A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki

As a Nowhere Man, Suzuki was the perfect catalyst for an emerging Western strata of neo-transcendentalists, heirs to Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, yet burdened with a psychological stigma as America gazed West across the Pacific and envisioned an Asia in ruins.

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A Rare Pleasure

The few translations that do exist of particular haiku poets have focused on male poets such as Basho, Shiki and Issa. For these reasons alone, readers should welcome the translation of the work of a premiere Japanese woman poet artist-calligrapher, Kaga-no-Chiyo.

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Hidden Masterpieces

As canals are to Venice, gardens are to Kyoto, even if mostly concealed behind the walls of private residences, or within sub-temples that have not transformed themselves into tourist attractions.

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Behind the Mask

In 1960, noh actor and mask carver Udaka Michishige was the last to be taken as an uchi-deshi, or live-in apprentice, into the home of KongĹŤ Iwao II, the head of the KongĹŤ School.

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My Year of Meats: An excerpt

It was Kato, my old boss at the TV production company in Tokyo where I had gotten my first job, strangulating English sound bites into pithy Japanese subtitles. Now, he said, he had a new program and could use my help.

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Food: Our Five Most-Read

A passionate chef serving up shojin-ryori plant-based cuisine; the founder of Kyoto’s first (and so far, only) Korean teahouse; an encounter at an unusual temple restaurant and indigenous Ainu cuisine in central Tokyo: these are Kyoto Journal’s top five most read articles on food.

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