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Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey
Marie Mutsuki Mockett's family owns a Buddhist temple 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. In March 2011, after the earthquake and tsunami, radiation levels prohibited the burial of her Japanese grandfather's bones. As Japan mourned thousands of people lost in the disaster, Mockett also grieved for her American father, who had died unexpectedly.
Seeking consolation, Mockett is guided by a colorful cast of Zen priests and ordinary Japanese who perform rituals that disturb, haunt, and finally uplift her. Her journey leads her into the radiation zone in an intricate white hazmat suit; to Eiheiji, a school for Zen Buddhist monks; on a visit to a Crab Lady and Fuzzy-Headed Priest’s temple on Mount Doom; and into the "thick dark" of the subterranean labyrinth under Kiyomizu temple, among other twists and turns. From the ecstasy of a cherry blossom festival in the radiation zone to the ghosts inhabiting chopsticks, Mockett writes of both the earthly and the sublime with extraordinary sensitivity. Her unpretentious and engaging voice makes her the kind of companion a reader wants to stay with wherever she goes, even into the heart of grief itself.
Seeking consolation, Mockett is guided by a colorful cast of Zen priests and ordinary Japanese who perform rituals that disturb, haunt, and finally uplift her. Her journey leads her into the radiation zone in an intricate white hazmat suit; to Eiheiji, a school for Zen Buddhist monks; on a visit to a Crab Lady and Fuzzy-Headed Priest’s temple on Mount Doom; and into the "thick dark" of the subterranean labyrinth under Kiyomizu temple, among other twists and turns. From the ecstasy of a cherry blossom festival in the radiation zone to the ghosts inhabiting chopsticks, Mockett writes of both the earthly and the sublime with extraordinary sensitivity. Her unpretentious and engaging voice makes her the kind of companion a reader wants to stay with wherever she goes, even into the heart of grief itself.
330 pages, Hardcover
First published January 19, 2015
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2071 people want to read
About the author
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
4 books113 followersMarie Mutsuki Mockett, a writer of fiction and nonfiction, was born to an American father and Japanese mother. American Harvest: God, Country and Farming in the Heartland (Graywolf) won the 2021 Northern Californian Book Award for General Nonfiction and follows Mockett’s journey through seven heartland states in the company of evangelical Christian harvesters, while examining the role of GMOs, God, agriculture, and race in society. Her memoir, “Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye,” examines grief against the backdrop of the 2011 Great East Earthquake in Japan and was a finalist for the 2016 PEN Open Book Award, Indies Choice Best Book for Nonfiction and the Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. A novel, The Tree Doctor is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2023, and a collection of essays, How to Be a Californian, will follow. She lives in northern California with her family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 138 reviews
April 8, 2025
After the Tohoku quake and tsunami caused the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, there was a widespread effort to plant sunflowers as a way to remove radiation from the soil. It was a gentle Buddhist way to try to make life bearable again in a land where the dead are never far away from the living. This kind of insight into a major catastrophe is what made reading this book such a delight.
It was once believed that if a chair or table or any object had been around for one hundred years, it had the right to get a soul. As a result, people in Japan sometimes destroyed things that turned ninety-nine, in order to avoid having to put up with them being alive. Very often, the destroyed ninety-nine-year-old things were resentful to be relegated to the trash heap. Their chance at mortality thwarted, the indignant parasols and notebooks turned into mischievous spirits hell bent on revenge.
Combining a journey undertaken to correctly bury a grandparent's bones (not body, but bones) with a look at the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami plus a travelogue on the temples and towns along the northeast coast make this a beguiling read. Throw in some history on the Shinto and Buddhist religions, and the end result is so much more than I ever expected. The author is honest in her descriptions of Japan and the people (she is stunned to discover there were looters after the disaster), as she describes her own awareness of being Japanese American.
"Do you know what you hear when a tsunami comes? You hear car horns. That is the last sound you hear when a car is flooded with water. The pressure of the water hits the horn, and it honks and honks until finally the car is so damaged it cannot make a sound."
The description of the tsunami is hedoro, which is the black underbelly of the sea. This is what the survivors saw of the Black Wave that destroyed their communities and family members. What lies beneath is brought to the top of the wave in all its smelly triumph. There are real-life searches for fairies, the zashiki warashi of Japanese lore. By the time I finished this book, I felt a greater appreciation for life as well as death.
Book Season = Winter (radiated snow)
It was once believed that if a chair or table or any object had been around for one hundred years, it had the right to get a soul. As a result, people in Japan sometimes destroyed things that turned ninety-nine, in order to avoid having to put up with them being alive. Very often, the destroyed ninety-nine-year-old things were resentful to be relegated to the trash heap. Their chance at mortality thwarted, the indignant parasols and notebooks turned into mischievous spirits hell bent on revenge.
Combining a journey undertaken to correctly bury a grandparent's bones (not body, but bones) with a look at the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami plus a travelogue on the temples and towns along the northeast coast make this a beguiling read. Throw in some history on the Shinto and Buddhist religions, and the end result is so much more than I ever expected. The author is honest in her descriptions of Japan and the people (she is stunned to discover there were looters after the disaster), as she describes her own awareness of being Japanese American.
