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Zion Earth Zen Sky
I am Japanese but was born and raised in rural central Utah. At first, my parents were afraid that our involvement with the Church would weaken our grounding in Japanese tradition. As it turned out, it only reinforced my interest in animism, Buddhism, and other aspects of Japanese culture. As a scholar of Japanese culture, I have discovered that Latter-day Saint culture and Mahayana Buddhist culture are similar in many ways, and that the paths to the building up of Zion, on the one hand, and to Zen enlightenment, on the other, are one and the same. The genius of both faith traditions lies in how they push the abstract ideas of salvation down into the world of material practice. Raking sand in a Zen garden reminds us that mortality is similarly a “high maintenance” situation, where constant service is required if we are to grasp our purpose here on earth.
271 pages, Paperback
Published August 31, 2021
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336 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
December 16, 2021
Probably the best book I read all year.
Review for non-Mormons/ex-Mormons:
-FASCINATING memoir and life story. The author’s parents were victims in a WWII U.S-Japanese internment camp, who decided after the war to move to Sigurd, Utah (near Richfield), become farmers, and raise 6 kids.
-Wonderful pacing and structure. A series of loose vignettes, haikus, and essays, which all flows incredibly naturally. Such an excellent departure from the rigid structure of most non-fiction.
-Has spiritual lessons for EVERYONE — not just Mormons. This book is very much not a doctrinal treatise or fluffy piece of Mormon propaganda, or an effort to water down either Mormonism or Zen Buddhism by mixing them together. It’s just one man’s very unique perspective on the lessons he’s learned from his myriad faith journeys.
Review for Mormons:
-DROP EVERYTHING AND READ THIS BOOK.
-Beautiful example of non-traditional Mormon thought co-existing very peacefully with the mainline Church.
-So many good lessons and takeaways. The analogy of raking the Zen meditation garden carries the entire book and I’ve already caught myself thinking about it 3 or 4 times since finishing the book.
Review for non-Mormons/ex-Mormons:
-FASCINATING memoir and life story. The author’s parents were victims in a WWII U.S-Japanese internment camp, who decided after the war to move to Sigurd, Utah (near Richfield), become farmers, and raise 6 kids.
-Wonderful pacing and structure. A series of loose vignettes, haikus, and essays, which all flows incredibly naturally. Such an excellent departure from the rigid structure of most non-fiction.
-Has spiritual lessons for EVERYONE — not just Mormons. This book is very much not a doctrinal treatise or fluffy piece of Mormon propaganda, or an effort to water down either Mormonism or Zen Buddhism by mixing them together. It’s just one man’s very unique perspective on the lessons he’s learned from his myriad faith journeys.
Review for Mormons:
-DROP EVERYTHING AND READ THIS BOOK.
-Beautiful example of non-traditional Mormon thought co-existing very peacefully with the mainline Church.
-So many good lessons and takeaways. The analogy of raking the Zen meditation garden carries the entire book and I’ve already caught myself thinking about it 3 or 4 times since finishing the book.
August 30, 2021
Zion Earth Zen Sky is full of nourishing wisdom. Inouye uses insights from Buddhism, Japanese culture, and other literary and philosophical ideas to illuminate how to deal with living in a fallen world full of suffering. His ideas, while sometimes unorthodox, are fully consistent with Latter-day Saint scripture and prophetic counsel. An excellent book for showing how Buddhist principles can illuminate and enrich our understanding of the gospel.
March 30, 2024
Remarkable. Deeply wise and profoundly insightful. This is a book like no other in the Latter-day Saint tradition and it certainly isn’t limited to an LDS audience. I am a better person for having been taught by it.
October 6, 2022
Ok, I'm gonna cheat on this one. I am way behind on my reviews and stumbled upon a review of this book written by my son. Didn't even know he had read it. I guess we need to talk more. Well, he is smarter than me and a better writer so I am going to shamelessly repost portions of his review here since he has not posted it on goodreads.
Zion Earth Zen Sky is a profoundly spiritual and theologically rich book, but contains little by way explicit theological argumentation. It does not attempt to prove its theological points by reasoned syllogisms from premises, nor does it, for the most part, proceed from a close reading a scriptural text. It is, rather, grounded in insights won from the author’s highly personal application of simple, familiar, perhaps even unremarkable points of latter-day saint belief, in the context of a life heavily influenced by personal and familial Buddhist beliefs and practices.
The book is roughly autobiographical, but it is not an autobiography. Rather than a single autobiographical narrative, it proceeds in stripped down vignettes. Inouye opens with a few spare vignettes of his early life as the son of Japanese-American parents, survivors of both the official racism of the federal government’s interment camps and of the informal racism of individual Americans, facing the paradox of opportunity and unfairness with a stoic zen-like resolve (“Since my family is relatively new to America, we have to work harder than other people. We accept this as a premise of life in a country that was founded on the three realities of hope, slavery, and genocide.”)
The non-Mormon Inouyes move to Utah to make a living farming in “the real ground zero of our faith”–not Salt Lake City, but the “string of towns along the muddy river” of the Sevier River Valley. It is in this place of surpassing, but also “lethal” beauty that Charles becomes in his childhood a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, starting a path that will blend his heritage of Buddhist practices and insights with the teachings of the unique teachings of Mormonism and the atonement of Christ. “There is little here to lure and distract us,” writes Inouye. “There is only the quiet, the dry air, and the constant wind to deal with day after day. Living in that silence, we either find god, develop an addiction, or kill ourselves.”
This kind of stark, perilous earthy beauty lends itself to an theology that is, like the best haiku, grounded in practical, earthy reality—the givenness of the physical world and of the human relationships that are right there in front of us–rather than in abstract reasoned propositions about metaphysics beyond this physical reality. Inouye describes a soteriology of kenosis and double conversion. The first conversion is familiar to anybody with a grasp on Christianity: we leave behind the disaster of a sinful world full of harmful illusion—“the burning house,” Inouye calls it—and then “enter the realm of justice” where “we learn the difference between right and wrong” and “learn to choose the right.” But then we are surprised to learn that this realm of justice, “where everyone gets what they deserve, is not what we want.” Our sorrow at this discovery obscures the way ahead, and if we do not push through that sorrow, “we remain trapped in the realm of justice” and “become judgmental, cynical, proud, bitter.”
It is at this point that we must experience the second conversion, where we leave the path of “justice-as-truth” and enter the path of “compassion-as-truth, the covenant path that requires us to follow Jesus back to the burning house where “our goal becomes not escaping from sin, but engaging with a sinful world”—not because we think that by paying the price of suffering we will earn a reward in heaven, but because we are trying to be like Jesus who “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him” (2 Nephi 26:24). Our goal on this covenant path of compassion-as-truth is to empty ourselves, and to embrace the sorrow and nothingness of the world for the benefit of those we love: “we return to the burning house for the most obvious of reasons. What good is salvation if those we love are not saved?”
