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Journey to the Heart of Aikido presents the teachings of Motomichi Anno Sensei, one of the few remaining direct students of Morihei Ueshiba, the legendary founder of Aikido. After a lifetime of practice and teaching in Japan, the United States, and Europe, Anno Sensei conveys through his teachings Aikido's essential spirit of love, harmony, gratitude, and purification with simple authenticity and eloquence. Author and translator Linda Holiday--herself a senior instructor of Aikido--brings to lif...

The Cult of Kasuga Seen Through Its Art is a study of the syncretic cult of Kasuga Shrine at its height in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. It examines the relationships of the Buddhist and Shinto gods of the shrine and explains the soteriological function of their presence at Kasuga. Using visual art as well as stories and documents, it brings to life a medieval shrine cult and defines its contribution to Japanese religion.

A few years before the Berlin Wall came down, a Shinto priest in Japan broke a holy sword into 108 pieces. Readers get an inside view of Shinto ceremonies as the holy pieces are placed at sites to form a magnetic web of goodwill and positive energy.'

Bushido: The Soul of Japan was written by Inazo Nitobe in 1900 and is one of finest of the Japanese classics. Nitobe explains the influence of Chinese and Christian thought on Bushido as well as some of the stranger traditions such as Hara Kiri. A great book for anyone wanting to explore the heart and soul of Japan!

The relationship between religion, power and play is a promising theme in the study of religion. This collection of essays contains Andre Droogers' most relevant articles on their interconnectedness. Having worked on three continents, researching and lecturing in both anthropology and religious studies, he was able to explore the theme in an interdisciplinary and comparative way. While acknowledging the increasingly political role of religion, the inclusion of play opens surprising and sometimes...

Shinto permeates the religious landscape of Japan and is a major key to the understanding of Japanese culture and society. But what is it? If ideological shortcuts are avoided there is no simple answer. Yet this book will guide students and general readers through many aspects of Shinto both today and in its history. It contains much information about sacred Shinto shrines and the divinities (the kami) which are the focus of devotion there. These numerous divinities have been viewed in different...

From personal interviews with chaplains at the temporary mortuary at Ground Zero and her own experiences as an Episcopal priest, psychotherapist, and chaplain, Storm Swain offers a new model of pastoral care grounded in theology and practice. Reflecting on experiences of suffering faced in ministry, Swain considers what it means to love in these instances and what is involved in ministering in these contexts. Within this model, caregivers can move from a place of trauma to a place of transformat...

The Sea and the Sacred in Japan is the first book to focus on the role of the sea in Japanese religions. While many leading Shinto deities tend to be understood today as unrelated to the sea, and mountains are considered the privileged sites of sacredness, this book provides new ways to understand Japanese religious culture and history. Scholars from North America, Japan and Europe explore the sea and the sacred in relation to history, culture, politics, geography, worldviews and cosmology, sp...

A comprehensive glossary and reference work with more than a thousand entries on Shinto ranging from brief definitions and Japanese terms to short essays dealing with aspects of Shinto practice, belief and institutions from early times up to the present day.

Japanese Culture: The Religious and Philosophical Foundations takes readers on a thoroughly researched and remarkably readable journey through Japan's cultural history. This much-anticipated sequel to Roger Davies's best-selling The Japanese Mind provides a comprehensive overview of the religion and philosophy of Japan. This cultural history of Japan explains the diverse cultural traditions that underlie modern Japan and offers readers real insights into Japanese manners and etiquette. Davies...

Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843) has been the subject of numerous studies that focus on his importance to nationalist politics and Japanese intellectual and social history. Although well known as an ideologue of Japanese National Learning (Kokugaku), Atsutane's importance as a religious thinker has been largely overlooked. His prolific writings on supernatural subjects have never been thoroughly analyzed in English until now. In ""When Tengu Talk"", Wilburn Hansen focuses on ""Senkyo ibun"" (1822), a...