"Do you know what you hear when a tsunami comes? You hear car horns. That is the last sound you hear when a car is flooded with water. The pressure of the water hits the horn, and it honks and honks until finally the car is so damaged it cannot make a sound."
The description of the tsunami is hedoro, which is the black underbelly of the sea. This is what the survivors saw of the Black Wave that destroyed their communities and family members. What lies beneath is brought to the top of the wave in all its smelly triumph. There are real-life searches for fairies, the zashiki warashi of Japanese lore. By the time I finished this book, I felt a greater appreciation for life as well as death.
Book Season = Winter (radiated snow)
November 7, 2014
What an incredibly lovely but solemn book. The reader journeys across Japan with Mrs. Mockett, a Japanese-American woman, who recently lost her father as she grapples with both the grief of his death and that of the devastating aftereffects of the March 2011 tsunami. We visit the family-run temple residing in the long shadow of Fukushima nuclear power plant that she knows well from her youth. Pilgrimages are made to other temples and shrines from zen to Pure Land to Shingon to the delicate weaving of Shinto beliefs in everyday life. We learn of kappas and zashiki warashi and a strange temple dedicated to a deceptively scary old lady. There are drives through barren ocean towns wiped clean by the waves, of sulfuric hot springs and Obon festivals full of fire and incense and colorful yukata.
I found this to be thoughtfully written and very easy to palate as a foreigner. For all that I lived in Japan for a few years Mrs. Mockett took me to places I have never been - never even heard of - with dignity and grace that informed me about traditions and customs in a simple manner which never made me feel like an ignorant gaijin. It seemed to be a somewhat rambling journey through her memories of the years after the tsunami through the mountainous paths in her mind bringing the reader along for an introspective expedition dealing with love and loss and life. For all that we kept meandering off the paths with Mrs. Mockett I can only feel that the destination was well worth it in the end.
I don't think I would have ever picked up this book if not for being a Goodreads winner but I feel lucky that I was given this opportunity and I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Japan or in religion or knowing the pain of straddling two worlds. A lovely journey and one that I am very pleased to have taken part in. Thank you for the opportunity.
December 20, 2015
I received an ARC of this book from W.W. Norton through the Goodreads Giveaway program.
It took me a long time to read this book as I was literally savoring every word. The author takes a spiritual journey through Japan, her mother's homeland, where the author spent much of her own childhood. She has been unable to recover from the sadness she feels at the deaths of her father and of her maternal grandparents, and seeks solace through the Buddhist faith of her family. It is an absolutely fascinating journey on every level. I learned a great deal about the nature of grief and grieving, about Buddhism in its many forms, and about the indomitable spirit of the Japanese people. Highly recommended.
It took me a long time to read this book as I was literally savoring every word. The author takes a spiritual journey through Japan, her mother's homeland, where the author spent much of her own childhood. She has been unable to recover from the sadness she feels at the deaths of her father and of her maternal grandparents, and seeks solace through the Buddhist faith of her family. It is an absolutely fascinating journey on every level. I learned a great deal about the nature of grief and grieving, about Buddhism in its many forms, and about the indomitable spirit of the Japanese people. Highly recommended.
December 5, 2016
A solid three star book though sometimes it inched up in the rating when the author wrote more about the Japanese character. Her discussion of the Japanese aesthetic view of wabi sabi, interested me greatly. At some point the subject of ghosts and the spirit world lost my attention, though I was very much interested in the various Buddhist sects. The writing at times was disjointed but not so much that it lost my interest or focus.
March 14, 2016
The subtitle of the book is A Journey, and Mockett's journey is a complicated one. Half Japanese by birth, she never forgets—or lets the reader forget—that she was also born and raised American. With family in Japan, though, and her grandfather's bones to bury, she sets out in the wake of the 2011 earthquake to better understand Buddhism and grief and Japan's peacefully co-existing contradictions.
I read this for class, and it's easily my favourite book of the semester. There aren't easy answers, not least because there aren't easy questions, but Mockett takes to her exploration with a great deal of self-awareness and humour. She talks grief and depression but doesn't let the book get mired in it; rather, she asks more questions and pieces together more parts of a culture that does not quite let her claim it. An older man who was also visiting Aizu watched me as I carried on to my mother. He gave me a tolerant and compassionate smile. "I'm so sorry you are upset," he said. "But you don't understand. You aren't Japanese" (8).
This sense of being an outsider, though, is complicated by Mockett speaking Japanese and having Japanese family and otherwise understanding far more about Japan than your average Westerner. She is reminded that she is not Japanese, but also invited to see and do things that non-Japanese-speaking Westerners are not; there are conversations from which she must tease meaning, but she has the context with which to do so.
If it sounds like I'm skimming over huge parts of the book—grief! the tsunami! Buddhism!—well, I am, but it's not because they're not important. We haven't discussed this in class yet, but I'm very much looking forward to what others pick up on as standout themes.
I read this for class, and it's easily my favourite book of the semester. There aren't easy answers, not least because there aren't easy questions, but Mockett takes to her exploration with a great deal of self-awareness and humour. She talks grief and depression but doesn't let the book get mired in it; rather, she asks more questions and pieces together more parts of a culture that does not quite let her claim it. An older man who was also visiting Aizu watched me as I carried on to my mother. He gave me a tolerant and compassionate smile. "I'm so sorry you are upset," he said. "But you don't understand. You aren't Japanese" (8).