Most of Zion Earth Zen Sky is a series of vignettes that singly, and together, attempt to work out this path, through appreciation for the holiness and grace of the mundane natural world, through care for the poor, and through devotion to relationships and community, serving and being served. Home teaching in particular plays an important role as a grace that provides opportunities to serve and bless.
But how does obedience to commandments come into all this? If we embrace this-worldliness and give up the idea of earning a heavenly reward, then do we also give up on obedience? “God forbid” (Romans 3:31). Obedience, and constant repentance are what Inouye metaphorically describes as “raking.” This refers to the meditative practice of raking sand or gravel in a Zen meditation garden. The sand is neatly raked, removing fallen leaves or pine needles, and creating the clean, neat, distinctive geometric lines of the Zen mediation garden. But these pristine lines are temporary. The gardener does not rake with the idea that his work will last. He knows that it will not. The lines are constantly destroyed and must be constantly remade. Raking is not raging in futility against the forces of entropy and chaos; it is rather an acceptance of those forces as a fact of life. Constantly trying to keep the commandments, constantly failing, and constantly repenting and continuing to try, is the work of raking our lives. Not because we believe that our obedience will itself build a righteousness or purity that will last, but because it is the act of trying that invokes the holy spirit’s power to sanctify us.
Raking is hard work. It is discipline and obedience and self-mastery. But the end goal of all this raking is not self-built righteousness, but mercy. “Being moral and strictly obedient to God’s commandments should fill us with ‘love and goodwill.’ Fascists seek purity, but they do not have pure hearts.” The best reason to obey is to be a better instrument in God’s hands to bless others. “Of all the things we can experience in this world,” says Inouye, “nothing compares to the feeling of helping others receive God’s love. Of all the reasons not to sin, this is the one I find most compelling. “Raking,” he says, “is a surer way” than study “to the kind of knowledge that matters most. The truth is something to practice, not something to think about.” For Inouye, grace and sanctification and enlightenment are best experienced and conveyed not through reasoned propositional truths or even through symbol and metaphor, but as moments of being truly present in the world as a result of raking. “The sensation is nearly impossible to describe,” he says, “It’s like suddenly walking into a forest of beech trees and seeing the light filtering through the leaves. Or like being on the ocean when the fog lifts and the sky meets the water. These moments–these haiku moments–connect me to what is truly real.” And “anyone who does the will of God, anyone who makes and effort to rake, is blessed with such moments.”
Raking–obedience to God’s commandments—will teach us how to tell right from wrong, but it will do more than that. “The sadness that flows from a well-developed sense of right and wrong is also meant to teach us not to judge others,” says Inouye. The gospel of repentance teaches us that our “deeper purpose” is not to “appeal to justice” but to rather to be like Jesus and plead “for all sinners (ourselves included) that they might be forgiven and restored.” Inouye compares justice to food: “We can’t do without it. But too much kills us. The purpose of justice is to get us beyond justice.”
Zion Earth Zen Sky is a profoundly spiritual and theologically rich book, but contains little by way explicit theological argumentation. It does not attempt to prove its theological points by reasoned syllogisms from premises, nor does it, for the most part, proceed from a close reading a scriptural text. It is, rather, grounded in insights won from the author’s highly personal application of simple, familiar, perhaps even unremarkable points of latter-day saint belief, in the context of a life heavily influenced by personal and familial Buddhist beliefs and practices.
The book is roughly autobiographical, but it is not an autobiography. Rather than a single autobiographical narrative, it proceeds in stripped down vignettes. Inouye opens with a few spare vignettes of his early life as the son of Japanese-American parents, survivors of both the official racism of the federal government’s interment camps and of the informal racism of individual Americans, facing the paradox of opportunity and unfairness with a stoic zen-like resolve (“Since my family is relatively new to America, we have to work harder than other people. We accept this as a premise of life in a country that was founded on the three realities of hope, slavery, and genocide.”)
The non-Mormon Inouyes move to Utah to make a living farming in “the real ground zero of our faith”–not Salt Lake City, but the “string of towns along the muddy river” of the Sevier River Valley. It is in this place of surpassing, but also “lethal” beauty that Charles becomes in his childhood a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, starting a path that will blend his heritage of Buddhist practices and insights with the teachings of the unique teachings of Mormonism and the atonement of Christ. “There is little here to lure and distract us,” writes Inouye. “There is only the quiet, the dry air, and the constant wind to deal with day after day. Living in that silence, we either find god, develop an addiction, or kill ourselves.”
This kind of stark, perilous earthy beauty lends itself to an theology that is, like the best haiku, grounded in practical, earthy reality—the givenness of the physical world and of the human relationships that are right there in front of us–rather than in abstract reasoned propositions about metaphysics beyond this physical reality. Inouye describes a soteriology of kenosis and double conversion. The first conversion is familiar to anybody with a grasp on Christianity: we leave behind the disaster of a sinful world full of harmful illusion—“the burning house,” Inouye calls it—and then “enter the realm of justice” where “we learn the difference between right and wrong” and “learn to choose the right.” But then we are surprised to learn that this realm of justice, “where everyone gets what they deserve, is not what we want.” Our sorrow at this discovery obscures the way ahead, and if we do not push through that sorrow, “we remain trapped in the realm of justice” and “become judgmental, cynical, proud, bitter.”
It is at this point that we must experience the second conversion, where we leave the path of “justice-as-truth” and enter the path of “compassion-as-truth, the covenant path that requires us to follow Jesus back to the burning house where “our goal becomes not escaping from sin, but engaging with a sinful world”—not because we think that by paying the price of suffering we will earn a reward in heaven, but because we are trying to be like Jesus who “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him” (2 Nephi 26:24). Our goal on this covenant path of compassion-as-truth is to empty ourselves, and to embrace the sorrow and nothingness of the world for the benefit of those we love: “we return to the burning house for the most obvious of reasons. What good is salvation if those we love are not saved?”
Most of Zion Earth Zen Sky is a series of vignettes that singly, and together, attempt to work out this path, through appreciation for the holiness and grace of the mundane natural world, through care for the poor, and through devotion to relationships and community, serving and being served. Home teaching in particular plays an important role as a grace that provides opportunities to serve and bless.
But how does obedience to commandments come into all this? If we embrace this-worldliness and give up the idea of earning a heavenly reward, then do we also give up on obedience? “God forbid” (Romans 3:31). Obedience, and constant repentance are what Inouye metaphorically describes as “raking.” This refers to the meditative practice of raking sand or gravel in a Zen meditation garden. The sand is neatly raked, removing fallen leaves or pine needles, and creating the clean, neat, distinctive geometric lines of the Zen mediation garden. But these pristine lines are temporary. The gardener does not rake with the idea that his work will last. He knows that it will not. The lines are constantly destroyed and must be constantly remade. Raking is not raging in futility against the forces of entropy and chaos; it is rather an acceptance of those forces as a fact of life. Constantly trying to keep the commandments, constantly failing, and constantly repenting and continuing to try, is the work of raking our lives. Not because we believe that our obedience will itself build a righteousness or purity that will last, but because it is the act of trying that invokes the holy spirit’s power to sanctify us.
