“This book is many things —- first and foremost, a cookbook,” she writes. “This book stems from the recognition that there are very few good cookbooks on vegan and vegetarian Japanese food in English.”

While training in Japan, Greenwood spent spent significant time learning to cook in the kitchens of Zen monasteries. Those experiences introduced her to the concept of oroyoki, or “just enough.”

“In oryoki, we use many small bowls with small amounts of delicious food, and this makes us, paradoxically, feel more full,” she explains. “Quite literally, then, we can design our meals to reflect these principles by using more plates and smaller amounts of food with a wide variety of flavors and colors.

“In other words, we can change the container of our food to feel more satisfied. Broadly and metaphorically, this strategy can be brought into the large frame of our lives. We can shift the ‘container’ of our lives, so that no matter how much we have or do not have, it is enough.”

The book also demonstrates that Zen is simultaneously simple and complex.

Take the chapter titled “Bamboo: Or, How to Turn Poison into a Meal.”