rural community. This volume features M. Theresa Kelleher's superb translation of Wu's journal, along with translations of more than a dozen letters from his personal correspondence. A general Introduction discusses Neo-Confucianism and the Ming dynasty, and includes biographical information that puts the main work in context. A substantial commentary on the journal discusses the obstacles and supports Wu encounters in pursuit of his goal, the conflict between discipline and restraint of the self and the nurturing and expanding of the self, Wu's successes and failures, and Wu's role as a teacher. Also included are a map of the Ming dynasty, a pronunciation guide, a chronology of Chinese dynasties, a glossary of names, a glossary of book titles, and suggestions for further reading.

What Is Taoism? traces, in nontechnical language, the history of the development of this often baffling doctrine. Creel shows that there has not been one "Taoism," but at least three, in some respects incompatible and often antagonistic. In eight closely related papers, Creel explicates the widely used concepts he originally introduced of "contemplative Taoism," "purposive Taoism," and "Hsien Taoism." He also discusses Shen Pu-hai, a political philosopher of the fourth century B.C.; the curious interplay between Confucianism, Taoism, and "Legalism" in the second century B.C.; and the role of the horse in Chinese history.

Throughout Chinese history, mountains have been integral components of the religious landscape. They have been considered divine or numinous sites, the abodes of deities, the preferred locations for temples and monasteries, and destinations for pilgrims. Early in Chinese history a set of five mountains were co-opted into the imperial cult and declared sacred peaks, yue, demarcating and protecting the boundaries of the Chinese imperium. The Southern Sacred Peak, or Nanyue, is of interest to scholars not the least because the title has been awarded to several different mountains over the years. The dynamic nature of Nanyue raises a significant theoretical issue of the mobility of sacred space and the nature of the struggles involved in such moves. Another facet of Nanyue is the multiple meanings assigned to this place, political, religious, and cultural. Of particular interest is the negotiation of this space by Daoists and Buddhists. The history of their interaction leads to questions about the nature of the divisions between these two religious traditions. James Robson's analysis of these topics demonstrates the value of local studies and the emerging field of Buddho-Daoist studies in research on Chinese religion.