The Red Thread of Passion

The Red Thread of Passion

Author: David Guy

Publisher:

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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Is sex an enemy of spiritual practice, or a powerful and creative vehicle of enlightenment? "The Red Thread of Passion" describes one man's search to understand the connection between the sexual and the spiritual.


The Red Thread

The Red Thread

Author: Nicholas Jose

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1452148163

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A modern Shanghai appraiser’s relationship with an artist mirrors the story in an eighteenth-century book up for auction in this literary romance. Shen, a young, American-educated appraiser for an auction house. Ruth is a gifted Australian artist he meets, it seems, by chance. And Han is a beautiful, enigmatic woman who both facilitates and complicates their relationship. Yet all three lives mysteriously mirror characters describes in a rare, eighteenth-century book that comes up for auction—a book that is missing its final chapters. As the characters in the original tale move toward an ominous, unknown end, Shen’s search for the missing pages goes from curiosity to desperation as he hopes to discover—and perhaps alter—his fated future with Ruth. Author Nicholas Jose has taken one of China’s most cherished and elegant love stories, Six Chapters of a Floating Life, and seamlessly woven it into the glittering, high-rise world of present-day Shanghai. The Red Thread is an unforgettable, evocative novel of love and destiny, art and beauty, and the passion that ties one person to another forever. Praise for The Red Thread “A mysterious but classic work of Chinese literature exerts an influence on an unusual love triangle in this beguiling new novel by Australian writer Jose. . . . [A] stylish romance.” —Publishers Weekly “A love story of contemporary China that celebrates Shen Fu's classic nineteenth-century love story, Six Chapters of a Floating Life. . . . An involving novel animated by Buddhism's "red thread of passion," which connects individuals to each other and to the world.” —Booklist


The Red Thread

The Red Thread

Author: Bernard Faure

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1998-10-26

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1400822602

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Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice. Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos. Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan. This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.


Bring Me the Rhinoceros

Bring Me the Rhinoceros

Author: John Tarrant

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2008-11-11

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0834823497

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A provocative and playful exploration of the Zen koan tradition that reveals how everyday paradoxes are an integral part of our spiritual journey Bring Me the Rhinoceros is an unusual guide to happiness and a can opener for your thinking. For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells more than a dozen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don’t have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. Author and Zen teacher John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time.


The Red Thread: Twenty Years of NYRB Classics

The Red Thread: Twenty Years of NYRB Classics

Author: Edwin Frank

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1681373912

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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of NYRB Classics, a handpicked anthology of selections from the series. In Greek mythology, Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of red thread to guide him through the labyrinth, and the Red Thread offers a path through and a way to explore the ins and outs and twists and turns of the celebrated NYRB Classics series, now twenty years old. The collection brings together twenty-five pieces drawn from the more than five hundred books that have come out as NYRB Classics over the last twenty years. Stories, essays, interviews, poems, along with chapters from novels and memoirs and other longer narratives have been selected by Edwin Frank, the series editor, to chart a distinctive, entertaining, and thought-provoking course across the expansive and varied terrain of the Classics series.


Intellectual Character

Intellectual Character

Author: Ron Ritchhart

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2004-08-25

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0787972789

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What does it really mean to be intelligent? Ron Ritchhart presents a new and powerful view of intelligence that moves beyond ability to focus on cognitive dispositions such as curiosity, skepticism, and open mindedness. Arguing persuasively for this new conception of intelligence, the author uses vivid classroom vignettes to explore the foundations of intellectual character and describe how teachers can enculturate productive patterns of thinking in their students. Intellectual Character presents illustrative, inspiring stories of exemplary teachers to help show how intellectual traits and thinking dispositions can be developed and cultivated in students to promote successful learning. This vital book provides a model of authentic and powerful teaching and offers practical strategies for creating classroom environments that support thinking.


The Politics of Passion

The Politics of Passion

Author: Gloria Wekker

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0231131623

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The Politics of Passion centers on an old institution among the Afro-Surinamese working class in which women have multiple sexual relationships with both men and women. These women reject marriage because of the bonds of dependency it fosters, preferring to create their own families of kin, lovers, and children. Gloria Wekker analyzes this phenomenon, known as mati work, as she vividly describes the lives of Afro-Surinamese women. She gives an account of women's sexuality that is not limited to either heterosexuality or same-sex sexuality. Her work offers new perspectives on black women's sexuality, the lives of Caribbean women, transnational gay and lesbian movements, and an Afro-Surinamese tradition that challenges conventional Western notions of marriage, gender, and sexuality. By foregrounding the voices of Afro-Surinamese women, Wekker illuminates these women's daily lives in light of the changes occurring in Surinamese society. She also considers the historical, religious, psychological, economic, linguistic, cultural, and political elements that have shaped their lives. The book concludes with stories of women who have migrated to the Netherlands, where they have created new, vibrant mati communities.


Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative

Irony in the Matthean Passion Narrative

Author: InHee C. Berg

Publisher: Fortress Press

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1451484321

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Irony (as used here) is a rhetorical and literary device for revealing “what is hidden behind what is seen.” It thus offers the reader a superior understanding by means of the distinction between reality and its shadow. The book provides a history of different definitions of irony, from Aristophanes to Booth; discusses the constitutive formal elements of irony and the functions of irony; then studies particular aspects of the Matthean Passion Narrative that require the reader to recognize a deeper truth beneath the surface of the narrative.