This sense of being an outsider, though, is complicated by Mockett speaking Japanese and having Japanese family and otherwise understanding far more about Japan than your average Westerner. She is reminded that she is not Japanese, but also invited to see and do things that non-Japanese-speaking Westerners are not; there are conversations from which she must tease meaning, but she has the context with which to do so.
If it sounds like I'm skimming over huge parts of the book—grief! the tsunami! Buddhism!—well, I am, but it's not because they're not important. We haven't discussed this in class yet, but I'm very much looking forward to what others pick up on as standout themes.
February 27, 2015
Mockett’s memoir explores her experiences with Japanese traditions surrounding grief. She personally grieves her American father who died recently and unexpectedly, an event that is probably partially the impetus for her memoir. Yet she is also deeply affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami where so many thousands died. She travels to her extended family’s Buddhist temple in 2011, not far from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and finds herself in a country where almost everyone is grieving. From childhood Mockett’s Japanese mother reinforced her connections with Japan by teaching her the language and including her on frequent childhood trips to her family in Japan. The author is uniquely positioned to write this kind of memoir.
The author does a good job of giving the reader insight into the varied ways the Japanese deal with grief. She clearly describes the different forms of Japanese Buddhism, Shintoism and other spiritual traditions and explains how those traditions deal with the death and grief. Her descriptions of northeast Japan after the earthquake are quite interesting. Yet for a narrative nonfiction title, this book rambled and felt unfocused at times. It does not have the flow of excellent narrative nonfiction.
Maybe 2.5 stars
The author does a good job of giving the reader insight into the varied ways the Japanese deal with grief. She clearly describes the different forms of Japanese Buddhism, Shintoism and other spiritual traditions and explains how those traditions deal with the death and grief. Her descriptions of northeast Japan after the earthquake are quite interesting. Yet for a narrative nonfiction title, this book rambled and felt unfocused at times. It does not have the flow of excellent narrative nonfiction.
Maybe 2.5 stars
September 20, 2018
Really Enjoyable Read
Full Review on Blog:
https://ianjoshyateswriting.blogspot.com
Full Review on Blog:
https://ianjoshyateswriting.blogspot.com
July 5, 2016
The first Noble Truth is that we all suffer, and one of those sufferings, for all of us, is the loss of the people we love. Death is inevitable, as are the wounds caused by the loss of those around us.
The writer has lost her father, her grandparents, and her sense of joy. She returns to the land of her mother's birth to try to make sense of her pain. Her mother's family has long owned a temple. Her ancestors helped people, and, when there seemed to be no one to inherit the temple and its responsibilities, her family had adopted a priest to continue the work. Naturally, her journey begins at this temple, but she quickly notes that this journey is a single and personal one that simply is a part of a huge movement of people and spirits in the wake of the Fukushima tsunami.
Families grieve. The towns and land are stricken. Ruins have replaced communities, and everywhere, people struggle to overcome unbearable sadness. They seek ways to let go.
That's the term: let go. In this part of Japan, the dead are everywhere, and the living must encourage them to move on to the next existence while they, themselves, must move on in their own lives. Everyone is struggling to find a way to let this happen.
The writer spends time with the priest at her family's temple, and then listens to priests who come to the community to listen to those who have been left behind. The priests know that they must listen, that listening is the only thing that will allow this letting go to occur.
She also goes to other temples to learn about this process of letting go, to see the space between the living and the dead, to understand how to grapple with the ghosts and the dead and those who need her in full life right now.
The book is a memoir, and it explains a world -- and a world view -- at great variance from what Americans know, believe, and do. Because she is both American and Japanese, and because she can not only speak Japanese but can "read" the culture, she guides the reader through a world both unfamiliar and fundamentally calming, a center from which to approach this first Noble Truth of human existence.
Utterly fascinating.
The writer has lost her father, her grandparents, and her sense of joy. She returns to the land of her mother's birth to try to make sense of her pain. Her mother's family has long owned a temple. Her ancestors helped people, and, when there seemed to be no one to inherit the temple and its responsibilities, her family had adopted a priest to continue the work. Naturally, her journey begins at this temple, but she quickly notes that this journey is a single and personal one that simply is a part of a huge movement of people and spirits in the wake of the Fukushima tsunami.
Families grieve. The towns and land are stricken. Ruins have replaced communities, and everywhere, people struggle to overcome unbearable sadness. They seek ways to let go.
That's the term: let go. In this part of Japan, the dead are everywhere, and the living must encourage them to move on to the next existence while they, themselves, must move on in their own lives. Everyone is struggling to find a way to let this happen.
The writer spends time with the priest at her family's temple, and then listens to priests who come to the community to listen to those who have been left behind. The priests know that they must listen, that listening is the only thing that will allow this letting go to occur.
She also goes to other temples to learn about this process of letting go, to see the space between the living and the dead, to understand how to grapple with the ghosts and the dead and those who need her in full life right now.