Raking is hard work. It is discipline and obedience and self-mastery. But the end goal of all this raking is not self-built righteousness, but mercy. “Being moral and strictly obedient to God’s commandments should fill us with ‘love and goodwill.’ Fascists seek purity, but they do not have pure hearts.” The best reason to obey is to be a better instrument in God’s hands to bless others. “Of all the things we can experience in this world,” says Inouye, “nothing compares to the feeling of helping others receive God’s love. Of all the reasons not to sin, this is the one I find most compelling. “Raking,” he says, “is a surer way” than study “to the kind of knowledge that matters most. The truth is something to practice, not something to think about.” For Inouye, grace and sanctification and enlightenment are best experienced and conveyed not through reasoned propositional truths or even through symbol and metaphor, but as moments of being truly present in the world as a result of raking. “The sensation is nearly impossible to describe,” he says, “It’s like suddenly walking into a forest of beech trees and seeing the light filtering through the leaves. Or like being on the ocean when the fog lifts and the sky meets the water. These moments–these haiku moments–connect me to what is truly real.” And “anyone who does the will of God, anyone who makes and effort to rake, is blessed with such moments.”
Raking–obedience to God’s commandments—will teach us how to tell right from wrong, but it will do more than that. “The sadness that flows from a well-developed sense of right and wrong is also meant to teach us not to judge others,” says Inouye. The gospel of repentance teaches us that our “deeper purpose” is not to “appeal to justice” but to rather to be like Jesus and plead “for all sinners (ourselves included) that they might be forgiven and restored.” Inouye compares justice to food: “We can’t do without it. But too much kills us. The purpose of justice is to get us beyond justice.”
October 26, 2021
This is the best book I've read this year. Inouye seamlessly blends insights and meditative practices from Zen Buddhism with the message of the restored gospel taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It isn't a theological treatise, but it makes a theological argument through the stories, vignettes, short discussions, and haikus that it includes: in order to truly become as God would have us be, we must experience a double conversion, not just a single conversion. First, as we become disillusioned with the world in all its sin, we become converted to the path of justice, we turn our back on the world and look to God. But then, we must come to realize that the path of justice itself will only lead to disappointment, because we are not truly separate from the world, we are complicit in its sinfulness, and we are moved with compassion for those that justice will punish, so we turn back toward the world and walk the path of compassion, mediating for the world between it and the demands of justice, following the example of Christ.
September 2, 2021
An absolutely stunning memoir, packed with quiet and profound spiritual experiences and insights, alongside beautiful and often humorous haikus. I've never read anything quite like this and want others to get the experience of wandering through life with Charles. Very taken with the way that he weaves his Buddhism and Mormonism together, using each to illuminate the truths of the other. Highly recommend this.
June 12, 2022
A wonderful memoir. Not what you might expect from a BYU publisher.
May 18, 2023
Absolutely loved this one. Highly, highly recommend!
July 6, 2023
Beautiful, simple, and deep. Reading Inoyue's memoir has shifted the way I think and feel about a lot of things. Highly recommend!
November 25, 2025
Beautiful and moving. Prof Inouye continues to change my life!!!!!!
March 2, 2023
I am not a big memoir or autobiography person usually; I find most people’s writing about their life affected and full of untrustworthy bias, but Charles has a gift, perhaps born of his innate shyness and intellect. He offers reflections on his life as he observed it—with haiku scatttered throughout— as a way to further his lifelong goal to break down his walls of inherent closed-off-ness and connect with others, and it works. He does this in part he explains because myriad experiences in his life, most with a spiritual aspect, have always been pushing him to get out of himself and care. His is a unique life: born to an educated father and mother who met while in a Japanese internment camp in Utah, who then decided to live and farm here after. Growing up in hard conditions, Charles was surrounded by Mormons and straddled their culture, the Buddhism of his family, and the verve of the 60s cultural revolution. He worked hard on the farm, embracing the gospel after long intellectual wrestles, served a mission, and then left home permanently for academic success in BYU, Japan, and Harvard. I was touched by the many mentions he made of individuals he home taught or otherwise encountered through church affiliation. I, too, have always made much of those relationships, and was happy to see them vaunted here. So much opportunity for us to get outside ourselves, our circles. I love that his lifetime of scholarship only lightly appears to affect his narrative: he is here to talk about his personal navigation between eternal and quotidian, not his research into Japanese literature. I wrote down tons of quotes from this book. I really appreciated his elaboration of the sameness he found in his spiritual practice of Mormonism and Buddhism. I love anything that expands the gospel outside of American culture, and he does this beautifully and contemplatively.
November 22, 2021
I enjoyed this unique memoir. The author gives glimpses into his life: first, his growing up years in a small country town in Utah, son of Japanese parents who met in an internment camp in Wyoming. The family scrabbles a living as farmers in a barren desert. Inouye talks (a little) about his conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, his mission in Japan, and his faith crisis afterward. He shows how he learns that love is what God wants from him: loving God and, most of all, loving his neighbors. Inouye intersperses his lyrical yet concise prose with haiku, his own and occasionally others'. The book is written in an episodic style that somehow fits with his life experience. It makes the book easy to read. Sometimes I had to make myself slow down to think about the profundity of what I had just read. This book has changed me. And I hope the change is permanent.
December 16, 2021
When I ordered the book it came almost a month before it was promised, but life was too crazy to start reading it. Finally I sat down and started it, thinking I wasn’t sure how the author could do justice to both Buddhism and Christianity(Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints). I was pleasantly surprised and read it in less than 3 days.
The story is sort of an autobiography, telling about his parents and then his growing up years. It ends with his adult (senior citizen) years. He compares the two religions and what he retained from his childhood practices. I came to discover that the fundamentals of each religion are fairly parallel in nature, so the crossover makes him better well rounded.
The story is sort of an autobiography, telling about his parents and then his growing up years. It ends with his adult (senior citizen) years. He compares the two religions and what he retained from his childhood practices. I came to discover that the fundamentals of each religion are fairly parallel in nature, so the crossover makes him better well rounded.
August 23, 2022
I loved the book's focus on Mormonism (and spirituality generally) as a practice rather than a creed. It an easy read in the best way. The chapters are fairly short (4-15 pages) and each chapter is a collage of memories and impressions, each typically spanning a half a page to two pages. It makes for a staccato feel. Because it's easy to open up for 10 minutes here and there in short 10 minute bursts I finished it faster than I typically do with most books. I could fit it in while waiting for a restaurant order to be completed here or while on a bus there, rather than feel like I need to set aside an hour to read a long chapter.
All in all, it's a beautiful image of a Mormon life that's not wrapped up in affirming or refuting truth claims, but in understanding how to *live* according to truth.
All in all, it's a beautiful image of a Mormon life that's not wrapped up in affirming or refuting truth claims, but in understanding how to *live* according to truth.
