Has West been brought to Japan to be trained as an assassin, or is his mission even darker than that? Does the secretive Senky? sect control Yamazaki Enterprises, which pays him well but requires little of him? And does the beautiful Hanako Sakurada suddenly appear to help or to undermine his training? Deep beneath the surface layers of the Japanese martial arts lies a mystical core that is revealed even to few Japanese. Why then would it recruit a young American, skilled in karate and Zen but only beginning to master the language? He must practice diligently and devote all his energies to his sensei's quest for a forbidden art. In the course of this effort he will discover the veiled secrets of astonishing powers. From the prize-winning author M.J. Sullivan, In This Living Body is a surreal journey into a secret world that challenges our ideas about Spirit, Time and Love.