When she comes home, she needs to be able to relax and become Zen…..

It’s like medicine for your soul. Minimizing the chaos and clutter in your home allows you to minimize the chaos and clutter in your mind.

Bobby Berk, Queer Eye “Showdown at the Broken Spoke,” 12/31/2021

I adore Bobby. While I think his understanding of Zen is rather different from my understanding, it’s all wonderful. I expect he associates Zen with quiet and quieting the mind — and in this our understanding does overlap.

He reminds me of one of the select six books I have next to my desk: A Quiet Mind: Buddhist Ways to Calm the Noise in Your Head by Shoukei Matsumoto. I open this book to its beautiful drawings and that’s all I have to do to feel a fresh breeze waft through my rambunctious brain.

The parallel with what Bobby said is clearest in the “Escaping the Hustle and Bustle” section, where Shoukei Matsumoto first writes about the peace of temples and then has a brief, right-to-the-point section entitled “Make Your Home Like a Temple” (page 47).

I commend this simple book to those who, like me, resonate deeply with Bobby’s words.