MI Podcast #127: ZION EARTH ZEN SKY

Maxwell Institute Podcast

Christianity, Education, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2021

⏱️ 70 minutes

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Summary

Charles Inouye writes, “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.”

Come learn more about Charles’ life, work, and what Latter-day Saints can learn from a life of faith, service, and “raking”: the slow and steady daily practices that promotes spirituality and humility.

The post MI Podcast #127: ZION EARTH ZEN SKY appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, the Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Joseph Stewart. Latter-day Saints, whether they recognize it or not,
0:06.2	often live in many religious worlds. Although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be a church member's first language,
0:12.5	we live in a world filled with people who practice many religions, or no religion at all. I remember
0:17.3	growing up with Baptist, Catholic, Jewish, Sikh, and Hindu neighbors, and their
0:22.1	invitations to participate in their religious lives sharpened and bolstered my own growing
0:26.6	faith.
0:27.5	For some converts to the church, like Professor Charles Shiro Inouye, they find meaning and comfort
0:32.7	in connecting their families and ancestral religious traditions and practices into their
0:36.5	lives as Latter-day Saints.
0:38.1	Today we'll discuss Charles' book, Zion Earth, Zen, Sky, which will be released in late August
0:43.8	as a part of the Maxwell Institute's Living Faith series. We are always anxious to hear your
0:48.2	constructive feedback. Please send any you may have to MI Podcast at BYU.edu.
0:54.9	Please also be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at
0:57.8	MI.b.w.edu.edu.
1:01.2	Charles, welcome to the Maxwell Institute podcast. Thank you.
1:04.2	So glad to have you here. And one of the things that stuck out to me most in the book,
1:09.1	a theme that you returned to is the idea of raking.
1:12.4	What does it mean to practice raking?
1:15.9	Well, raking is something that is done often, done to maintain, rather than to usually do something
1:24.1	great. It's just something we do in a kind of routine way. And so what
1:28.9	the metaphor tries to do is to tie our religious life or spiritual life to the everyday things
1:37.1	that happen, not the unusual stuff, but the usual grind it out kind of stuff. Right, the things
	...

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