Zen Fiction

Ryokan (1758–1831) is, along with Dogen and Hakuin, one of the three giants of Zen in Japan. But unlike his two renowned colleagues, Ryokan was a societal dropout, living mostly as a hermit and a beggar. He was never head of a monastery or temple. He liked playing with children. He had no dharma heir. Even so, people recognized the depth of his realization, and he was sought out by people of all walks of life for the teaching to be experienced in just being around him.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god - and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

The Hidden Lamp is a collection of 100 koans and stories of Buddhist women from the time of the Buddha to the present day. This revolutionary book brings together many teaching stories that were hidden for centuries, unknown until this volume. These stories are extraordinary expressions of freedom and fearlessness, relevant for men and women of any time or place. In this audio, we meet nuns, laywomen practicing with their families, famous teachers honored by emperors, and old women selling tea on the side of the road.

The Royal Society of Unnatural Philosophers, one of the most respected organizations throughout all of England, has long been tasked with maintaining magic within His Majesty's lands. But lately the once proper institute has fallen into disgrace, naming an altogether unsuitable gentleman - a freed slave who doesn't even have a familiar - as their Sorcerer Royal and allowing England's once profuse stores of magic to slowly bleed dry. At least they haven't stooped so low as to allow women to practice....

Lieutenant Colonel Tanya von Degurechaff has become keenly aware of this after deploying to the freezing eastern front. The bone-chilling weather makes every move a struggle, grinding even the Empire's proud army to a halt. And yet, winter is the time for the flowers of intrigue to blossom. When a supposed ally begins acting suspiciously and enemies begin to collude, a profusion of conflicting interests and various secret deals will summon a maelstrom of confusion no one can control.

This manual provides a review of the tactical combat advantages enjoyed by zombies and gives the listener a step-by-step guide to adopting them for him or herself. Have you wondered where the great military leaders of modern history have found their collective inspirations? Well look no further. It is the walking dead upon whom the most important tactical infantry innovations of the last three hundred years have been based.

Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award winner “If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again”. A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people.

When sisters Muna and Sakti wake up on the peaceful beach of the island of Janda Baik, they can’t remember anything, except that they are bound as only sisters can be. They have been cursed by an unknown enchanter, and slowly Sakti starts to fade away. The only hope of saving her is to go to distant Britain, where the Sorceress Royal has established an academy to train women in magic. If Muna is to save her sister, she must learn to navigate high society and trick the English magicians into believing she is a magical prodigy.

This book offers a complete translation of the Majjhima Nikāya, or Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, one of the major collections of texts in the Pāli Canon, the authorised scriptures of Theravada Buddhism. This collection - among the oldest records of the historical Buddha's original teachings - consists of 152 suttas or discourses of middle length, distinguished as such from the longer and shorter suttas of the other collections.

High above the blood- and mud-soaked trenches, a young girl pits herself against army mages in high stakes aerial duels with bullets, spells, and bayonets. Her name is Tanya Degurechaff and she is the Devil of the Rhine, one of the greatest soldiers the Empire has ever seen!

More than a decade before the release of the book that would make him famous, Robert M. Pirsig had already caught hold of the central theme that would animate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Though he was revered by fans who considered him a guru, the famously private Pirsig published only two books and consented to few interviews and almost no public appearances. Now, for the first time, listeners will be granted access to five decades of Pirsig’s personal writings in this posthumous collection that illuminates the evolution of his thinking to an unprecedented degree.

Tanya has won victory after victory on the battlefield, and still the Empire hurtles toward its destruction. Zettour stands at the helm, a warped sense of patriotism guiding his actions as he prepares the stage. His only goal now is to secure the best possible defeat the Empire can afford, even if it means going down in history as the greatest villain of all time. And to make that happen, he’ll do whatever it takes to shock and awe the world, starting with Ildoa. The time for diplomacy or reason has passed. There is only war.

After being reborn and becoming a magic wielding soldier in the Imperial Army, Tanya Degurechaff bemoans her fate of being placed at the very edge of the front lines instead of a comfy place in the rear. Swearing revenge on Being X, she plunges head-first into battle, dragging her subordinate along with her!

Contrary to her dearest wish to find a safe place and stay there, Major Tanya von Degurechaff continues to wade through the fog of war with her troops on land, at sea, and in the air. After many battles with the increasingly numerous enemies of the Empire, a chance for a breakthrough finally appears. But when her comrades begin celebrating the glories they've reaped, savoring the sweet nectar of imminent triumph, Tanya alone is frozen in fear. Has the Empire decisively won the war, or is this nothing more than a Pyrrhic victory?

Aurelio Zen of Rome's elite Criminalpol is back, but nobody's supposed to know it. After months in hospital recovering from a bomb attack on his car, he is lying low under a false name at a beach resort on the Tuscan coast, waiting to testify in an imminent anti-Mafia trial. Zen has clear instructions: to sit back and enjoy the classic Italian beach holiday - relaxing in the sun, eating seafood and engaging in a little mild flirtation with the attractive woman sitting under the next umbrella.

The Salamander Kampfgruppe has finally come off the front lines and is headed back west for much-needed R & R. The troops are more than ready to enjoy some peace and quiet after many long days flying missions on the eastern front. What they aren’t ready for is how unfamiliar it feels not to be surrounded by whizzing bullets and exploding artillery shells. For Tanya, though, this long-awaited return to the rear brings more disturbing realizations than respite. This vacation may be far more eventful than it has any right to be.

Inspector Zen has a problem: an impossible murder, recorded on the closed-circuit video of Oscar Burolo's top-security Sardinian fortress. As Zen gets to work, he is once again plunged into a menacing and violent world where his own life is soon at risk.

A devil wanders the battlefield in the guise of an adorable young child and her name is Tanya Degurechaff! After returning from the sandy southlands, Tanya receives an incredibly suspicious order from headquarters to embark on a training exercise. In reality, command has sent her on a covert mission to initiate a border conflict with the Federation. Soon the Empire finds itself embroiled in another fight it cannot back down from, even if it means making the entire world their enemies!

A collection of Zen stories to amuse and illuminate. Includes all the stories from classic Zen literature: 101 Zen Stories, The Gateless Gate, The Ten Bulls and Centering. Includes the soundtrack The Mysterious Sound of Wind In the Bamboo - a 43 minute collection of Zen inspired Japanese music by The Matsu Take Ensemble.

Anyone can tell that continuing the war is ludicrous. The question now is not whether to, but how to end the war. Colonel Lergen has been working on brokering a truce in Ildoa for some time now, yet peace seems farther than ever. Bringing the war to a close in a way that everyone can stomach may be harder than surviving on the eastern front. In the meantime, people like General Rudersdorf and General Zettour are beginning to move in the shadows. If a resolution isn’t reached soon, things are only going to get even more dangerous...