Miyamoto Musashi, who lived in Japan in the fifteenth century, was a renowned samurai warrior. He has become a martial arts icon, known not just as an undefeated dueler, but also as a master of battlefield strategy. Kenji Tokitsu turns a critical eye on Musashi's life and writings, separating fact from fiction, and giving a clear picture of the man behind the myth. Musashi's best-known work, "The Book of Five Rings," provides timeless insight into the nature of conflict. Tokitsu translates and provides extensive commentary on that popular work, as well as three other short texts on strategy that were written before it, and a longer, later work entitled "The Way to Be Followed Alone." Tokitsu is a thoughtful and informed guide, putting the historical and philosophical aspects of the text into context, and illuminating the etymological nuances of particular Japanese words and phrases. As a modern martial artist and a scholar, Tokitsu provides a view of Musashi's life and ideas that is accessible and relevant to today's readers and martial arts students.

A Sunday Times bestseller, this new paperback is an elegant and inspiring short guide to the art of meditation: another instant classic from the bestselling author of Happiness. Wherever he goes, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is asked to explain what meditation is, how it is done and what it can achieve. In this authoritative and inspiring book, he sets out to answer these questions. Matthieu Ricard shows that practising meditation can change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. He talks us through its theory, spirituality and practical aspects of deep contemplation and illustrates each stage of his teaching with examples. Through his experience as a monk, his close reading of sacred texts and his deep knowledge of the Buddhist masters, Matthieu Ricard reveals the significant benefits that meditation - based on selfless love and compassion - can bring to each of us.

The story of the Buddha and his awakening is more than an account of the birth of a religious tradition: it is also one of the great archetypal tales of the spiritual quest, colorful in its many details and thrilling in its depiction of the world transformed by an enlightened human being. Sherab Chodzin Kohn's retelling of the Buddha's life is both readable and historically informed, and presents the Buddha's teachings along with the events of his past lives to final nirvana. "Library Journal" called it "a splendid combination of biography and instruction." This new edition of the book previously entitled "The Awakened One" has been updated to include a short history of Buddhism as well as a selection of resources for further reading.

The story of the founder of Buddhism is one of the world's great archetypal tales of spiritual awakening. He was born Siddhartha Gautama in the sixth century BCE, the son of a prince who ruled a small kingdom in what is now Nepal. Siddhartha led a sheltered existence until the age of twenty-nine, when he left his life of ease and set out to find a solution to the problem of suffering. For years he wandered as a homeless ascetic, practicing severe austerities that brought him to the brink of death but no nearer to his goal. He then abandoned asceticism for a "middle way." Sitting down under a tree, he vowed to remain there until he realized the truth. After a night of deep meditation, his Enlightenment came at dawn, and he was thereafter known as the Buddha, the "Awakened One."