Hawaii Books

This book deserves more than the grudging review granted to date. It may not be everyones cup of tea, especially if seduced by simplistic accounts of 'pop Zen.' Make no mistake about it, the topic which forms the central focus of this book - viz. the tension between the claims made in the name of 'sudden enlightenment' - and the 'gradualist' elements which, ironically, seem to be required in other respects - to make practical sense of it, will engage anyone who takes Zen practice seriously. This problem engaged the attention of Tsung-mi, an eminent Chinese Ch'an Buddhist who lived in the formative years of the Ch'an/Zen tradition, when the ideas at stake were current and needed to be resolved. In a sense, those of us engaged with Zen in the West are in an analogous position, such issues therefore being much more than 'dead history.'

Peter Gregory edited the material provided by a number of contributors - and gave us the chapter dealing with Tsung-mi.
In my view, this was the strongest chapter of the whole book and would have made it worth buying, anyway. As it is, the other chapters have much to offer - and, all in all, this book repays careful reading. I list the chapter headings for reference. It gives you a better idea of what's in store. I don't propose to review all the material, but note the chapters that struck me as significant.

The Sudden and Gradual Debates

The Mirror of the Mind. Paul Demieville.

Sudden Illumination or Simultaneous Comprehension: Remarks on Chinese and Tibetan Terminology.@ R.A.Stein.

Purifying Gold.@The Metaphor of Effort and Intuition in Buddhist Thought and Practice.@ Luis O. Gomez.


Sudden and Gradual Enlightenment in Chinese Buddhism.
Tao-sheng's Theory of Sudden Enlightenment Re-examined.
- Whalen Lai.

Sudden and Gradual Intimately Conjoined.@Chih-i's T'ien-tai and Gradual Intimately Conjoined.@Chih-i's T'ien-tai view.
- Neal Donner.

Shen-hui and the Teaching of Sudden Enlightenment in Early Ch'an Buddhism.@- John R. MacRae.

Sudden Enlightenment Followed by Gradual Cultivation.@Tsung-mi's Analysis of Mind. - Peter N. Gregory.

The 'Short-cut' Approach of Kan-hu‚@Meditation.@The Evolution of a Practical Subitism in Chinese Ch'an Buddhism.
- Robert E. Buswell Jnr.

Analogies in the Cultural Sphere

The Sudden and Gradual in Chinese Poetry Criticism:
An Examination of the Ch'an Poetry Analogy.
- Richard John Lynn.

Tung Ch'i-chang's "Southern and Northern Schools" in the History and Theory of Painting. - James Cahill.

The chapter John MacRae gave us dealing with Shen-hui, makes rather much of the allegedly 'polemical' use She-hui made of sudden enlightenment. While Shen-hui certainly proselytised, I'm not so sure that he was motivated by 'polemical' ideas.
I would question the degree of competitiveness involved between
the 'Southern' and 'Northern' Ch'an schools - and, in a certain sense, John's other writings, focusing on the Northern school, seem to weaken the sense of division.

Peter Gregory's chapter remains my favourite piece.@Less prone to dwell on the polemical side of things, he endeavours to explore the practical issues at stake.@Tsung-mi was an admirable figure and Peter Gregory has made a sterling job of reproducing the intricacies of Tsung-mi's 'Ch'an Chart.'

Neal Donner's article is well worth reading.@It might be noted that - in the early days, the Ch'an and T'ien-tai schools were closely connected.@T'ien-tai monks are listed in the Chuang Teng Lu (a Ch'an history) - as a collatoral lineage.

Robert Buswell's article concentrates on Ta-hui's 'kan-hua' (or hua-tou) technique. Surprisingly, perhaps, given the cliched references to Ta-hui as an opponent of 'silent illumination' (the more lifeless equivalents of which he certainly criticised), Buswell hints that the final effects or fruit of 'kan-hua' meditation may actually boil down to a kind of silent illumination' - all the same. Implicitly, ideas to this effect are found in the teachings of Hsu-yun, the most eminent Ch'an master of the 20th c.

All the material in this text is worth reading, including the chapters relating to the influence of Ch'an upon the arts. The Chinese sources are noted thoroughly, complete with the Chinese script.