March 23, 2023
This memoir of a Japanese-American weaves together his Buddhist roots, his Christian conversion (LDS), his life experiences and faith crisis, and ultimately his lessons learned from his daily practice of faith (“raking”). I enjoyed following along his journey, until some profound thought, miracle, or tender moment would just stop me in my tracks. I’m including some of my favorites below, but I was especially moved by his heart-changing service in his callings and as a home teacher…such beautiful wisdom shared. I was amazed at his multiple experiences with ministering angels (and a little jealous…this must be a gift of the spirit). And the tender stories of his mom sewing his turtle costume and learning that his dad asked him to work to spend time with him. I could see pieces of both my parents in these stories, which made them especially moving to me. While I didn’t really get the haikus (I know that’s on me), I enjoyed his stories, and greatly admire his charity. “By way of service, we become God’s arms and hands. We are the way he exists in the world.”
Favorite quotes and parts:
-The homemade turtle costume his mom made him: “How fortunate I am to have a caring mother.” p. 29
-Advice from his father: “Don’t be afraid to be different” p. 34; and “People who don’t read live one life. But people who read live many lives.” p. 36
-Healing a woman on his mission – “Her hearing has been completely restored. I’m surprised, but she is not.” p. 73
-His testimony and experience of being a home teacher – “On the face of it, nothing is so false as an assigned friendship. Yet being a home teacher to Ruby is raking gravel in its very essence. Our designated connection is a godly way to help people like me learn how to overcome a tendency to avoid others. I know that, left alone, my life would become increasingly limited. Not knowing God’s gently commands, I would seek association with those who share my values and experiences. I would avoid all others. As a result, my life would steadily become narrower and more impoverished…Ruby and I would not have become friends had I not been given a commandment from God to befriend her. One thing this tells me is that Homo sapiens are not sapient enough to live without commandments to follow.” p. 124
-Three visitations from angels to give him messages (to serve, encourage/strengthen him during his divorce, to marry his wife)
-Another sacred experience of being a home teacher – “Many of those events are too personal and sacred to mention. What I can say is that nothing has taught me more about the truth of God’s love than my visits as a home teacher to the Duke family…the truth of the matter is that this calling to attend to the needs of others is far from trivial. By way of service, we become God’s arms and hands. We are the way he exists in the world.” p. 129
-Joy of service - “Of all the things we can experience in this world, nothing compares to the feeling of helping others receive God’s love.” p. 131
-Seeing the face of God (Moroni 7:48) – “I think I’m going to make that my goal this year—to see the face of Jesus.” Then he has a dream that very night and sees Jesus. The next day, that image burned on his mind becomes superimposed on the faces of the people he meets. “By that evening, I finally understand the Zen of this image. The face of God is the face of everyone I meet.” p. 162
-Helping his dad – “As I join my father on the roadside, I think I finally understand something that has taken me a lifetime to learn. All these years my father has been asking me to help him on the farm, all these years I’ve been giving up my freedom to please him, to be loyal to him. Only now do I finally realize that he wasn’t really asking me to work for him. Rather, he was asking me to be with him.” p. 174
-Heavenly Father – “My relationship with my Heavenly Father is much the same. I am not supposed to be raking for him. Rather, I am supposed to be raking with him. All we who live east of Eden, as we wander away from the burning house, the question is not ‘Where is God?’ The question has always been, ‘Where are you?’ p. 175
-Ideas and people – “I’m not saying that ideas are unimportant. But the ones that matter most are embodied by the people who anchor them in the world of things.” p. 178
-His response to his new calling – “I’m happy to do what I can to help God’s love reach his children in need.” p. 181
-Giving blessings to others – “I learn that few things make me happier than giving blessings to others. When this happens, I am but a mouthpiece. At best, I am a jar for the jam, and certainly not the source of God’s sweetness. Even so, to be a small part of the process, to feel a divine love coursing through me on its way to another person is an astounding, moving experience.” p. 182
Favorite quotes and parts:
-The homemade turtle costume his mom made him: “How fortunate I am to have a caring mother.” p. 29
-Advice from his father: “Don’t be afraid to be different” p. 34; and “People who don’t read live one life. But people who read live many lives.” p. 36
-Healing a woman on his mission – “Her hearing has been completely restored. I’m surprised, but she is not.” p. 73
-His testimony and experience of being a home teacher – “On the face of it, nothing is so false as an assigned friendship. Yet being a home teacher to Ruby is raking gravel in its very essence. Our designated connection is a godly way to help people like me learn how to overcome a tendency to avoid others. I know that, left alone, my life would become increasingly limited. Not knowing God’s gently commands, I would seek association with those who share my values and experiences. I would avoid all others. As a result, my life would steadily become narrower and more impoverished…Ruby and I would not have become friends had I not been given a commandment from God to befriend her. One thing this tells me is that Homo sapiens are not sapient enough to live without commandments to follow.” p. 124
-Three visitations from angels to give him messages (to serve, encourage/strengthen him during his divorce, to marry his wife)
-Another sacred experience of being a home teacher – “Many of those events are too personal and sacred to mention. What I can say is that nothing has taught me more about the truth of God’s love than my visits as a home teacher to the Duke family…the truth of the matter is that this calling to attend to the needs of others is far from trivial. By way of service, we become God’s arms and hands. We are the way he exists in the world.” p. 129
-Joy of service - “Of all the things we can experience in this world, nothing compares to the feeling of helping others receive God’s love.” p. 131
-Seeing the face of God (Moroni 7:48) – “I think I’m going to make that my goal this year—to see the face of Jesus.” Then he has a dream that very night and sees Jesus. The next day, that image burned on his mind becomes superimposed on the faces of the people he meets. “By that evening, I finally understand the Zen of this image. The face of God is the face of everyone I meet.” p. 162
-Helping his dad – “As I join my father on the roadside, I think I finally understand something that has taken me a lifetime to learn. All these years my father has been asking me to help him on the farm, all these years I’ve been giving up my freedom to please him, to be loyal to him. Only now do I finally realize that he wasn’t really asking me to work for him. Rather, he was asking me to be with him.” p. 174
-Heavenly Father – “My relationship with my Heavenly Father is much the same. I am not supposed to be raking for him. Rather, I am supposed to be raking with him. All we who live east of Eden, as we wander away from the burning house, the question is not ‘Where is God?’ The question has always been, ‘Where are you?’ p. 175
-Ideas and people – “I’m not saying that ideas are unimportant. But the ones that matter most are embodied by the people who anchor them in the world of things.” p. 178
-His response to his new calling – “I’m happy to do what I can to help God’s love reach his children in need.” p. 181
-Giving blessings to others – “I learn that few things make me happier than giving blessings to others. When this happens, I am but a mouthpiece. At best, I am a jar for the jam, and certainly not the source of God’s sweetness. Even so, to be a small part of the process, to feel a divine love coursing through me on its way to another person is an astounding, moving experience.” p. 182
August 27, 2024
This is a beautiful book. Uplifting, thoughtful, gentle, a real piece of art. I deeply enjoyed this.
