In spring the cherry blossoms
Change and nature
Japanese poetics and a first consideration of animism
Utsusemi, the Cicada's shell
Hakanasa and mujo
Anitya in a world of spontaneity
Life as it seems, Nagarjuna's emptiness
Shukke: leaving the world
Success and failure
The transcendental order/the order of here-and-now
Zen, kata, and the noh theater
Hedonism
Matsuo Basho, permanence and change
Mono no aware, the sadness of things
Protocol and loyal retainers
Inner and outer: the expanding context of modernity
Monstrosity
Change under the transcendental order
Late-modern Japan (1868-1970)
The colonial context: adapt or die
Explaining Japan-linking here-and-now with the new world order
Japan as bushido
Japan as tea-ism
Japan as erotic style
In the margins of empire-the rape of Nanking
Other horrors of life on the margins
Kamikaze
The a-bomb, and a new kind of nothing
Occupation: radical change as salvation
Decadence, moving away from form
To live!
Nihil versus nothingness
Higashiyama Kaii: embracing passivity
Return to evanescence
Contemporary Japan (since 1970)
Fashion and the joy of evanescence.