This is a great book. It was brought to my attention by the grandmother of one of my fourth grade students. She told me "Take it home over the weekend and relax". How right she was. Reading this book will give you a realistic idea of the life style of Hawaii's sugar plantation camps, particularly on the Hamakua Coast of the island of Hawaii. The author, Yasushi "Scotch" Kurisuwas born, grew up and worked in Hakalau, one of the plantation communities on the Hamakua Coast. He possesses great insight and shares this with many anecdotal accounts of life at this time and place. It is well written and easy reading. I had a difficult time putting it down. I needed to return the book to the owner, so now I am purchasing my own copy. It is one of those books that you can read over many times, and still enjoy and learn from it. If you have an interest in the times of the sugar plantation camps in Hawaii, you should add this to your reading collection.

The author describes the development of mountain sources of water and the tunnels and ditches that brought it to the sugar plantations. Then she weaves in the history of the sugar industry which changed the subsistence economy of the Hawaiians forever and brought Hawaii into the modern world. While doing this skillfully in a clear style she also weaves in much of the history of the islands. If you have any interest in Hawaii the book will fascinate you.

Got the book for my kid's preschool and they really enjoyed it. My son knows the seasons, dry and wet and can recognize the signs by looking at the plumeria trees. The book has great pictures and made an impression on my son. I say, "Yeah!"

Also, I like the fact that I'm supporting a local person's book.

The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu has been a mainstay resource for those requisite "history of surfing" photos that compliment the early chapters of many a surfing book and far-reaching historical article. Under the informed and perceptive eye of DeSoto Brown, archivist and collections manager, the museum has assembled a best-of collection of the surf-related photographs in its collection (c. 1890-1960), and it is a treasure trove of wonderful and evocative images, many of them never before published. Brown's captions, meanwhile, include great info and anecdote about the photos, making this a must-have addition to every serious surf-culture library. - Drew Kampion for The Surfer's Path [...]

I bought this book because I love Hawaii. Then I bought 3 more copies to share with others. It's a great gift for Mother's Day.

I must apologize for the brevity and flippancy with which this review was written. I am on a busy school schedule and I don't have time to write the review that this book deserves. I am honored to be the first one to review it and hope it will encourage (if not convince) potential buyers and Saikaku fans that it is worth the search and money to get hold of your own copy of this book.

The stories in this book are sparse. The stories in this book are short. Many of them involve violence, suffering, tragedy and "redemption" through revenge. Yet, intertwined with the violence and tragedy there are stories whose very telling defines true friendship, loyalty and honor in a way that stands out in stark contrast to the habit that many Westerners call love. One story is simply about two old men, who are dear friends. In a casual conversation one invites the other to his house for a ceremony which will take place months after they part company. The comment is given lightly, but the other man, honoring his friend, remembers the invitation and travels a great distance through the winter snow to arrive on the day his friend had named. The old man who made the invitation is startled by the appearance of his snow covered friend and, recalling the invitation he made so many months before, is overcome by his friend's devotion and sacrifice for their relationship.

The concept of honor in this book is not thrown around lightly. "Honor" is not a word that goofy characters in martial arts movies throw around for American audiences to laugh at. This book offers any western mind a compact, powerful, dose of what really means to be a friend or enemy to someone.

The tantric teachings of Buddhism have little to do with the 'enlightenment-by-sex' teachings that can be found aplenty in New Age book stores, which my teacher Michael Saso shows in this book. Although it is not aimed at addressing this issue directly, the title might lead the casual observer to the wrong conclusion. This book highlights the Tendai Japanese vajrayana tradition, and goes very in-depth in describing tantric practices. Very detailed descriptions of mudras (hand movements) and other practices provide the reader with a depth and breadth of information which reveal the truer nature of tantra. An ordained Tendai priest (one of probably less than 10 non-Japanese Tendai priests), he was required to do 30 straight days of running practice (you'll have to read the book) before he was taught some of the information found in "Tantric Art". His descriptions of the use and purpose of mandalas show us that the mandala paintings found in New Age book stores have got the process backwards. Mandalas are representations of meditative experiences made after masters had the experience, not fanciful imaginings that the artist hopes will produce meditative experiences. Those interested in vajrayana Buddhism will find this a valuable tool to compare with Tibetan vajrayana on an in-depth level. There is little in the way of philosophy, it is mostly a description of the practices and explanation of how and why they function as they do.

