In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jesus, Man of Sin: Toward a New Christology in the Global EraSoho MachidaSin as the Common GroundThe blasphemous title of this article is likely to outrage more than a few devout Christians. I am aware that most Christians view Jesus as the most immaculate and beautiful person who ever lived. As a Buddhist scholar and practitioner, however, I cannot extinguish a long-held question from my mind. Was Jesus really (...) free from sin? I do not object to the view of those Christians who see him as the greatest living expression of compassion and courage. But the Christian construction of an untainted, perfect image of Jesus, the Son of God, raises certain problems that I would like to address. Although Jesus, the Anointed, could have had a special mission in the human world, the Son of Man did not appear as the Holy Ghost. He was incarnated in human form: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only son from the Father” (John 1:14).It is important to carefully consider the meaning of the Incarnation. The fact that Jesus came to be born with flesh in this world means that he chose to stand on the common ground of sin with us. The sin that I refer to here is the most ontologically fundamental sin that is at the core of human experience. What links us with Jesus is none other than so-called Original Sin.To be sure, as a man who comes from a different religious tradition, I do not make this outrageous claim because I want to dispute the value of the divine personhood of Jesus, or because I am cynical about the most sacred object of Christian faith. I have a deep respect for the greatness of the Christian tradition that has developed around this very unusual person, Jesus Christ.On a personal level too, I do not think of Jesus as a distant figure, as merely the god of another religion. During my boyhood in Japan, I often attended an Episcopal church; and the first academic degree I earned in the United States was in theological studies. In light of all that I have learned from my own personal involvement with Christianity, I still believe that Jesus was a person who suffered like us as a sinful human being.If I were to choose the most important of Jesus’ words from the Bible, I would not hesitate to point to the following passage: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani? (My God, my God, why have you deserted me?)” (Mark 15:34). It is surprising how few Christian scholars have offered persuasive interpretations of these words, which Jesus is said to have uttered in the final moments of his life. Many Christians would rather not hear such contradictory, despairing words come from the mouth of Jesus. Yet [End Page 81] these words of extreme suffering contain the key message at the core of Christian faith.Though I am also interested in Jesus’ historical background and the political role he played in a tiny corner of the Roman Empire, it is not the purpose of this article to investigate the historicity of Jesus’ life, as many theologians and historians have attempted to do in recent years. I will focus instead on the philosophical implications of Jesus’ life and his physical body, and why I believe it is important to develop a new Christology for the coming global era.The Karmic Body of JesusFirst, why did Jesus have to experience the suffering of crucifixion? The evident answer might be explained this way: because he sacrificed himself to redeem the human race, which has been sinning since the time of Adam and Eve. I would like, however, to suggest a totally different answer: Jesus was crucified to atone for his own sin. He courageously showed the way each of us must take responsibility for our own lives. He deserves our high admiration, but not excessive mystification.I do not mean that Jesus committed any specific sin in his lifetime, but rather that as the Son of Man he too was... (shrink)

Introduction -- The Mysterious record of immovable wisdom -- The clear sound of jewels -- Annals of the Sword Taia.

Selected writings from the most influential texts of the samurai era—in a pocket-size edition. The samurai of Japan, who were the country's military elite from medieval times to the end of the nineteenth century, were synonmous with valor, honor, and martial arts prowess. Their strict adherence to the code of bushido ("the way of the warrior"), chivalry, and honor in fighting to the death continues to capture the imagination of people today, inspiring authors, filmmakers, and artists. The Pocket Samurai contains (...) the essential writings of the era by the most esteemed samurai and philosophers of the age, including the iconic Miyamoto Musashi, author of The Book of Five Rings; Yamamoto Tsunetomo, author of Hagakure, the best-known explication of the samurai code; Takuan Soho, the Zen priest and adviser to samurai; Yagyu Munenori, whose The Life-Giving Sword describes a deeply spiritual approach to sword fighting; and others. (shrink)