The book is a memoir, and it explains a world -- and a world view -- at great variance from what Americans know, believe, and do. Because she is both American and Japanese, and because she can not only speak Japanese but can "read" the culture, she guides the reader through a world both unfamiliar and fundamentally calming, a center from which to approach this first Noble Truth of human existence.
Utterly fascinating.
February 17, 2015
Interesting exploration about how the Japanese grieve.
The author loses her father and grandparents. She's learning to deal with her grief or as she describes it she want to be "more happy than sad". She travels to Japan which is her mother's homeland during the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 tsunami. This is the perfect time and place for her to learn how the Japanese grieve.
She visits several temples and Buddhist training schools. In fact, her family are guardians of a small temple. I learned a lot about Buddhism and its several school of thoughts: Shinto, Zen, Pure Land, and Shingon (mystics).
"Grief is not a one way street in Japan, for the dead miss us as much as we miss them."
Where do the dead go? "The dead remain in our hearts. That is the only place we will find them and the only place to look." Interesting concept even though they do believe that the dead soul travels.
Interesting about the Japanese culture.
The author loses her father and grandparents. She's learning to deal with her grief or as she describes it she want to be "more happy than sad". She travels to Japan which is her mother's homeland during the aftermath of the March 11, 2011 tsunami. This is the perfect time and place for her to learn how the Japanese grieve.
She visits several temples and Buddhist training schools. In fact, her family are guardians of a small temple. I learned a lot about Buddhism and its several school of thoughts: Shinto, Zen, Pure Land, and Shingon (mystics).
"Grief is not a one way street in Japan, for the dead miss us as much as we miss them."
Where do the dead go? "The dead remain in our hearts. That is the only place we will find them and the only place to look." Interesting concept even though they do believe that the dead soul travels.
Interesting about the Japanese culture.
February 13, 2023
As someone living in Japan for almost four years, I loved this book. I found myself thinking, "Yes, exactly. That's exactly how Japan feels" over and over while I read. The author opened up a piece of Japan to me that I do not have access to because of the language barrier.
There are no wasted words or pages in this book. It is filled with history, culture, religion and personal stories. Some reviewers thought she jumped around too much. Because this is a cultural exploration of grief, the shifting makes the book bearable.
There are no wasted words or pages in this book. It is filled with history, culture, religion and personal stories. Some reviewers thought she jumped around too much. Because this is a cultural exploration of grief, the shifting makes the book bearable.
May 5, 2019
A gently beautiful consideration of loss.
June 10, 2017
This book is an amazing look into the cultural mores of Japan especially concerning grief and death. It is a clear and concise treatise on the different forms of Buddhism and how the Japanese people believe in both animism and a supreme being. It incorporates the journey of a Japanese-American woman to Japan, soon after the devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Northern Japan. It also captures the clear differences in thinking, in acting, in living between those of the Japanese people and their Western counterparts. Being a third generation Japanese-American, I remember my grandparents and how they lived their life and coped with the many confusing and, to them, irrational thought processes of their new homeland. This book brings a clarity to many questions and answers that I never had the opportunity to garner from them. Excellently written, Mockett's journey is an emotional and compelling look at a wondrous land filled with the modernity of the 21st century and the 2000 year old answers to the questions of what the human condition is and what is our part in the universal scheme of things. An excellent read, a life changing book.
February 21, 2024
I liked the book because it was interesting to read about all the different temples the author visited and all the different people she met. I was happy to finally learn about the different sects of Buddhism, as I had always wondered about it.
However, I thought the book was sort of all-over-the place in writing style, and some things were overly explained while others were not explained well at all. I did not feel the emotions of the author were well expressed, although the emotions of the people she met were poignant.
I thought the book was relatable as someone who had lived in Japan but not so much as a Japanese-American, because the author had a lot of privileges and special circumstances tying her more to Japan than most Japanese-Americans I know. But I think if you are just looking for an explanation of different kinds of Buddhism in a philosophical and accessible way, it's a good book.
However, I thought the book was sort of all-over-the place in writing style, and some things were overly explained while others were not explained well at all. I did not feel the emotions of the author were well expressed, although the emotions of the people she met were poignant.
I thought the book was relatable as someone who had lived in Japan but not so much as a Japanese-American, because the author had a lot of privileges and special circumstances tying her more to Japan than most Japanese-Americans I know. But I think if you are just looking for an explanation of different kinds of Buddhism in a philosophical and accessible way, it's a good book.
April 17, 2022
This was a 3/11-adjacent book in that Marie Mockett’s narrative occurs after the Triple Disaster, but not 3/11-focused per se. The prose is deft and the research detailed, the latter aided by what I (jealously) assume is fluency in the language. It’s a beautiful story of grief and its relationship to belief.
July 9, 2024
3.5 stars
March 22, 2018
Please see my review here:
http://journeystotruth.blogspot.com/
http://journeystotruth.blogspot.com/
March 10, 2024
I thought this book was super interesting and a good primer for learning about the history and practice of Buddhism in Japan.
I genuinely got a lot out of this book. I learned how Buddhism can help people going through traumatic events and how religious rituals can affect us and give us peace. However, I found the vinettes of Mocketts life to be a little jumbled and not cohesive and it was hard to keep track of recurring people. Also Mockett herself was hard for me to relate to and understand. Though there were many very heartfelt stories she shared that I really appreciated.