I HAVE REVIEWED THIS BOOK......AND IT DOES ME ALOT OF HELP THROUGH MY ASSIGNMENTS ......IT IS A TRADITIONAL MAORI ARTS WEAVING BOOK AND IRECOMMEND THAT MAORI'S READ THIS BOOK

THANK YOU

Breaking new ground while covering subjects others have glossed over,
this engaging book clarifies influences of sencha tea enthusiasts on
Japanese art. As the author unravels the historical conditions and
cultural factors related to tea aesthetics, the reader recognizes how
competing influences affected the consumption of art for elite tea
connoisseurs. These aesthetics eventually drew interest from a
broader public.

The presently more popular _chanoyu_
"whisked" tea ceremony has received much more focus than
sencha tea ceremony and practices in Western publications. With
Chinese symbolism so commonly found among Japanese art objects,
however, it would be hard to understand the quiet taste of chanoyu
fully informing the creators of Japanese artifacts-- especially since
the Edo period. Graham's book resolves that puzzle.

Ostensibly the
book is about _sencha_ "steeped" tea and its various roles
for the artistic elite of Japan since its introduction from China.
More importantly, the author captures the artistic environment of
Japan since the early Edo period. The book offers a context against
which all Japanese arts can be gauged. At times, Japanese art has
leaned toward interest in elite Chinese culture and at other times has
purposively rejected that influence. This book explains that ebb and
flow capturing not only sencha tea's influence but also the
neo-Confucian influences introduced by the Tokugawa shogunate and
enlarged by often-iconoclastic Japanese literati.

The book might be
compared to Clunas's _Superfluous Things_ text on Chinese Ming taste.
Both offer extraordinary insight to understanding Asian art by looking
from a perspective that has seldom been studied in detail. Graham is
not the first to speak of sencha tea as promoted by the Obaku sect of
Zen monks and by _bunjincha_ literati as influential to Japanese art.
She is the first to deeply explore it, put it in perspective and to
not discount its continuing influence.

As an aside to the book's
focus on tea aesthetics, it offer considerable insight to other
Japanese arts by sharing information on sencha tea enthusiasts who
have made hugely significant contributions. Ishikawa Jozan
(1583-1672), the monk Ingen (1592-1673) and the literati artist Rai
San'yo (1780-1832) are among these. Each reader will uncover for
himself individuals who may be known by other arts but were informed
in sharing sencha tea with their coterie of friends.

Other authors
have discussed sencha tea enthusiasts' influence on Japanese art.
Stephen Addiss's insightful book _The Art of Zen_ describes several
Obaku monks' influence on Japanese painting in extraordinary
detail. Katie Jones, Brian Harkins & Paul Moss (international art
dealers based in London) have published catalogs commenting on
distinctive art objects chosen by _bunjincha_ (Japanese literati who
practiced sencha tea-- especially in the 18th and 19th centuries).
They note objects that often express the Chinese sage's taste for
communion with nature. Sencha tea is discussed in the PLW Arts' book
_Tetsubin_ as many of these iron kettles were produced as sencha tea
utensils. For a broad understanding sencha tea's influence, however,
Graham's book leads the field.

Of the several chanoyu (vs. sencha
tea) books available on Japanese tea aesthetic, I would recommend Sen
Soshitsu's. They include _Chado: The Japanese Way of Tea_, _The
Japanese Way of Tea: From Its Origins in China to Sen Rikyu_,
_Chanoyu: The Urasenke Tradition of Tea_ and _Tea Life, Tea
Mind_. These are each well constructed and offer separate insights.
The overview of tea history in _Chado_ is a jewel in concisely
expressing chanoyu aesthetics, but in devoting over 60% of the book to
the detailed ritual steps of modern Urasenke practice, it may not be
your "cuppa'." The less popular (by Amazon.com sales
figures) _The Japanese Way of Tea_ is Shoshitsu's closest equivalent
to Graham's book in expressing the contributions of tea to Japanese
culture. Its chapters on Murata Juko, Takeno Joo & Sen Rikyu are
easily worth the book's price, and early tea history information is
detailed. _Chanoyu_ is a little more expensive but offers an
introduction to tea utensils with great photos that makes it warmly
appealing. _Tea Life, Tea Mind_ required bursting many of its pages
that had not been fully separated at their top by the publisher. It
offers a brief introduction to chanoyu tea aesthetics.