Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Asian

A collection of 88 brief poems by ancient masters of Chinese poetry in an anonymous English translation. With titles such as "Contentment", "Wild Geese", "Best Happiness of All", "The Ashes of My House", "Jade Flower Palace", "We Will Grow Old Together", "The Poet Dreams", and "At Midnight", the subjects range across love in all forms, the ravages of war, the glories of nature, the sorrow of homelessness, the death of a loved one, peaceful reveries of hermits, the meditations of the wise, delicate art forms, and the entertainments at court.

The Noh theatre of Japan was popularized towards the end of the 14th century. It was heavily influenced by Buddhism in philosophy and style, and was made up of dances performed at Shinto shrines to honor spirits and gods and old lyric poetry. Around the same time Shakespeare's Hamlet was being performed in London, Noh was integral to official ceremonies at Kyoto, and young nobles and princes were encouraged to attend and perform. This is a collection of four short plays from the Noh theatres of Japan - Hagoromo, Kumasaka, Kagekiyo, and Nishigiki.

This enigmatic poem is attributed to Seng-t'san, the third Chinese patriarch of Zen, who died in 606 CE. The tone of the work is revealed in the opening stanza in which the patriarch recommends dynamic introspection as the ideal attitude in solving the apparent problems of life. He urges the seeker neither to become trapped in the "outer entanglements of life" nor to isolate himself in solitude, but to remain calm in the procession of personal vicissitudes, seeing the essential oneness of all things.