If this book was a little more cohesive I would rate it higher. But I still found it incredibly interesting!!!
I genuinely got a lot out of this book. I learned how Buddhism can help people going through traumatic events and how religious rituals can affect us and give us peace. However, I found the vinettes of Mocketts life to be a little jumbled and not cohesive and it was hard to keep track of recurring people. Also Mockett herself was hard for me to relate to and understand. Though there were many very heartfelt stories she shared that I really appreciated.
If this book was a little more cohesive I would rate it higher. But I still found it incredibly interesting!!!
January 11, 2017
a rich, generous and deeply personal exploration of japanese spirituality and religion, approaches to death, grief & ancestors, and the collective trauma of the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster. careful and nuanced telling of the process of learning about and making sense of these things as a relative outsider. evocative descriptions of sights, tastes, smells and the feelings of places.
i read this hungrily in a single day (just after returning from a visit to Tokyo), and am looking forward to re-reading at a slower pace.
i read this hungrily in a single day (just after returning from a visit to Tokyo), and am looking forward to re-reading at a slower pace.
February 25, 2016
I received this book for free through Goodreads Fist Reads
After her Grandfathers death, the author who is _ Japanese and whose family owns a Buddhist Temple just 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiich nuclear plant, decides to go back to visit after the earthquake and tsunami that took many lives on March 11, 2011. The plant which was damaged in the tsunami as well, started to leaked radiation causing the area to become an unsafe place for people to return. Not having been able to bury her Grandfathers bones at the time of his death, she had to wait for a time where they could once again dig in the soil. The author was also still mourning the death of her father who had died three years earlier, so she decides to study how the Japanese deal with grief , which she hopes will help her with hers as well. From visiting different Obon Ceremonies (The Festival of Souls is a Buddhist celebration. The Japanese believe that during this period the souls of their ancestors return to their homes on earth. This is the time when people can guide and help their ancestors' spirits to find peace.) to experiencing many different Buddhist ceremonies, and rituals. From the many Temples and their priest that she talks to, and how each of them is helping their community deal with their grief. This book delves into the history of japan and Buddhism, its traditions,religion, folklore and the respect the people have for these traditions.
I love Buddhas and have them all through my house, but I now see that I do not really know that much about Buddhism, from Zen, Pure Land to Shingon, it was a fascinating look into its history and what it stands for.
While there, the author was quite often told that since she was only _ Japanese, and even though she knows the language, that she would not be able to completely understand the culture, people, food etc. as she was considered a foreigner.
Very complex and full of great knowledge, this book was a very exciting read. If you are interested in Buddhism or the Japanese culture, or just want to learn about other cultures, this book is for you.
After her Grandfathers death, the author who is _ Japanese and whose family owns a Buddhist Temple just 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiich nuclear plant, decides to go back to visit after the earthquake and tsunami that took many lives on March 11, 2011. The plant which was damaged in the tsunami as well, started to leaked radiation causing the area to become an unsafe place for people to return. Not having been able to bury her Grandfathers bones at the time of his death, she had to wait for a time where they could once again dig in the soil. The author was also still mourning the death of her father who had died three years earlier, so she decides to study how the Japanese deal with grief , which she hopes will help her with hers as well. From visiting different Obon Ceremonies (The Festival of Souls is a Buddhist celebration. The Japanese believe that during this period the souls of their ancestors return to their homes on earth. This is the time when people can guide and help their ancestors' spirits to find peace.) to experiencing many different Buddhist ceremonies, and rituals. From the many Temples and their priest that she talks to, and how each of them is helping their community deal with their grief. This book delves into the history of japan and Buddhism, its traditions,religion, folklore and the respect the people have for these traditions.
I love Buddhas and have them all through my house, but I now see that I do not really know that much about Buddhism, from Zen, Pure Land to Shingon, it was a fascinating look into its history and what it stands for.
While there, the author was quite often told that since she was only _ Japanese, and even though she knows the language, that she would not be able to completely understand the culture, people, food etc. as she was considered a foreigner.
Very complex and full of great knowledge, this book was a very exciting read. If you are interested in Buddhism or the Japanese culture, or just want to learn about other cultures, this book is for you.
March 12, 2015
I read an interview with the author that was so compelling to me that I put aside everything that turned me off about the descriptions of this book. I don't normally read memoirs and have no interest in reading a memoir about grieving a dead father. But that's not what it is. We hardly learn anything about the author's father other than that she's sad he's dead. It's less about the aftermath of 3/11 than I expected (although that's definitely a central component.) And if I'd known this was mostly a book about Buddhism I probably also would have passed it up. I'm so I glad I read it anyway.
What's fascinating is that much of it's about Buddhism in the most concrete way possible - the different personalities and approaches of the priests she meets, the problems with choosing who to take over a temple - as well as its role in how the Japanese approach death. And the fact that she can actually speak Japanese to people, and that her bicultural background makes them speak freely with her, makes this book different from most books written by English speakers about Japan.
I'm not sure how this book would strike someone who didn't already have a deep interest in and a fair amount of knowledge about Japanese culture. But as someone who does, I'm very glad I read it.