This paper addresses a need to re-examine the mind-body dualism established since Descartes. Descartes' dualism has been regarded by modern philosophers as an extremely insufficient solution to the problem of mind and body, from which is derived a long opposition in modern epistomology between idealism and empiricism. This dualism, bifurcating the region of spirit and matter, and the dichotomous models of thinking based on this dualism, have long dominated the world of modern philosophy and science. The paper examines states of (...) conscious experience from an East Asian perspective allowing analysis on achieved supernormal consciousness rather than a focus on “normal” or “subnormal.” The nature of the “transformation” of human consciousness will be studied both philosophically, as a transformation from “provisional” dualism to non-dualism, and neurophysiologically. The theoretical structure of the transformation will, in part, be examined through the model provided by a Japanese medieval Zen master, Takuan Sôhô. Then, to verify Takuan's theoretical explanation, toposcopic analysis of electroencephalographs will be presented of the performance of individuals practicing the martial arts technique of tôate. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, William Kentridge has consolidated a worldwide reputation as an artist of great verve and scope. He is arguably most widely known for his series of 10 animated films drawn over a period of 22 years, and set in his home city of Johannesburg. Originally conceived as a distraction, something to fill the gaps between exhibitions, the films have magnificently exceeded their brief, establishing instead one of the great characters in contemporary fiction: Soho EcksteinHighveld mining (...) magnate, and Kentridge s alter ego. The timeline of the films covers South Africa s transition from apartheid to democracy. The specific events and crises comprising the country s political transformation form the backdrop to the story unfolding across the screen, but the films are not "about" political events. Instead the saga traces a different and parallel arcSoho s gradual awakening from capitalist blockhead and cuckold to sober penitent, coming to terms with his own frailties and the first signs of mortalityand it is this human quality that gives the films their power and enduring appeal. Matthew Kentridge has witnessed, from first beginnings, the evolution of William Kentridge s technique, themes and ideas. From his unique and privileged vantage point, he has watched the transformation of Soho from individualistic South African megalomaniac into a kind of late-twentieth-century Everyman. This book is his response. This volume also incorporates an element of augmented reality, which readers can explore using their smartphones or tablets, making the book an even more enriching experience.". (shrink)

Translated into English for the first time, leading Japanese philosopher, Nishihira Tadashi, explores the deeply experiential philosophy of losing yourself in the reality of the present. He takes us on a tour through the history of Zen, the gatekeeper of the philosophy of no-mind D.T. Suzuki, the Noh theory of Zeami and Takuan's treatise on swordsmanship. Nishihira pulls together the threads of this genealogy of no-mind, showing the richness of the concept and its essential connection to the paradoxical task (...) of becoming fully human. (shrink)

This book critically analyses the "mutual illuminations" between literature, religion, architecture, films, performative arts, paintings, woodworks, memes and masks cutting across time and space. In architecture for example, the eventual success of a project depends on the harmony between physical sciences and aesthetics, design and planning, knowledge of building material, the local climate, and awareness of cultural sensibilities. This volume affirms that aesthetics and arts are deeply linked through existential issues of who I am. The essays in this volume present (...) diverse discursive structures showcasing the in-between spaces between various art forms and mediums, such as, architecture, literature and memory, Kafka in SoHo; Kafka and Bernhard, Kirchner's woodcuts; pictorial and stage representations of E.T.A Hoffmann, Hesse's fairy tales; translations of Pañcatantra; Nietzsche, ritual arts and face masks; martyrdom in La chanson de Roland, Goethe and Hafiz, Indian thought in Martin Buber; Rhythms of the 'Third' across cultures; Dadaism and contemporary memes This book examines these sublime linkages in a comparative and interdisciplinary way. Engaging and intersectional, this volume will appeal to students and scholars of arts and aesthetics, literature, philosophy, architecture, sociology, translation studies and readers who are interested in cultural, intertextual, intermedial, and comparative studies. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to set the social and historical background against which the Royal Institution was founded, and to trace the events in its very early history. The founder of the Institution was Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, that soldier of fortune who took service with the Elector Palatine of Bavaria, and it was in the course of his duties in Munich that his interest in the practical problems of philanthropy was aroused.In London, in the concluding years of the (...) eighteenth century, he was drawn into the group of philanthropists and reformers among whom William Wilberforce was the leading figure, and Sir Thomas Bernard, Treasurer of the Foundling Hospital, one of the most active members. The focus of their activities was the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, and to this Society Rumford submitted his proposals for a new scientific institution in London, designed to improve the lot of the poor and the working classes by the application of science to useful purposes.It was decided to make an appeal for funds, Rumford's proposals were circulated, and the Count succeeded in interesting the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, who took the Chair at the early meetings and allowed them to be held at his house, 32 Soho Square. At a meeting held there on 7 March 1799, the new institution was formed by resolution of the subscribers of 50 guineas each, who became the first Proprietors of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, as it was afterwards named in its Royal Charter. (shrink)

