Inouye, “Zion Earth Zen Sky” (Reviewed by Kevin Folkman)

Title: Zion Earth Zen Sky
Author: Charles Shiro Inouye
Publisher: BYU Maxwell Institute
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 271
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781950304110
Price: $19.95

Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters

The twin streams of Buddhism and Mormonism flow through Charles Inouye’s new memoir like water. Describing it using a haiku, I might write something like this:

Zion earth, Zen sky
Jesus and Buddha raking
In the Spring garden

While this follows the traditional styles of Haiku for format, it only hints at the mystery and wonder I found in Inouye’s new book, Zion Earth Zen Sky. As Inouye relates the story of his life, the influence of both Mahayana Buddhism and life as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seem to mirror each other in subtle ways. Inouye is a third-generation Japanese-American whose parents met in a World War II internment camp in Wyoming. They chose to settle after the war in Utah rather than return to the West Coast where they felt betrayed by their neighbors. Farming in an isolated community in Central Utah, Charles and his siblings were dropped off at the local LDS ward each Sunday, as their parents felt they needed a spiritual upbringing, and the nearest Buddhist temple was hours away in Salt Lake City.

Inouye, Professor of Japanese Literature and Visual Culture at Tufts University in Massachusetts, sprinkles his memoir with haikus that he has written himself as he reflects on the experience of living a life bridging two of these two cultures. In ways both overt and subtle, Inouye talks openly about his Christian faith and Buddhist influences.

Inouye tells his life story sequentially, and chapter by chapter lays out the lessons learned as he seeks both the Buddhist concept of enlightenment and the Mormon concept of eternal progression. Failures and successes both get their own haikus in equal portions.

Growing up in such a hybrid environment formed Charles’ earliest sense of the world around him. His family ate traditional Japanese foods at home while delighting in the sugar cookies and other baked goods at church events. The genius of Zen is the genius of Christianity, he writes, in that both bring the “abstract concepts of heaven down to earth. Both make the ordinary things of this world the way to salvation.” [p 13] Daily practice is the key to such Zen paths as kendo (the way of the sword), kado (the way of flower arrangement), or kohdo (the way of incense). Similarly, Latter-day Saints practice tithing, scripture study, service to others, and prayer as daily activities. Constantly doing the same acts over and over again while seeking perfection, we gradually make changes in ourselves, yet always still fall short.  This is like a Zen garden, Inouye explains. Small and contained, such gardens include a few trees and mossy rocks but are dominated by open areas of coarse sand or gravel, raked into intricate patterns. By its nature, such a garden is impermanent. Once raked, something will always happen to mar the perfection. “Whenever a maple leaf or pine needle falls onto the sand, the garden needs to be raked again. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year. Care must be given because perfection never lasts” (p. 15). Such a garden requires constant daily work, not unlike the daily religious practices emphasized in our faith. Prayer, scripture study, and service to others become our spiritual raking, ever seeking, but never achieving perfection in this life.

Another way to say this is that we can never be fixed, once and for all. In our victories, the seeds of decay are planted. Rocks become soil. Kindness becomes pride and neglect…The influence of a loving Creator is so obvious that we are blind to it. Does a bird think of air? A fish think of water? Without trials, we would have no awareness of anything valuable…Against the steady pull of decline and decay, we rake. At first, our lines are irregular and imperfect. But with practice, the patterns of our divinity emerge with a simple beauty. (p16)

Inouye also retells a Buddhist story of the burning house that he highlighted in his earlier book, The End of the World, Plan B (Greg Kofford Books, 2016). Blissfully unaware of much of the world around us, we discover one day as we leave our house that it is on fire. Outraged, we wonder “Who has done this thing to us?” We go seeking justice, for someone to pay for the damage caused by the fire. Pursuing justice, though, is a two-edged sword. We become disillusioned in our pursuit, as we discover that there is so much wrong in the world. Prejudice, poverty, sickness, and cruelty abound. We find out that justice is never enough to assuage all the pain we feel. We discover that if we want justice for others, we must also accept that it applies to us as well. All of us, regardless of our intentions, make mistakes, hurt others, and fail to be as compassionate as we could be. We despair because of mono no aware, in Buddhism “the sadness of all things.” But if we don’t turn away from this suffering, we find that compassion is the answer. Enlightened, we turn in towards the suffering, offering compassion to others, returning to our burning house to rescue those still inside.

As I read Zion Earth Zen Sky, I found that Inouye has also structured his memoir as if each stage of his life was its own episode in his search for enlightenment, much like the Buddhist concept of multiple reincarnations in hopes of eventually reaching perfection. In childhood, he always felt alone and isolated from others. Eventually, he came to see his part in cooperating with his family on the farm, or with his teammates in high school sports. His mission brought him to a greater awareness of obedience, but also exposed the limits of charitable works because you are commanded. After his mission, he realizes that he missed the whole point of proselytizing:

What a miserable failure I am! In my wish to be a good missionary, did I ever stop to consider what my obedience was to accomplish? All this time raking, without knowing why…I realize I am going to have to start over. Suddenly, I am a million shards on the ground. Maybe I’ll put myself together again. But this time I will have to use glue of every possible color. (p 84)

He describes the misery that followed, the depression and despair. Finally, after a particularly bad moment, Inouye decides, “…If I’m to heal my deep contempt for the world, I need to get out of Utah. Ironically, I’m losing my faith not because I’m too worldly, but not worldly enough…how can I make Zion happen if I don’t know who the rich and poor are?” (p 87)

Gradually, through daily practice, frequent stumbles, but constant raking in the garden, Charles slowly finds more sure footing on the path to enlightenment and sanctification. Along the way, he tells how his understanding of himself in relationship with others changes. He recounts such daily activities as the core of our existence. “Family life is raking at its best and most difficult. In families, we cannot avoid difficult people and situations. We are those difficult people. We are in those difficult situations. Given this opportunity to not escape from our weaknesses, we learn how to be kind and thoughtful by caring for each other” (p 240).

A tragic incident only deepens his sense of detachment from the lives of others. This cycle of failure and enlightenment repeats itself in graduate school, in a first marriage that ends in divorce, and in efforts to fulfill his church callings. All of this leads to various stages of enlightenment where insight is painfully acquired and put to practice until the next revelation of his weaknesses. Yet through all this, Inouye recounts moments of incredible grace reaffirming that through constant raking, the daily repetition of small and simple things, great things can be accomplished.

A professor of Japanese Language and Visual Culture at Tufts University in Boston, this is his second book about the intersections of Buddhist thought and the doctrines of the restored Church. His first LDS book, The End of the World, Plan B: A Guide for the Future (Kofford Books, 2016), deals primarily with the burning house analogy and compassion as a cure for the world’s ills. This volume builds on that foundation with the concept of constant raking in the Zen Garden of our lives as a means of achieving Zion. Zion as a concept is firmly grounded in how we live our daily lives, Zen represents seeking perfection in equally mundane daily practices. Zion Earth Zen Sky is a poetic expression of the kind of lives we should be living. Inouye invites us, as does Christ, to help in raking the Lord’s Garden, always failing in gaining permanent perfection, but finding joy in the process of learning and improving with each set of furrows drawn.