It's a memoir, I suppose. The author walks us through his life - growing up as a Japanese American, the son of parents who settled in Gunnison, Utah after they were released from the internment camps at the end of World War II. It's also very philosophical and spiritual. The author ended up studying Japanese literature (and by force, philosophy) and eventually teaching at Harvard and Tufts. So his narrative always comes back to the Gospel and to Buddhism and how they intersect to help us become better people.
It's also full of haiku.
I guess I've enjoyed haiku before, but I haven't really gotten the point before this book. After reading this, I have a better feeling for what a haiku can and should be. Some of them in this book were stunning. A number of them I read and then immediately re-read and just sat for minute, savoring them. He travels back to Japan and burns incense at his ancestral shrine:
A couple of stories from this book will affect how I see the world going forward. One about home teaching a family where the father died, in particular, was remarkable and made me want to read it to my elders quorum. Maybe I will.
He couches philosophical principles in stories in a way that's subtle and powerful. He tells a story about coming back home as middle-aged man and going out with his dad to weed a ditch (which he, the author, doesn't really want to do).
A bit of pithy wisdom that made me laugh:
While I found a lot of wisdom in his words and the way he sees harmony between Buddhism and the gospel, I didn't agree with everything he had to say. Some of the points he made in this book, I disagree with (there was a discussion on the value of reading scriptures, for example, that I feel just missed the mark. He made a true and profound point about the scriptures, and then he fumbled it). A few points of eastern philosophy that he embraces seem to me like the [false] wisdom of the world. But in this very zen story, I found that didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book at all. He tells a story about putting a shimenawa on a tree at Tufts. The shimenawa is a tassled rope that is put on certain objects of spiritual power in certain animistic traditions in Japan. So at Tufts, he notices a tree that he feels is sacred, and he wants to mark it, so he puts a shimenawa on it. Some students cut it down. He puts it back up. They cut it down again. He assumes they are motivated by religious objection. He says,
It's a line that left me pondering for a while, and I think it kind of mirrors my feelings about those parts of the book I didn't agree with.
Hard to sum up my feelings for it. A lot of wisdom here, even with its imperfections.
Lovely book. Recommended to anyone with at least some knowledge of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It's a memoir, I suppose. The author walks us through his life - growing up as a Japanese American, the son of parents who settled in Gunnison, Utah after they were released from the internment camps at the end of World War II. It's also very philosophical and spiritual. The author ended up studying Japanese literature (and by force, philosophy) and eventually teaching at Harvard and Tufts. So his narrative always comes back to the Gospel and to Buddhism and how they intersect to help us become better people.
It's also full of haiku.
I guess I've enjoyed haiku before, but I haven't really gotten the point before this book. After reading this, I have a better feeling for what a haiku can and should be. Some of them in this book were stunning. A number of them I read and then immediately re-read and just sat for minute, savoring them. He travels back to Japan and burns incense at his ancestral shrine:
tangerines and rice--
smoky strands of DNA
curl toward the ceiling
A couple of stories from this book will affect how I see the world going forward. One about home teaching a family where the father died, in particular, was remarkable and made me want to read it to my elders quorum. Maybe I will.
He couches philosophical principles in stories in a way that's subtle and powerful. He tells a story about coming back home as middle-aged man and going out with his dad to weed a ditch (which he, the author, doesn't really want to do).
As I join my father on the roadside, I think I finally understand something that has taken me a lifetime to learn.
All these years my father has been asking me to help him on the farm, and all these years I've been giving up my freedom to please him, to be loyal to him. Only now do I finally realize that he wasn't really asking me to work for him. Rather he was asking me to be with him.
...
My relationship with my Heavenly Father is much the same. I am not supposed to be raking for him. Rather, I am supposed to be raking with him.
A bit of pithy wisdom that made me laugh:
There are two things in this world we can't complain about -- being stuck in traffic, and too many people in a crowd. We are that traffic. We are that crowd. Is there any other way to know traffic and crowds than to detest our being traffic and crowds?
While I found a lot of wisdom in his words and the way he sees harmony between Buddhism and the gospel, I didn't agree with everything he had to say. Some of the points he made in this book, I disagree with (there was a discussion on the value of reading scriptures, for example, that I feel just missed the mark. He made a true and profound point about the scriptures, and then he fumbled it). A few points of eastern philosophy that he embraces seem to me like the [false] wisdom of the world. But in this very zen story, I found that didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book at all. He tells a story about putting a shimenawa on a tree at Tufts. The shimenawa is a tassled rope that is put on certain objects of spiritual power in certain animistic traditions in Japan. So at Tufts, he notices a tree that he feels is sacred, and he wants to mark it, so he puts a shimenawa on it. Some students cut it down. He puts it back up. They cut it down again. He assumes they are motivated by religious objection. He says,
We need to learn how to share both the good and bad of what we love and of what we hate.
It's a line that left me pondering for a while, and I think it kind of mirrors my feelings about those parts of the book I didn't agree with.
Hard to sum up my feelings for it. A lot of wisdom here, even with its imperfections.
Lovely book. Recommended to anyone with at least some knowledge of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
April 2, 2022
This book is infuriating. It’s lyrical reflections on faith and tradition, individual choice and culture glow with an illuminating golden light that can be found in only a few select and sacred places. The beginning gleams like the sun soaked, red-rock landscape Inouye conjures so beautifully from his childhood. The poetry is transcendent, pulling the senses into the author’s experiences with an immediacy I’ve rarely if ever experienced. While I know little of Utah, Stanford, Japan, or Boston the struggle to balance intellect and belief while attempting self-determination was painfully familiar. I ached along side him and felt like his honest and authentic narrative allowed me to walk side by side him through the cramped streets of Sapporo, or party into the night with other students.
But about half way through the book, I hit a wall that Inuoye deliberately constructs around areas of his life that he bravely and openly admits are problematic. Respect for that. Writing a book, even a personal memoir does not obligate you to stretch out your entire soul for public viewing. But at the same moment in the story, the small hints and asides about women build to a critical mass. His descriptions of women’s faith are particularly troubling. I saw in them a child like faith….when attending an all womens meeting of Adult Grad student ladies. Siiiiggghhhh. The infantilizing, pedestalling attitudes all too familiar in church culture grind against his own efforts to be fair and love as he describes God would have us love, male and female, black and white, bond and free equally. The awkward jokes that most of the the women in the room don’t laugh at? Yeah, we have all been there. Too many times. The trap of seeing women perpetually as a call to service but rarely if never as complex, actuated adult that stand toe-to-toe warps Inuoye’s views. Women are at their best as pure and devoted mothers that also pack their husbands lunches. It’s infuriating because I expected better, I know it could be better, he knows he could be better and that’s probably why I’m so disappointed.
Definitely worth reading.
