Finished reading: The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi by Susan Ichi Su Moon 📚

At the Ocamora Library, my eyes were scanning the spines of the books when this one jumped off the shelf. When I saw the name on the spine, Tofu Roshi, I had to know if that name was for real.

Reading the first sentence of the introduction by Gahan Wilson, I started to laugh in amazement. “Many teachers, in their pride, vainly boast that they know nothing, but it is Tofu alone who has truly succeeded in achieving total ignorance.” I couldn’t tell what was going on, but I immediately loved it.

The refreshing thing about this book, the thing that kept me reading, the reason I want to keep it in mind for my own writing, is how it skewers and roasts the genre of spiritual book to make it something delicious. Fictionalizing. Satirizing. So appropriate for a book about spiritual questions and gurus and enlightenment, etc.