Wise Tales From the East

This little book of insights contains forty-nine parables and fables that will amuse, teach, and inspire you to reflect on your life and actions. Some of the stories are funny, others are enigmatic and philosophical, but they all convey remarkable life lessons and morals. The tales were carefully selected from the Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist (Taoist), and Confucian traditions, as well as from Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean folklore. If you let them, they just might blow your mind!

Yoga and meditation instructors and practitioners may find these wise tales valuable for contemplating their training. College professors and high school teachers may find them handy for preparing lectures and stimulating class debates. Psychologists and bibliotherapists may find them useful for therapy sessions. And anyone else in search of wisdom would surely benefit from perusing through these enchanting tales of sages, monks, Zen masters, scorpions, centipedes, and horses.

Author Biography

Uri Kaplan is a writer, translator, and scholar of Asian religions. He holds a PhD from Duke University and lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Haifa University. He published a number of academic journal articles on Buddhism and Confucianism, and is author of Buddhist Apologetics in East Asia (Brill, 2019) and Monastic Education in Korea (University of Hawai’i Press, 2020).