Kazuaki Tanahashi Learn More A Reader's Guide to Kazuaki Tanahashi, the poet, artist, activist and modern-day Zen master Related Reader Guides Zen in Japan Early Zen in Japan  |  Dogen: A Guide to His Works Rinzai Zen | Hakuin Ekaku: A Reader's Guide The Samurai and Zen  |  Zen up to the Meiji Restoration  Chan [...]

It is with deep sadness, mixed with appreciation for such a fruitful life, that we share the news that prolific author and a great scholar of East Asian art, Stephen Addiss, passed away on May 11th, 2022. Stephen was a Professor of Art at the University of Richmond in Virginia. A scholar-artist, he has exhibited [...]

The Power of Art This short essay was written in 1987, when no one had any idea whether the Cold War would ever come to an end. We are still in a global crisis, but in another form. The Necessity of Political Art Art in a period of widely-perceived global crisis can never be the [...]

Clarify Your Definitions We have all been in gardens—even very costly ones—that we find oddly uninspiring. There are the landscapes around mansions where money has been lavished on moving trees, building pools, patios, and fire pits, and planting lush lawns, yet we don’t much enjoy being in those spaces and may even find them stale [...]

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s impact on the transmission of Buddhism to the West cannot be overstated. In the quarter century he spent in the West, he taught tens of thousands of students, in many cases introducing them to Buddhism for the first time. His legacy is nearly impossible to measure, but one gauge is his literary [...]

by Rebecca Hazell The Buddha is well known in popular culture. He is seen as wise, benign, friendly, and peaceful. You can find commercialized representations of him in images ranging from good luck Ho Tai figures to garden statues of him sitting and typing on a laptop. Imagine what a ruckus would ensue if Jesus [...]

by Kate, Production Coordinator/Designer I have a confession to make: I judge books by their covers. And I’m not even sorry about it. I’m baffled by how many amazing books there are in the world that I’ll never have time to read. And there are more being released all the time! It can be so overwhelming [...]

From the introduction to The Art of Haiku: Its History through Poems and Paintings by Japanese Masters This book will trace the history of Japanese haiku, including the poetic traditions from which it was born, primarily through the work of leading masters such as Basho, Buson, Issa, and Shiki, along with a number of other fine poets. [...]

Enso: Zen Circles of Enlightenment by Audrey Yoshiko Seo These circular brushstrokes have become a kind of Zen cliché. Here's a chance to look past your preconceived ideas about them and appreciate their original energy, whimsy, and beauty. Each is a work of art that's executed in a split second-but the actual work in fact [...]

Shambhala: How long have you known Kaz? Roshi Joan: I met Kaz in the mid 1980s when we invited him and other artists to the Ojai Foundation with Thich Nhat Hanh. I felt an instant connection with him, and since that time we have collaborated on many projects and have become good friends and allies [...]