But about half way through the book, I hit a wall that Inuoye deliberately constructs around areas of his life that he bravely and openly admits are problematic. Respect for that. Writing a book, even a personal memoir does not obligate you to stretch out your entire soul for public viewing. But at the same moment in the story, the small hints and asides about women build to a critical mass. His descriptions of women’s faith are particularly troubling. I saw in them a child like faith….when attending an all womens meeting of Adult Grad student ladies. Siiiiggghhhh. The infantilizing, pedestalling attitudes all too familiar in church culture grind against his own efforts to be fair and love as he describes God would have us love, male and female, black and white, bond and free equally. The awkward jokes that most of the the women in the room don’t laugh at? Yeah, we have all been there. Too many times. The trap of seeing women perpetually as a call to service but rarely if never as complex, actuated adult that stand toe-to-toe warps Inuoye’s views. Women are at their best as pure and devoted mothers that also pack their husbands lunches. It’s infuriating because I expected better, I know it could be better, he knows he could be better and that’s probably why I’m so disappointed.
Definitely worth reading.
September 24, 2021
"The image (of Christ's face) burned into my mind, comes back to me many times over the next twenty-four hours. I see it superimposed on the people I meet... By that evening, I finally understand the Zen of this image. The face of God is the face of everyone I meet." - pg. 162.
A masterful work depicting the author's struggles with the different dichotomies of faith/doubt, sorrow/joy, suffering/liberation, life/death, anger/peace, selfishness/charity, and so on. Inouye takes the reader on a journey of his own spiritual and intellectual journey (he argues they are fundamentally inseparable concepts) through which he shows his beginnings as a sorrowful farm boy angry at the lack of justice in the world, his realization that strict justice only brings more suffering into the world, and the acceptance that it is our fundamental role as believers to have compassion for all. Part of the foundation of his beliefs is founded in the Buddhist ideology of "nothingness" which is popularly misconceived as believing that nothing exists or that nothing has meaning. He explains that "nothingness" is rather the elimination of structures and the perception of reality as it exists. It is a sort of state of the interconnectivity of everything; we are all the same essence. Bringing cold justice into the world only gives us back cold justice. No living being is free from justice, but we have a loving and compassionate God and Savior who provides mercy freely for all who wish to receive. Because we are all connected and of the same essence, it doesn't make logical sense for us to wish evil or justice on anybody as we are all one body made of many parts simply partaking of mercy. It is our responsibility, thus, to return to our natural divine state, or as the Buddhists call it our "Buddha nature," and be the vessels of divine compassion into the world.
Inouye shares many other anecdotes, stories, personal struggles, but the message that glues everything together is compassion and the connection with divinity which is found everywhere.
A masterful work depicting the author's struggles with the different dichotomies of faith/doubt, sorrow/joy, suffering/liberation, life/death, anger/peace, selfishness/charity, and so on. Inouye takes the reader on a journey of his own spiritual and intellectual journey (he argues they are fundamentally inseparable concepts) through which he shows his beginnings as a sorrowful farm boy angry at the lack of justice in the world, his realization that strict justice only brings more suffering into the world, and the acceptance that it is our fundamental role as believers to have compassion for all. Part of the foundation of his beliefs is founded in the Buddhist ideology of "nothingness" which is popularly misconceived as believing that nothing exists or that nothing has meaning. He explains that "nothingness" is rather the elimination of structures and the perception of reality as it exists. It is a sort of state of the interconnectivity of everything; we are all the same essence. Bringing cold justice into the world only gives us back cold justice. No living being is free from justice, but we have a loving and compassionate God and Savior who provides mercy freely for all who wish to receive. Because we are all connected and of the same essence, it doesn't make logical sense for us to wish evil or justice on anybody as we are all one body made of many parts simply partaking of mercy. It is our responsibility, thus, to return to our natural divine state, or as the Buddhists call it our "Buddha nature," and be the vessels of divine compassion into the world.
Inouye shares many other anecdotes, stories, personal struggles, but the message that glues everything together is compassion and the connection with divinity which is found everywhere.
February 21, 2024
This book was a lovely gem. It took me a while to fully get into it, but once I did, it was really enjoyable to look at the gospel from a different and fresh perspective. Books like this give me hope that someday a fallible human like myself can truly understand and live the gospel.
Some of my favorite quotes:
- "The truth is something to practice, not something to think about."
- "At best, I am a jar for the jam, and certainly not the source of God's sweetness."
- (on the hymn, "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy") "God’s light is the higher, brighter one. It radiates from atop the lighthouse and is easily seen by all. To someone struggling to get to shore, though, the lower lights, the feeble lamps of people like you and me, are also needed. Without this secondary light, this dim and flickering spirit of fallible people, the “fainting, struggling seaman” will not make it past the rocks and currents that block the way."
- "If we were to judge parents solely by how their children “turn out,” then wouldn’t our heavenly parents be the worst father and mother of all? They are the parents of both Cain and Abel, of both Nephi and Laman. But we never think of them as bad parents, and this for two reasons. First of all, we come to learn that God’s love is for everyone, regardless of who they are. God’s love is the rain that falls on the just and on the unjust. It is the milk and honey bought without price. And it is the love train for which “you don’t need no ticket.” Secondly, we learn that we have the freedom to choose that love for ourselves. We either get on the train or we don’t. No one can get on for us."
Some of my favorite quotes:
- "The truth is something to practice, not something to think about."
- "At best, I am a jar for the jam, and certainly not the source of God's sweetness."
- (on the hymn, "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy") "God’s light is the higher, brighter one. It radiates from atop the lighthouse and is easily seen by all. To someone struggling to get to shore, though, the lower lights, the feeble lamps of people like you and me, are also needed. Without this secondary light, this dim and flickering spirit of fallible people, the “fainting, struggling seaman” will not make it past the rocks and currents that block the way."
- "If we were to judge parents solely by how their children “turn out,” then wouldn’t our heavenly parents be the worst father and mother of all? They are the parents of both Cain and Abel, of both Nephi and Laman. But we never think of them as bad parents, and this for two reasons. First of all, we come to learn that God’s love is for everyone, regardless of who they are. God’s love is the rain that falls on the just and on the unjust. It is the milk and honey bought without price. And it is the love train for which “you don’t need no ticket.” Secondly, we learn that we have the freedom to choose that love for ourselves. We either get on the train or we don’t. No one can get on for us."
April 11, 2024
Easily one of the best books I’ve read in a while. Don’t be put off by the “memoir” tag, it’s much more. I’m not a memoir reader generally. This was barely a memoir, and much more an examination of humankind’s road to oneness with each other and God, our search for justice, our finding justice and knowing that’s not quite “it”, and instead embarking on a compassionate mission to the rest of humanity. Inouye beautifully uses experiences familiar to every Latter-day Saint to tell the story of building Zion and Zen, which are really the same thing.
After his parents were released from the US government’s Japanese prison camps and could not return home for their home was no more, they settled in south central Utah and experienced hardship (being members of a hated minority), sorrow (a daughter dying at age 6 due to cancer from nuclear testing), and hard work (farming the desert). They also experienced the love of their LDS neighbors following the loss of their daughter, which led the Inouye parents to take their kids to the local LDS ward.