What's fascinating is that much of it's about Buddhism in the most concrete way possible - the different personalities and approaches of the priests she meets, the problems with choosing who to take over a temple - as well as its role in how the Japanese approach death. And the fact that she can actually speak Japanese to people, and that her bicultural background makes them speak freely with her, makes this book different from most books written by English speakers about Japan.
I'm not sure how this book would strike someone who didn't already have a deep interest in and a fair amount of knowledge about Japanese culture. But as someone who does, I'm very glad I read it.
November 8, 2015
The theme of this book - learning to deal with grief - is wonderful. The author shares the beliefs of Buddhism about the connection between the living and the dead, and they are beautiful. She shares her insights into the Japanese people, their beliefs, and their struggles since the 2011 tsunami, and it made me desire more information. Japan, and the temples named in this story, are now on my bucket list. I'd love to learn to turn my thoughts into myself, to meditate like she did.
The descriptions of the temples, the cherry blossoms, and the different parts of Japan were lovely. The reality of the devastation from the tsunami was eye-opening.
However, her method of telling the story leaves something to be desired. Ms. Mockett shifts from stories of being in Japan shortly after the tsunami, to stories from her childhood, to stories of an extended stay while she worked on a documentary. At times it is confusing, and instead of being swept up in the story, I was trying to figure out 'when' she was.
Overall, I would recommend this book, if for no other reason than to gain a better understanding of another culture.
The descriptions of the temples, the cherry blossoms, and the different parts of Japan were lovely. The reality of the devastation from the tsunami was eye-opening.
However, her method of telling the story leaves something to be desired. Ms. Mockett shifts from stories of being in Japan shortly after the tsunami, to stories from her childhood, to stories of an extended stay while she worked on a documentary. At times it is confusing, and instead of being swept up in the story, I was trying to figure out 'when' she was.
Overall, I would recommend this book, if for no other reason than to gain a better understanding of another culture.
November 26, 2014
I won an advance copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway, and I'm very glad that I did!
While at times meandering and repetitive, this is a well written book. Miss Mockett's journey across Japan visiting many different temples and shrines to process her personal grief, while at the same time experiencing the aftermath of the March 2011 disaster, was compelling and also easy to follow. I am quite fond of Japanese spirituality, from ceremonies to ghost stories, so there was a lot to enjoy here.
There's also an interesting look at being a foreigner in a country that an entire side of your family is from. It's not something I'm surprised about, but still so peculiar that the author feels like and is treated as an outsider, this despite her connections and understanding of Japan.
I have lived in Japan and visited many times, and I still learned so much about traditions, Buddhism, and Japan itself. This book also gave me a lot to think about regarding life and loss. It was a good journey.
While at times meandering and repetitive, this is a well written book. Miss Mockett's journey across Japan visiting many different temples and shrines to process her personal grief, while at the same time experiencing the aftermath of the March 2011 disaster, was compelling and also easy to follow. I am quite fond of Japanese spirituality, from ceremonies to ghost stories, so there was a lot to enjoy here.
There's also an interesting look at being a foreigner in a country that an entire side of your family is from. It's not something I'm surprised about, but still so peculiar that the author feels like and is treated as an outsider, this despite her connections and understanding of Japan.
I have lived in Japan and visited many times, and I still learned so much about traditions, Buddhism, and Japan itself. This book also gave me a lot to think about regarding life and loss. It was a good journey.
March 3, 2015
I read this book primarily because of how moved I was by the film "Departures" (2010), a Japanese film that was a fascinating exploration of grief and death. The film was fiction - this book is nonfiction, and revolves around the survivors of the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. The author and her mother visit Japan several weeks after the disaster, as family members live near the nuclear facility. The author continues with a personal journey into Buddhism, and examines a country shocked by the horrifying storm and its aftermath. I felt that the book’s central subject is the stubborn anguish of personal grief — the experience, as Mockett puts it, of being “kidnapped against one’s will and forced to go to some foreign country, all the while just longing to go back home.” I thought the end was a little anticlimactic, but overall I found it moving and thought-provoking.
September 7, 2020
Passages that struck me:
"As a priest, Maruko had seen many people die, and he had seen many families just after a loved one had passed away. The very worst thing was when someone forgot to say "thank you" before dying. If only the dead could see the pain they left behind when they died selfishly. He often counseled the living on this inherited pain and tried to get them to put it into context.
"In order to become myself, my mistakes and hardships were also necessary." This was an essential way to view life. It was only by keeping this in mind at all times that one could live in the present. The practice of Zen, he said, was about looking forward and living in this way." (109)
"Look at this dish right here, he said. Will this be here in a million years? No. So it is here. But it is not here. You know about atoms? Kukai thought about atoms long before we were able to see them. If we had a thread that was thin enough, we could thread it though the cup and it would go out the other side. And so the cup is here, but it is not here. If enough time were to go by, the cup would not be here, but if we were to look for its atoms, we would find them scattered around the universe, which means the cup would be everywhere. And in the same way, the Buddha is everywhere. The point of Shingon is not to be nothing, but to understand that everything is and is not actually concrete. That's it.
