Sumeru News — Sumeru Books

Embracing Uncertainty, coming soon

• Buddhist Psychology • Buddhist Studies • Culture • Ethics • Japan • Memoir • Music • Sumeru Books • Zen

EMBRACING UNCERTAINTY: Future Jazz, That 13th Century Buddhist Monk, and the Invention of Cultures. An anthropological memoir of the author’s experiences in Japan and other places to explore ideas of uncertainty and undifferentiation as they relate to ethics and culture. The book threads a discussion of jazz improvisation as metaphor for the human experience and the ongoing process of change that is the world. The Zen monk in the subtitle is Dōgen, who figures prominently in the book. John Traphagan is a professor of Religious Studies and Anthropology at the University of Texas Austin. The book is illustrated by Amane...

Read more →


This Fragile Planet proofs

• Buddhism of the Future • Dalai Lama • Eco Action • Engaged Buddhism • Environmental Issues • Ethics • Sumeru Books

The editor and designer of our new book, This Fragile Planet: His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Environment got their proofs today, where they live in Asia. Here's the picture they sent me. I love it!

Read more →


The Ox Herder's Diary

• Sumeru Books • Teacher Stories • Zen

My latest column for Buddhistoor Global... THE OX HERDER'S DIARY

Read more →


This Fragile Planet: His Holiness the Dalai Lama on Environment

• Buddhism of the Future • Dalai Lama • Eco Action • Economics • Engaged Buddhism • Environmental Issues • Ethics • Human Rights • Photography • Sumeru Books • Tibet

Coming soon! 11 x 8.5, 120 pages, full colour throughout. An ethical approach to dealing with the urgent issues of climate change and taking care of our delicate ecosystems. This Fragile Planet features 80 inspiring quotations from His Holiness the Dalai Lama on environment, matched with 120 eye-catching photos and visuals from a dozen professional photographers — all carefully curated and edited by Tibet expert Michael Buckley. The book lays out the vision of His Holiness concerning secular ethics and environmental protection, great respect for all living beings, the importance of interdependence, and the concept of universal responsibility for protecting...

Read more →


21 Days to Die: The Canadian Guide to End of Life

• Aging • Buddhist Psychology • Canada • Chaplaincy • Death • Greenbank Books • Healing • Health • Hospice Care • Passings • Sumeru Books

Coming soon! ISBN 978-1-896559-72-8 (pbk)  /  $19.95 CAD 160 pages, 6.14 x 9.21 in  /  Illustrated (charts + diagrams) About the Book For most people with advancing diseases, there are signs that death will be soon. Diseases have many trajectories, but at a certain stage, the ceasing of life becomes certain, with a predictable sequence. At 21 days, there are usually no more treatment options with any real promise of quality of life. Death is a mystery, and we don’t want to take all the mystery away. However, there are steps we each can take to be fully, effectively present...

Read more →