n a 25-year career as a successful public intellectual, Stephen Jay Gould has accrued nearly all the trappings of celebrity: a new loft in SoHo, tenure at Harvard, a gig at NYU, book sales totaling in the millions (his twentieth title, The Lying Stones of Marrak ech, comes out next month), not to mention a schedule that takes him to London, Paris, or L.A. almost weekly. Not bad for a college professor. But recently, he's picked up one of the (...) less desirable accoutrements of fame. The graying, 58-year-old Queens native has become the first paleontologist in history with his own stalker—albeit an intellectual one. (shrink)

For those in the so‐called G‐7, G‐8, or G‐20, searching for the formula for economic takeoff, this is a book that deserves a reckoning. It explores the “role of culture,” which hitherto has had “no place in traditional economic explanations” of the history of industrial achievement. It is in the cultural and epistemological transformation of the eighteenth century that Margaret Jacob finds the foundation of industrial revolution. Jacob thereby dismisses the myth of the accidental genius or the inspired semiliterate backyard (...) tinkerer that has reinforced the notion that nothing can be done except by lives of singular initiative.By comparing the British most particularly with the Dutch and the French, Jacob argues it was precisely the utilitarian and egalitarian sentiments found in British scientific and philosophical societies that mattered most. Her theme is the much‐contested vision of the efficacy of natural knowledge and the assimilation of natural philosophy by the utilitarian world of the artisan and the entrepreneur. The advance of mechanical philosophy under Galileo and Descartes notwithstanding, it was during the English Revolution of the mid‐seventeenth century that natural philosophy was explicitly attached to a new social reformation and an inchoate democratic vision.Isaac Newton had nothing but derision for the vulgar “inferior horde of people” . Yet his disciples launched into careers as purveyors of his science in public lectures heavily weighted to mechanical explanation. Often viewed with suspicion elsewhere in Europe, in England such lecturers flourished. Even the engineer James Watt's French contact J. C. Perier, who desperately sought as many British secrets as possible, had initially learned his science from the lecturer abbé Nollet. An increasing awareness of the practical consequences of the new science was essential to the economic achievements of the late Enlightenment. This ultimately is a major thrust of Jacob's argument, for many early industrialists “were smarter than historians have allowed them to be” . Those who sought the new steam engines for their mines were perfectly well aware of the mechanical limitations and natural variables that might affect the success of their enterprise. Jacob is quite correct that “the Baconian vision lived on, eventually subsumed under the larger rubric of Newtonianism” . At the end of the century, the Napoleonic technocrat Jean‐Antoine Chaptal appears as representative of the case for applied science by promoting the Baconian unity of theory and practice.The most innovative part of Jacob's story is the attention she pays to the role of science in the attitudes of Midlands entrepreneurs like James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Both insisted on a scientific education for their sons, and Boulton recommended as much for the sons of foreign visitors to the Soho foundry. Both Watt and Boulton were particularly adept in the experimental laboratory, although they were also highly suspicious of the growing public technical interest and scientific curiosity that they feared might undermine their own patent monopoly. This suspicion grew out of their own deeper unease at the burgeoning democratic sympathies. Boulton and James Watt, senior, were extremely critical of radicalism—so we need not, therefore, draw any simple equation between industrial innovation and political reform. The currents of late eighteenth‐century Britain were far too complicated for that. Jacob, nonetheless, draws broad and interesting conclusions about the ways in which Continental cultural and political factors obstructed the spread of the very natural knowledge that gave the British such advantages. In her view, especially in this age of a “knowledge economy,” it might now do us well to remember the potential effects of “the widest dissemination of scientific knowledge” and “the democratization of learning” . In Jacob's version of the Industrial Revolution, the broadening and deepening of democracy followed the spread of natural learning beyond the uses of traditional elites. (shrink)