Twelve hundred years of history, thousands of pages of ink spilled on the subject of what the Buddha meant by entering the "void" and "nothingness." For me, this was the simplest, clearest explanation I had ever heard...
"Matter is in your heart. Your heart is in matter. Everything is the same thing. The point of meditation is to feel this deeply. Within your heart." (151)
"Ryushin told me that it was okay for my mind to be skeptical, even clouded. Meditation was supposed to be like looking at the moon. Occasionally, a cloud would come in front of my mind. But that was just fine. No cloud stayed in front of the moon forever. Something, he said, always blows a cloud away." (155)
"He told me that Shingon was the only branch of the Buddhist faith in which it is acceptable to ask for material things and to receive them...Kukai had insisted that there was no point in not having desires or in trying to stop desires. It was important to desire something for the good of others." (156)
"In his book Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan, which has been translated into English, Kawai writes, "In the West, the hero's virtue is rewarded by a happy ending. But in Japan, beautiful endings are much preferred to happy endings." Beauty is the ultimate democracy, because a beautiful thing, particularly if it exists in nature, belongs to everyone.
..The simplest definition of wabi sabi is that it is a kind of beauty whose highest form is expressed through imperfection. The venerable art historian Miyeko Murase instructed her students to consider that a full moon glowing brightly in the sky is undeniably beautiful. But how much more beautiful is the moon when it is partially obscured by a bit of cloud? ...The Japanese love the beauty of cherry blossoms in the spring. However, say the aesthetes, how much more beautiful are the cherry trees when they are just past their peak, and petals begin to drip-drop onto the ground.
Kawai writes in his book, "The Japanese fairy tales tell us that the world is beautiful and that beauty is completed only if we accept the existence of death." Beauty heals us. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that perfected beauty is any kind of true antidote to suffering, for everything is always changing, never holding fast to its shape. Everything must one day die, and we are all always only just passing through. So it is that we might heal a bit by experiencing the passing beauty of a dance gesture, a fading ghost, or a flower. (262)
"The point of Buddhism," he said, "is that it is natural to live with wounds. Everyone has wounds and will be wounded. This can be shocking at first, but in fact is completely normal."
Minami had suffered from intense asthmas a child, and the attacks had made him ponder illness and death from an early age. Only Buddhism, he said, had offered any kind of answer to suffering. He repeatedly insisted to me that if he ever found another philosophy that could address the troubles of human existence, he would happily embrace it...
He made it very clear that Buddhism was different from Christianity, which stressed the idea of original sin. That it was natural to live with suffering was, he said, an entirely different concept than original sin, which implied that there was something not quite right with human beings. On the contrary, he said. Things were right and things were wrong, but this dichotomy didn't get at the heart of the human experience. To live with pain was entirely normal. Once a person accepted this, he or she could get on with life. (293)
"When I traveled around Japan on the tour of Obon ceremonies, I repeatedly asked my ancestors to "make me feel more happy than sad." In a way, that was what had happened, but with one very important difference. It was not that my sadness had shrunk so much, or that my happiness had grown; instead, I now saw my own sadness in the context of everyone else's grief. I am, after all, just one person on a planet of millions, all of whom, if they have not already, will also suffer the same intense feelings of shock and loss that I have, and many of whom will do so in far more traumatic settings. My little lantern of grief was but one in a sea of other lanterns.
I couldn't help but think about Minami's observation that as a Westerner, I would always want to know why I was doing something. I would never be willing to just go through an experience and then learn the lesson at the end. That would feel too passive. Grieving, I thought, was the perfect example of just such as experience. I had been angry to be so sad so much of the time, unable to trust that in time I would recover and adapt to the lessons of grief.
"As a priest, Maruko had seen many people die, and he had seen many families just after a loved one had passed away. The very worst thing was when someone forgot to say "thank you" before dying. If only the dead could see the pain they left behind when they died selfishly. He often counseled the living on this inherited pain and tried to get them to put it into context.
"In order to become myself, my mistakes and hardships were also necessary." This was an essential way to view life. It was only by keeping this in mind at all times that one could live in the present. The practice of Zen, he said, was about looking forward and living in this way." (109)
"Look at this dish right here, he said. Will this be here in a million years? No. So it is here. But it is not here. You know about atoms? Kukai thought about atoms long before we were able to see them. If we had a thread that was thin enough, we could thread it though the cup and it would go out the other side. And so the cup is here, but it is not here. If enough time were to go by, the cup would not be here, but if we were to look for its atoms, we would find them scattered around the universe, which means the cup would be everywhere. And in the same way, the Buddha is everywhere. The point of Shingon is not to be nothing, but to understand that everything is and is not actually concrete. That's it.
Twelve hundred years of history, thousands of pages of ink spilled on the subject of what the Buddha meant by entering the "void" and "nothingness." For me, this was the simplest, clearest explanation I had ever heard...
