Book contains: Over 150 old photos and drawings, 135 pages of detailed information from the source. A distinctive book authored by one of Madam Sun Jian-Yun's (daughter of Grandmaster Sun Lu-T'ang) direct long-term students. Contains old translations from Chinese boxing masters, lectures and explanations from Madam Sun [1913-2003] and original students of Grandmaster Sun [1861-1933]. Topics covered concern old practices of Sun Taijiquan (Tai-Chi), Sun and Cheng styles of Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, Qigong, sword practice methods, and an overview of Grandmaster Sun's history with photos. Introduction to several of Madam Sun's direct long-term students: Bradford Tyrey (USA), Dave Martin (United Kingdom), and Su-Ying Martin (United Kingdom). Writings on: Glimpses into the Life of Grandmaster Sun Lu-T'ang, The Essence & Smoothness of Qi Within the San-t'i Posture, Old Xingyiquan Teachings of Master Guo Yun-Shen [1827-1903], Baguazhang & Xingyiquan's I-Chin Jing (Changing Tendon Classic), Guo Yun-Shen's Animal Pairings in Xingyiquan: Dragon & Tiger, Developing Inner Force Through Standing, Ten Character Hands, Food & Drink That Harm Qi, Taoist Methods of Grandmaster Sun Lu-T'ang, Traditional Sun Family Sword Practices, Sun Family Bagua Sword Methods, Introduction to the Eight Immortals & Sword Methods, Ten True [Correct] Sword Shape Methods, A Lecture on Internal Sword Practices - Presented by Madam Sun Jian-Yun in 1987, An Explanation of Lao Yin Yunshou (Old Yin Cloud Hands), Questions & Answers, Moving Qi Among Three Points & The Skill of Nurturing the Small. This is our first book offered on traditional Sun family style practices. We highly recommend that you also purchase our second book 'Traditional Sun Lu-T'ang Style: Commentary by Madam Sun Jian-Yun, Daughter of Sun Lu-T'ang - Questions & Answers on Taijiquan - Baguazhang -Xingyiquan - Qigong (Volume I), full of old photos and training methods.

Book contains: Over 130 old photos and drawings, with 100 pages of detailed information. An authoritative book authored by one of Madam Sun Jian-Yun's (daughter of Grandmaster Sun Lu-T'ang [1861-1933]) direct long-term students. Old writings on the Neijiaquan practices of Taijiquan (Tai-Chi), Baguazhang, Xingyiquan, and Qigong. This book focuses on questions that we asked Madam Sun [1913-2003] in class, and her detailed explanations. This is part of a series of books on traditional Sun family practices and is highly recommended as a follow-up text to our 1st book: The Internal Practices of Sun Lu-T'ang. Introduction to several of Madam Sun's direct long-term students: Bradford Tyrey (USA), Dave Martin (United Kingdom), and Su-Ying Martin (United Kingdom). Our second book offered on traditional Sun family style practices. This book introduces many of the profound methods of practice taught by Grandmaster Sun Lu-T'ang, and is an absolutely essential text for pursuing the traditional Sun family style Taijiquan (Tai-Chi) form instruction and cultivation of qi presented in our third book in this series.

A History of Chinese Letters and Epistolary Culture is the first publication, in any language, that is dedicated to the study of Chinese epistolary literature and culture in its entirety, from the early empire to the twentieth century. The volume includes twenty-five essays dedicated to a broad spectrum of topics from postal transmission to letter calligraphy, epistolary networks to genre questions. It introduces dozens of letters, often the first translations into English, and thus makes epistolary history palpable in all its vitality and diversity: letters written by men and women from all walks of life to friends and lovers, princes and kings, scholars and monks, seniors and juniors, family members and neighbors, potential patrons, newspaper editors, and many more. With contributions by: Pablo Ariel Blitstein, R. Joe Cutter, Alexei Ditter, Ronald Egan, Imre Galambos, Natascha Gentz, Enno Giele, Natasha Heller, David R. Knechtges, Paul W. Kroll, Jie Li, Y. Edmund Lien, Bonnie S. McDougall, Amy McNair, David Pattinson, Zeb Raft, Antje Richter, Anna M. Shields, Suyoung Son, Janet Theiss, Xiaofei Tian, Lik Hang Tsui, Matthew Wells, Ellen Widmer, and Suzanne E. Wright.

'NDiaye is a hypnotic storyteller with an unflinching understanding of the rock-bottom reality of most people's life.' New York Times ' One of France's most exciting prose stylists.' The Guardian. Obsessed by her encounters with the mysterious green women, and haunted by the Garonne River, a nameless narrator seeks them out in La Roele, Paris, Marseille, and Ouagadougou. Each encounter reveals different aspects of the women; real or imagined, dead or alive, seductive or suicidal, driving the narrator deeper into her obsession, in this unsettling exploration of identity, memory and paranoia. Self Portrait in Green is the multi-prize winning, Marie NDiaye's brilliant subversion of the memoir. Written in diary entries, with lyrical prose and dreamlike imagery, we start with and return to the river, which mirrors the narrative by posing more questions than it answers.

The author has performed a great service in recovering and translating the enchanting poems and talks of twenty nuns from the period 1600 to 1850.

The seventeenth century is generally acknowledged as one of the most politically tumultuous but culturally creative periods of late imperial Chinese history. Scholars have noted the profound effect on, and literary responses to, the fall of the Ming on the male literati elite. Also of great interest is the remarkable emergence beginning in the late Ming of educated women as readers and, more importantly, writers. Only recently beginning to be explored, however, are such seventeenth-century religious phenomena as "the reinvention" of Chan Buddhism—a concerted effort to revive what were believed to be the traditional teachings, texts, and practices of "classical" Chan. And, until now, the role played by women in these religious developments has hardly been noted at all. Eminent Nuns is an innovative interdisciplinary work that brings together several of these important seventeenth-century trends. Although Buddhist nuns have been a continuous presence in Chinese culture since early medieval times and the subject of numerous scholarly studies, this book is one of the first not only to provide a detailed view of their activities at one particular moment in time, but also to be based largely on the writings and self-representations of Buddhist nuns themselves. This perspective is made possible by the preservation of collections of "discourse records" (yulu) of seven officially designated female Chan masters in a seventeenth-century printing of the Chinese Buddhist Canon rarely used in English-language scholarship. The collections contain records of religious sermons and exchanges, letters, prose pieces, and poems, as well as biographical and autobiographical accounts of various kinds. Supplemental sources by Chan monks and male literati from the same region and period make a detailed re-creation of the lives of these eminent nuns possible. Beata Grant brings to her study background in Chinese literature, Chinese Buddhism, and Chinese women’s studies. She is able to place the seven women, all of whom were active in Jiangnan, in their historical, religious, and cultural contexts, while allowing them, through her skillful translations, to speak in their own voices. Together these women offer an important, but until now virtually unexplored, perspective on seventeenth-century China, the history of female monasticism in China, and the contributionof Buddhist nuns to the history of Chinese women’s writing.

Contextualizing the sutra within a milieu of intense religious and cultural experimentation, this volume unravels the sudden rise of Diamond Sutra devotion in the Tang dynasty against the backdrop of a range of social, political, and literary activities. Through the translation and exploration of a substantial body of narratives extolling the efficacy of the sutra, it explores the complex social history of lay Buddhism by focusing on how the laity might have conceived of the sutra and devoted themselves to it. Corroborated by various sources, it reveals the cult’s effect on medieval Chinese religiosity in the activities of an empowered laity, who modified and produced parasutraic texts, prompting the monastic establishment to accommodate to the changes they brought about.