A TALE OF GOOD VS EVIL UNLIKE ANY OTHERTraverse through Arrdus with Silla, Omega, and company on an adventure rife with hardships, hope, despair, love, and magic. Can Silla, a seemingly normal woman in her early twenties, take on her predestined role of Goddess, and survive? Can Silla locate and protect the precious, powerful items of her predecessors?Many opposing forces exist; The Faithful, most fervent followers of the seven gods and goddesses have for millennia crusaded against the Goddess reincarnations. Though they are vast in number and influence, perhaps they pale in comparison to another of Silla' s future foes: Faulk, far to the northeast in his walled-in nation has been putting into motion plans of catastrophic evil that will test both Silla and Omega in more ways than they yet know. There are many characters worth falling in love with, but it is impossible to say who will survive and who will perish.

Paul Eh-em is a cautious thirty year old plagued by reticence and life-world trivia. Noticing a mountain lion cub watching him from a tree, he takes inspiration and records his experiences of starting over in a rural California town. His writing and those he befriends figure in his transition and integration of his separated selves. But his story reaches beyond connecting meaningfully with people and finding the best-fit match for him. He must become resolute in working through his own sexual orientation and grief lite. He must also navigate through a maze of frustrated plans, decisions about career and calling, inaccurate first impressions, feelings of emptiness, errors in judgment, troubling memories, mistakes and inadequacies, philosophical quibbles, and admirable yet formidable people and situations that challenge him. His story is a meta-fiction of identity formation animated by feminine energies, totemic mascots, and diverse and developing characters. All this and much, much more is his journey to a conclusion. Or is it a precarious beginning?

Drawn from Peter H. Lee's Sourcebook of Korean Civilization, Volume I, this abridged introductory collection offers students and general readers primary readings in the social, intellectual, and religious traditions of Korea from ancient times through the sixteenth century. Sources of Korean Tradition is arranged according to the major epochs of Korean history, including sections on: Korean culture - its origins, writing, education, poetry, song, social life, and rituals; religion - the rise of Buddhism and Confucianism; the economy - the land, agriculture, commerce, and currency; and its changing political structures. A superb collection by the foremost scholars in the field, Sources of Korean Tradition is supplemented by a bibliography and prefaces by both editors. An impressive storehouse for the grand corpus of thought, beliefs, and customs held by people of Korea for centuries, this volume is a valuable companion for those interested in the history of Korea and East Asian studies.

Of all the great religions, it is Buddhism that has focused most intensively on that aspects of religion that we call spirituality. No religion has ste a higher value on states of spiritual insight and liberation, and none has set forth so methodologically and with such a wealth of reflection the various paths and with such a wealth of reflection the various paths and disciplines by which such states are reached. The aim of the volumes on Buddhism is to survey the entire tradition both chronologically and geographically in the varieties of its historical forms and in the great diversity of its teachings.

This book is a translation and study of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra and an examination of its broad implications for the development of East Asian Buddhism. The Vajrasamadhi-Sutra was traditionally assumed to have been translated from Sanskrit, but some modern scholars, principally in Japan, have proposed that it is instead an indigenous Chinese composition. In contrast to both of these views, Robert Buswell maintains it was written in Korea around A.D. 685 by a Korean adept affiliated with the East Mountain school of the nascent Chinese Ch'an tradition. He thus considers it to be the oldest work of Korean Ch'an (or Son, which in Japan became known as the Zen school), and the second-oldest work of the sinitic Ch'an tradition as a whole. Buswell makes his case for the scripture's dating, authorship, and provenance by placing the sutra in the context of Buddhist doctrinal writings and early Ch'an literature in China and Korea. This approach leads him to an extensive analysis of the origins of Ch'an ideology in both countries and of the principal trends in the sinicization of Buddhism. Buddhism has typically been studied in terms of independent national traditions, but Buswell maintains that the history of religion in China, Korea, and Japan should be treated as a whole. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.