Prof Inouye has an incredible range of experiences showing God’s hands, love, and grace in all the minute details of life, and how we advance that work. And how critical it is that we become part of that work of creating Zion and zen.
This is the sort of book I couldn’t put down. It is also the sort I will read again. It will make you laugh, cry, and deeply contemplate your own existence, god, fate, faith, humanity, and the universe. It has the power to be a transformative force for readers willing to be moved by the spirit.
Read this. Be changed. Learn how Christianity (and Mormonism in particular) and Buddhism, as well as other religious traditions, are tasked with the same goal: uniting the family of God as one, by emptying the self and loving the other.
His inclusion of dozens of haikus that help to carry the narrative (often in a striking and very personal way) are a beautiful touch as well.
Throughout, Inouye isn’t lecturing us at all. He’s not talking about how he’s figured everything out. He’s inviting us to join his quest.
A (lengthy) quote:
We wander. We stumble upon the truth. T. S. Elliot understood the journey, and the emptiness of it all. "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Our journey takes us back to where we began, back to where we started to happen.
Jesus called it a "child's mind”. The Buddhists call it "no-mind."
We start in "the burning house". Being a part of the world, it too, is a site of constant change, 'samsara'*. Why, then, is it a place most of us would not want to do without? Home is our treasure, our place of safety. Yet it is of all places the most dangerous and limiting.
Someone invites us to a party next door. We step out into the street. Only then do we see smoke and flames showing at the second-floor window. Only then do we realize that "yes, my house is on fire."
Leaving home, we begin our search for the truth. We look for a new source of comfort. We learn the difference between right and wrong. We choose the right. We climb toward god, toward truth, toward reality. Our progress is exhilarating. We are learning cause and effect. We see how good brings about good and how bad brings about bad.
But then, just as we are about to enjoy our hard-earned happiness, we begin to understand the limitations of justice. To our great surprise, we learn that justice leads us to sorrow instead of to happiness. We come to understand that all people are fallible, and that the last thing we really want is for everyone to get what they deserve. We begin to feel the sadness of all things—'mono no aware', as Motoori Norinaga put it**—a deep sorrow that justice cannot cure.
This is when a second turning, a second conversion, must happen. Surprised by the world's sorrow, most of us give up and resign ourselves to live in a state of justice. But some follow their heart.
They move ahead, deeper into sorrow, on to compassion. Like Abraham and Noah and Moses, they bargain with God and turn away from their idols of Truth—not to ignore him, but to become like him, faced toward suffering, not away from the burning house.
Without this second conversion, the world would slip away. With this second turn, we begin our descent, our condescension.
Like Jesus, like Amida, like Kannon, we choose to remain in world filled with suffering. We go back to the burning house to save those who are still there.
After all, what good is my salvation if Uncle Bob is still on the couch, watching television and eating chips? For him, we throw a party—like the one that was thrown for us. For him, we mediate, we intercede, we invite him to begin the journey that ultimately leads beyond justice to compassion.
Why is justice not enough? Can we do without justice?
No. But justice is like food. We can't live without it. But too much kills us.
* samsara (Sanskrit): Literally, "constant change". Samsara is a fundamental concept in Buddhist thought. The truth of samsara is that all things are always changing. From this it follows that nothing exists intrinsically—that is, nothing is independent and beyond the influence of other things. All things are said to be, therefore, codependent. A mistaken insistence on permanent essences —for example, the self as an individual, independent being—is a major cause of suffering. One wants certain things to last forever, such as personal happiness. But a mature, enlightened being realizes that change and mutual influence are basic characteristics of existence. If the bad news is that success does not last, the good news is that failure does not last either.
** mono no aware ものの哀れ: Literally, "the sadness of all things." [Eighteenth century Japanese philosopher] Motoori Norinaga located the sentiment of ‘aware’, or poignant empathy, in The Tale of Genji. He found it in Japanese culture, generally. Life is sorrowful, a consequence of another fact of life: that all things are constantly changing. Most poetry in Japan is written in the fall, at a time of obvious sadness, when the vigor of summer moves dramatically and colorfully toward the stillness of winter.
After his parents were released from the US government’s Japanese prison camps and could not return home for their home was no more, they settled in south central Utah and experienced hardship (being members of a hated minority), sorrow (a daughter dying at age 6 due to cancer from nuclear testing), and hard work (farming the desert). They also experienced the love of their LDS neighbors following the loss of their daughter, which led the Inouye parents to take their kids to the local LDS ward.
Prof Inouye has an incredible range of experiences showing God’s hands, love, and grace in all the minute details of life, and how we advance that work. And how critical it is that we become part of that work of creating Zion and zen.
This is the sort of book I couldn’t put down. It is also the sort I will read again. It will make you laugh, cry, and deeply contemplate your own existence, god, fate, faith, humanity, and the universe. It has the power to be a transformative force for readers willing to be moved by the spirit.
Read this. Be changed. Learn how Christianity (and Mormonism in particular) and Buddhism, as well as other religious traditions, are tasked with the same goal: uniting the family of God as one, by emptying the self and loving the other.
His inclusion of dozens of haikus that help to carry the narrative (often in a striking and very personal way) are a beautiful touch as well.
Throughout, Inouye isn’t lecturing us at all. He’s not talking about how he’s figured everything out. He’s inviting us to join his quest.
A (lengthy) quote:
We wander. We stumble upon the truth. T. S. Elliot understood the journey, and the emptiness of it all. "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Our journey takes us back to where we began, back to where we started to happen.
Jesus called it a "child's mind”. The Buddhists call it "no-mind."
We start in "the burning house". Being a part of the world, it too, is a site of constant change, 'samsara'*. Why, then, is it a place most of us would not want to do without? Home is our treasure, our place of safety. Yet it is of all places the most dangerous and limiting.
Someone invites us to a party next door. We step out into the street. Only then do we see smoke and flames showing at the second-floor window. Only then do we realize that "yes, my house is on fire."
Leaving home, we begin our search for the truth. We look for a new source of comfort. We learn the difference between right and wrong. We choose the right. We climb toward god, toward truth, toward reality. Our progress is exhilarating. We are learning cause and effect. We see how good brings about good and how bad brings about bad.
But then, just as we are about to enjoy our hard-earned happiness, we begin to understand the limitations of justice. To our great surprise, we learn that justice leads us to sorrow instead of to happiness. We come to understand that all people are fallible, and that the last thing we really want is for everyone to get what they deserve. We begin to feel the sadness of all things—'mono no aware', as Motoori Norinaga put it**—a deep sorrow that justice cannot cure.
This is when a second turning, a second conversion, must happen. Surprised by the world's sorrow, most of us give up and resign ourselves to live in a state of justice. But some follow their heart.
