The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love by Paula Arai
Paula Arai . Unknown Year . English
Accessible and adaptable Japanese Buddhist rituals to infuse your life with purpose, healing, and gratitude when you need it most. How do we make and sustain meaning amidst the messy conditions of daily life? Personalized rituals can help us blossom like lotuses right in the mud of the present. On a pilgrimage she began after her mother’s death, author Paula Arai encountered numerous Japanese Buddhists who taught her the remarkable power of ritual to heal—practices you can adapt to your own cultural and personal circumstances. Applying principles of Zen practice, she offers stories and insights that illuminate how to nourish and reap a healing bounty of connection, joy, and compassion. Examples include how to: Relate to a late loved one as a “personal Buddha” who supports you Create a home altar to serve as a safe space to be vulnerable, face intense emotions, and experience a depth of warm gratitude that melts fear and anger Engage in daily tasks with attentiveness, intention, and creativity such that they become opportunities for body-mind integration Develop family rituals to celebrate relationship and mark transition Approach illness and grief with a purposeful sense of connection to life-and-death in its wholeness Like Marie Kondo's Shinto principles for decluttering, Paula Arai uses rituals influenced by Japanese Zen for personal and relational nourishment and spiritual healing.
Categories: Productivity & Personal Development
About the Author
Paula Arai's newest book, The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love (Shambhala Publications), is now available. Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra––the Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo, is available through (Shambhala Publications). Filled with color images of stunning art, it makes Buddhist teachings visually accessible. She is also author of Women Living Zen: Japanese Buddhist Nuns (Oxford University Press) and Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Heart of Japanese Buddhist Women’s Rituals (University of Hawai’i Press), and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice (Oxford University Press). She received her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from Harvard University and did Zen training at the Aichi Senmon Nisōdō nunnery in Nagoya, Japan. Approaching her research with focus on embodied experience, she has received generous support from Fulbright and American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships, and grants from the Mellon Foundation, Reischauer Institute of Harvard University, the American Academy of Religion, and ATLAS (Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars). In addition to curating exhibitions featuring the art of Iwasaki Tsuneo, she is an active public speaker and leads workshops on healing rituals. A devoted teacher, Arai is the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies Professor at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, CA. She enjoys hiking, playing the violin, seeing her son do magic tricks, loves dogs and playing games with family and friends, especially Pictionary.