"Matter is in your heart. Your heart is in matter. Everything is the same thing. The point of meditation is to feel this deeply. Within your heart." (151)
"Ryushin told me that it was okay for my mind to be skeptical, even clouded. Meditation was supposed to be like looking at the moon. Occasionally, a cloud would come in front of my mind. But that was just fine. No cloud stayed in front of the moon forever. Something, he said, always blows a cloud away." (155)
"He told me that Shingon was the only branch of the Buddhist faith in which it is acceptable to ask for material things and to receive them...Kukai had insisted that there was no point in not having desires or in trying to stop desires. It was important to desire something for the good of others." (156)
"In his book Dreams, Myths and Fairy Tales in Japan, which has been translated into English, Kawai writes, "In the West, the hero's virtue is rewarded by a happy ending. But in Japan, beautiful endings are much preferred to happy endings." Beauty is the ultimate democracy, because a beautiful thing, particularly if it exists in nature, belongs to everyone.
..The simplest definition of wabi sabi is that it is a kind of beauty whose highest form is expressed through imperfection. The venerable art historian Miyeko Murase instructed her students to consider that a full moon glowing brightly in the sky is undeniably beautiful. But how much more beautiful is the moon when it is partially obscured by a bit of cloud? ...The Japanese love the beauty of cherry blossoms in the spring. However, say the aesthetes, how much more beautiful are the cherry trees when they are just past their peak, and petals begin to drip-drop onto the ground.
Kawai writes in his book, "The Japanese fairy tales tell us that the world is beautiful and that beauty is completed only if we accept the existence of death." Beauty heals us. But we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that perfected beauty is any kind of true antidote to suffering, for everything is always changing, never holding fast to its shape. Everything must one day die, and we are all always only just passing through. So it is that we might heal a bit by experiencing the passing beauty of a dance gesture, a fading ghost, or a flower. (262)
"The point of Buddhism," he said, "is that it is natural to live with wounds. Everyone has wounds and will be wounded. This can be shocking at first, but in fact is completely normal."
Minami had suffered from intense asthmas a child, and the attacks had made him ponder illness and death from an early age. Only Buddhism, he said, had offered any kind of answer to suffering. He repeatedly insisted to me that if he ever found another philosophy that could address the troubles of human existence, he would happily embrace it...
He made it very clear that Buddhism was different from Christianity, which stressed the idea of original sin. That it was natural to live with suffering was, he said, an entirely different concept than original sin, which implied that there was something not quite right with human beings. On the contrary, he said. Things were right and things were wrong, but this dichotomy didn't get at the heart of the human experience. To live with pain was entirely normal. Once a person accepted this, he or she could get on with life. (293)
"When I traveled around Japan on the tour of Obon ceremonies, I repeatedly asked my ancestors to "make me feel more happy than sad." In a way, that was what had happened, but with one very important difference. It was not that my sadness had shrunk so much, or that my happiness had grown; instead, I now saw my own sadness in the context of everyone else's grief. I am, after all, just one person on a planet of millions, all of whom, if they have not already, will also suffer the same intense feelings of shock and loss that I have, and many of whom will do so in far more traumatic settings. My little lantern of grief was but one in a sea of other lanterns.
I couldn't help but think about Minami's observation that as a Westerner, I would always want to know why I was doing something. I would never be willing to just go through an experience and then learn the lesson at the end. That would feel too passive. Grieving, I thought, was the perfect example of just such as experience. I had been angry to be so sad so much of the time, unable to trust that in time I would recover and adapt to the lessons of grief.
December 16, 2015
I savored this book too (as other reviewers have said) and I also enjoyed the detailed history of Buddhism in Japan. Her experiences and encounters with people on her journey through Japan (her mother's homeland) were delightful. I feel I learned so much from this book and it all happened in such a way that I felt at the end that I had experienced the process of the cherry blossoms blooming and dying. I was aware of her grief and her struggle with coming to terms with the sudden death of her father and how this opened her to being able to understand the grief of the Japanese people post-tsunami.
July 28, 2015
This book made clear to me how grieving is expressed so differently between people and cultures. The stories gave rich meaning to festivals that I have experienced in Japan but failed to understand the symbolism. There were fascinating insights to religious practices far beyond text book descriptions of Buddhism and Shintoism. It is difficult to understand the impact of a disaster such as the recent tsunami and radiation leak without the intimate stories provided by the author following her extensive visit. A sobering read.
December 4, 2014
I am very interested in Japan and especially how they are dealing with the aftermath of the tsunami. I am also very interested in Buddhism and Shintoism and other "ism"s of Eastern religion. Mockett does a superb job of engaging and informing the reader on these topics, while she chronicles her visits to Japanese temples to discover what she can about her Japanese roots. However she is a bit rambling and I struggled a time or two wondering where we were going now.
January 21, 2016
This sweet book follows the author's journeys to her relative's Buddhist temple and then to a number of other temples of some repute. The driving question is to discover the resources in culture, religion, custom and folklore that shape and address grief. A fascinating encounter with Japan by one uniquely qualified to see it.
June 23, 2024
Ok..here is the truth...Only got through 56% of the book. It felt like she needed a better editor.I kept wondering where she was going and when she was going to get back on point. Very discouraging, although she had a lot of interesting information on Buddhism that was not what the book purported to be about..
March 27, 2016
Beautiful book. Touched on so many of the themes that I'm going through right now in terms of death, dying, ghosts, collective grief vs. individual grief, but was also a poetic travelogue of post-Fukushima Japan. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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