They move ahead, deeper into sorrow, on to compassion. Like Abraham and Noah and Moses, they bargain with God and turn away from their idols of Truth—not to ignore him, but to become like him, faced toward suffering, not away from the burning house.
Without this second conversion, the world would slip away. With this second turn, we begin our descent, our condescension.
Like Jesus, like Amida, like Kannon, we choose to remain in world filled with suffering. We go back to the burning house to save those who are still there.
After all, what good is my salvation if Uncle Bob is still on the couch, watching television and eating chips? For him, we throw a party—like the one that was thrown for us. For him, we mediate, we intercede, we invite him to begin the journey that ultimately leads beyond justice to compassion.
Why is justice not enough? Can we do without justice?
No. But justice is like food. We can't live without it. But too much kills us.
* samsara (Sanskrit): Literally, "constant change". Samsara is a fundamental concept in Buddhist thought. The truth of samsara is that all things are always changing. From this it follows that nothing exists intrinsically—that is, nothing is independent and beyond the influence of other things. All things are said to be, therefore, codependent. A mistaken insistence on permanent essences —for example, the self as an individual, independent being—is a major cause of suffering. One wants certain things to last forever, such as personal happiness. But a mature, enlightened being realizes that change and mutual influence are basic characteristics of existence. If the bad news is that success does not last, the good news is that failure does not last either.
** mono no aware ものの哀れ: Literally, "the sadness of all things." [Eighteenth century Japanese philosopher] Motoori Norinaga located the sentiment of ‘aware’, or poignant empathy, in The Tale of Genji. He found it in Japanese culture, generally. Life is sorrowful, a consequence of another fact of life: that all things are constantly changing. Most poetry in Japan is written in the fall, at a time of obvious sadness, when the vigor of summer moves dramatically and colorfully toward the stillness of winter.
Read
October 10, 2021I approach this review with great caution: you ought to experience Inouye's remarkable memoir, and attempting to comment on it (like I did with my wife, moments after finishing it) feels a bit like throwing myself into a Zen garden and making snow angels. I still managed to find plenty of bits that I could underline and to which I could add my own connections, but the power of what I read here was that the story - rich with detail but told with such simplicity and lack of pretense - seems to stand for itself, nothing else, and it is a creation of awesome stillness. The encompassing peacefulness of this book is achieved both through his direct prose and the generous amounts of haiku that transport you right into his memories.
February 16, 2023
This memoir/philosophy/religion/poetry book was like a set of fine, gourmet chocolates -- best savored one at a time and with one's full attention. I would set the book down deliberately after reading a chapter so that I could ponder and enjoy what I had read and have more to read later. I don't usually highlight in books, but I marked 21 things to remember in this book.
I love how the author ties in his lessons from his upbringing in rural Utah, Buddhist teachings, poetry, Jesus' words, and admonitions of modern prophets from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love the symbolism of the raking metaphor for the daily work we do to overcome our natural selfishness and reach out to others during the now.
I love how the author ties in his lessons from his upbringing in rural Utah, Buddhist teachings, poetry, Jesus' words, and admonitions of modern prophets from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love the symbolism of the raking metaphor for the daily work we do to overcome our natural selfishness and reach out to others during the now.
February 12, 2022
I've never been fond of Maxwell Institute's living faith series. None of the books have really resonated with me, or captured my attention. Inouye's book broke that tradition. The short stories and haikus generate large, impactful life lessons.
This passage struck a chord:
For him, I was the cricket, chirping outside his window. And then I disappeared, leaving him to the silence of the Utah wind. (Pg. 174)
I'm forever grateful for the small experiences Inouye has made a part of my life, and hope I can use his life to improve the quality and depth of my relationships with myself, others, and God.
This passage struck a chord:
For him, I was the cricket, chirping outside his window. And then I disappeared, leaving him to the silence of the Utah wind. (Pg. 174)
I'm forever grateful for the small experiences Inouye has made a part of my life, and hope I can use his life to improve the quality and depth of my relationships with myself, others, and God.
August 27, 2022
Easily one of the best books I've read in a long time. Charles' voice is clear as he shares his spiritual journey of being human. Full disclosure, he's also my neighbor and while I don't think this influenced me, I do hear his voice, and his quick laugh, throughout the book.
I found the interleaving of animism, Zen, and the Church of Latter Day Saints quite powerful and helped reinforce (at least for me) my view of "the spirit will find a way to move you no matter what your religion". Charles' story is inspiring, relatable, and very much human.
If you're looking for a book that explores the human as well as the spirit - this a fine place to start.
I found the interleaving of animism, Zen, and the Church of Latter Day Saints quite powerful and helped reinforce (at least for me) my view of "the spirit will find a way to move you no matter what your religion". Charles' story is inspiring, relatable, and very much human.
If you're looking for a book that explores the human as well as the spirit - this a fine place to start.
December 25, 2025
I really enjoyed this book, particularly because memoir is one of my favorite genres. What makes this book so intriguing is the confluence of influences in the author's life. His background as a Japanese American whose parents lived through the relocation camps and then stayed and settled in a small town of Utah I'm not even familiar with. The format of the book is heavily influenced by Japanese literature which he studied as an academic. It is also spiritual and explores ideas of Buddhism with which he was raised as well as the Latter-Day Saint faith that he embraced. Through it all he grapples with very human question of love, loss, and self improvement.
March 2, 2022
4-1/2 stars. Inouye is Japanese American, the son of parents who were sent to an internment camp during WWII. His perspective is Buddhist, LDS, Japanese, and he blends them together showing how each supports the others. He introduces the idea of raking a Zen garden as a metaphor for our spiritual practices, which I found thought-provoking and meaningful. He also uses the analogy of our life’s journey as leaving a burning house and then returning to it. And he explained the Buddhist value of nothingness in a way that I could begin to understand.
August 9, 2024
Having spent time in the Pacific as a kid, I've always been fascinated with the Orient. When the time came to serve my LDS mission, I was sent to Europe. After that, I lost my connection to the Asia-Pacific region, but I've never lost my interest in it.
This book gave me an opportunity to vicariously experience life in Japan. I love that it is sprinkled with haikus and kanjis and explanations of both.
This book gave me an opportunity to vicariously experience life in Japan. I love that it is sprinkled with haikus and kanjis and explanations of both.
August 13, 2025
Beautiful reflections on living as a Japanese-American in rural Utah, in the LDS Church, and in the academic world. I identified with some of Inouye's struggles with interpreting scripture and letting go of goal-driving spirituality. However, I felt like Inouye's observations about his own life and suffering were extremely detached. It often felt like he was recounting past emotion and I didn't feel transported to the moment. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
April 8, 2023
Read this book slowly. Take time to savor all of the beautiful and sad and contemplative moments of this story. It contains so many lessons about the nature of life and death and love and the atonement hidden in the simplicity of living.
February 20, 2024
Can’t believe I have 40 highlights on this one. Recommend reading the Kindle version so you can quickly look up unfamiliar words/terms/concepts. Great for the morms & exmos. Lots of balance in this one.
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