What a lovely book!(2002) is a translation of Soko Morinaga's spiritual autobiography - presented to encourage the ordinary human being that also he/she can attain enlightenment - and the iconoclastic, direct and pointedly humorous nature of Zen practice and pedagogy suffuses the text to guarantee the reader's great pleasure and profit from this description of an unexpected trajectory from a totally disillusioned, defeated young soldier at the end of World War II to an internationally renowned Renzai Zen master, head monk at the venerable Daitoku-ji and head of Hanazono University, affiliated with the Rinzai sect. Morinaga Roshi was also closely engaged in the growth of Zen Buddhism in the United States and Great Britain.(*)In a simple, direct and very telling manner Morinaga portrays the unusual life of a practicing Zen monk with an emphasis on the travails and challenges of a novice along with the curious and often apparently cruel rites of passage of Zen training and on the unique relationship between a master and his disciple. What is striking is that Morinaga makes these seem to be natural to the reader by personalizing every bit of it from his own experience; one grasps the internal logic of it all not in the abstract but in the very concrete and personal. The austerities of the strict practice Morinaga describes are remarkable, and one wonders how widely they are observed, for in Japanese literature Buddhist priests and monks often are evoked in quite a different light indeed.(**) Remarkable also are the compassion and concern manifested in this text. No fire and brimstone here.Whether one is interested in the goals and practice of Zen or not, this text does contain elements of quite general interest, as suggested in this passage:The Buddhist way to meet these facts of life (and others) is to posit the nonessential nature of all beings, who arise out of the essential and dynamic No-Form, strut across a stage for a while and return to that churning void, only to generate yet more impermanent forms, all proceeding according to immutable laws.The Buddhist vision is awe-some and hardly comfortably reassuring.(***) Nonetheless, even Zen Buddhism turns back to life and the world of ten thousand things out of compassion, like the Boddhisatvas who have attained enlightenment but have chosen to remain on the Wheel of Life to help others.(*) I recently revieweda translation of the Buddhist dialoguethat includes a very useful commentary by Morinaga as well as excerpts fromthat convinced me I wanted to read this book.(**) Morinaga writes "This style of training is found particularly in monasteries of the Rinzai sect as opposed to Soto Zen monasteries." Long ago, I practiced in a Soto Zenbut excepting theleader we were all laypeople. Austerities were only sampled during retreats, and those were held within bounds.(***) There are more popular forms of Buddhism in which salvation and eternal life in the Western Paradise are promised if, for example, one repeats the name of Amida Buddha.(!) Of course, most human beings everywhere have struck their own bargains with the awe-some.