Is sex an enemy of spiritual practice, or a powerful and creative vehicle of enlightenment? "The Red Thread of Passion" describes one man's search to understand the connection between the sexual and the spiritual.

A modern Shanghai appraiser’s relationship with an artist mirrors the story in an eighteenth-century book up for auction in this literary romance. Shen, a young, American-educated appraiser for an auction house. Ruth is a gifted Australian artist he meets, it seems, by chance. And Han is a beautiful, enigmatic woman who both facilitates and complicates their relationship. Yet all three lives mysteriously mirror characters describes in a rare, eighteenth-century book that comes up for auction—a book that is missing its final chapters. As the characters in the original tale move toward an ominous, unknown end, Shen’s search for the missing pages goes from curiosity to desperation as he hopes to discover—and perhaps alter—his fated future with Ruth. Author Nicholas Jose has taken one of China’s most cherished and elegant love stories, Six Chapters of a Floating Life, and seamlessly woven it into the glittering, high-rise world of present-day Shanghai. The Red Thread is an unforgettable, evocative novel of love and destiny, art and beauty, and the passion that ties one person to another forever. Praise for The Red Thread “A mysterious but classic work of Chinese literature exerts an influence on an unusual love triangle in this beguiling new novel by Australian writer Jose. . . . [A] stylish romance.” —Publishers Weekly “A love story of contemporary China that celebrates Shen Fu's classic nineteenth-century love story, Six Chapters of a Floating Life. . . . An involving novel animated by Buddhism's "red thread of passion," which connects individuals to each other and to the world.” —Booklist

Some of us have arrived at this particular point in our spiritual journey with a little extra baggage about passion, love, and sex, and I have noticed that many people on the spiritual path have a tendency in the mind to create a polarisation or a separation between the spiritual path and the sexual life. So what is the Tao of love, passion, and sex? This very body is the lotus of the true law, linking human beings to birth and death by the red thread of passion. This approach was closely related to Tantric Buddhism, that used sexual union as a religious ritual.

Set against the backdrop of 1830s Singapore where piracy, crime, triads, and tigers are commonplace, this historical romance follows the struggle of two lovers: Zhen, a Chinese coolie and triad member, and Charlotte, an 18-year-old Scots woman and sister of Singapore's Head of Police. Two cultures bound together by the invisible threads of fate yet separated by cultural diversity.

Poems weaving through the erotic heart of a spirited poet-woman on the cusp of middle age.

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice. Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos. Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan. This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.

A provocative and playful exploration of the Zen koan tradition that reveals how everyday paradoxes are an integral part of our spiritual journey Bring Me the Rhinoceros is an unusual guide to happiness and a can opener for your thinking. For fifteen hundred years, Zen koans have been passed down through generations of masters, usually in private encounters between teacher and student. This book deftly retells more than a dozen traditional koans, which are partly paradoxical questions dangerous to your beliefs and partly treasure boxes of ancient wisdom. Koans show that you don’t have to impress people or change into an improved, more polished version of yourself. Instead you can find happiness by unbuilding, unmaking, throwing overboard, and generally subverting unhappiness. Author and Zen teacher John Tarrant brings the heart of the koan tradition out into the open, reminding us that the old wisdom remains as vital as ever, a deep resource available to anyone in any place or time.