Inside the intriguing world of poker lies a fascinating exercise in strategy and extreme concentration--many of the same principles that underpin the one-thousand-year-old philosophy of Zen spirituality. Zen and the Art of Poker is the first book to apply Zen theories to America's most popular card game, presenting tips that readers can use to enhance their game. Among the more than one hundred rules that comprise this book, readers will learn to: *Make peace with folding *Use inaction as a weapon *Make patience a central pillar of their strategy *Pick their times of confrontation Using a concise and spare style, in the tradition of Zen practices and rituals, Zen and the Art of Poker traces a parallel track connecting the two disciplines by giving comments and inspirational examples from the ancient Zen masters to the poker masters of today.

In the years after World War II, Westerners and Japanese alike elevated Zen to the quintessence of spirituality in Japan. Pursuing the sources of Zen as a Japanese ideal, Shoji Yamada uncovers the surprising role of two cultural touchstones: Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery and the Ryoanji dry-landscape rock garden. Yamada shows how both became facile conduits for exporting and importing Japanese culture. First published in German in 1948 and translated into Japanese in 1956, Herrigel’s book popularized ideas of Zen both in the West and in Japan. Yamada traces the prewar history of Japanese archery, reveals how Herrigel mistakenly came to understand it as a traditional practice, and explains why the Japanese themselves embraced his interpretation as spiritual discipline. Turning to Ryoanji, Yamada argues that this epitome of Zen in fact bears little relation to Buddhism and is best understood in relation to Chinese myth. For much of its modern history, Ryoanji was a weedy, neglected plot; only after its allegorical role in a 1949 Ozu film was it popularly linked to Zen. Westerners have had a part in redefining Ryoanji, but as in the case of archery, Yamada’s interest is primarily in how the Japanese themselves have invested this cultural site with new value through a spurious association with Zen.

Written in the non-traditional, humorous, and slightly irreverent tone of books like Sit Down and Shut Up, and Dharma Punxs, Wonderlandis a highly original riff on Alice in Wonderland, using the classic story as a jumping off point for conveying the Zen concept of ‘One Mind’. Daniel Silberberg’s first book is a unique contribution to contemporary American Zen, which honors its historic roots and yet strikes out into fresh areas. It presents a lively mix of tone and quotation and levels of discourse, from citing Timeless Spring or the Diamond Sutra to Kill Bill and ketchup. With stories from his own life as well as from the larger cultural swirl around him, Daniel Silberberg reflects on the differences between how we perceive the world around us and the way it actually is. Daniel Silberberg’s take on a variety of Buddhist ideas and concepts are immediately useful and relevant. The reader will find that it addresses directly some of the issues they are dealing with in their own practice. The author’s insights and experiences come from his experience leading a large Zen community and from his almost thirty years of Zen Training in the lineage of the highly revered teachers Genpo Roshi and Maezumi Roshi.

Approaching casino gaming from a psychological point of view, readers learn how to deal with anger, identify unrealistic expectations, and manage the desire for revenge.

The perfect book for anyone who has ever...

The King of Las Vegas and America's premier sports gambler reveals a powerful program for breaking all the rules, beating all the odds, and achieving all your dreams. In The King of Vegas' Guide to Gambling, Wayne Allyn Root of Spike TV's King of Vegas (TM) demonstrates why it is vital to take risks in life—whether in the casino, on the playing field, or in the boardroom. Root lives an American dream: He makes money watching sports on television. In fact, as CEO of GWIN Inc., America's only publicly traded sports-handicapping firm, Root is a self-made millionaire with hundreds of thousands of sports-betting clients and fans. In this book, he reveals the spiritual principles behind his consistently winning hand. Turning the popular conception of the casino denizen on its head, Root shows readers how to concentrate on the risks they take and to cultivate tranquillity in the face of life-defining, stressful moments. Bringing a unique contrarian approach to gambling, Wayne Allyn Root states his maxim of never following the masses and always taking the lead in life, and guides the way to navigate successfully the many gambles life offers.