Guidebooks for studying life and death

Let us turn to the books and articles which deal with inochi as their main subject. There are a great many such books written in Japanese. The authors include teachers, physicians, priests, novelists, nonfiction writers, journalists, and housewives. For example, Okuchi (1982), Okuchi (1984), Toriyama (1985), Morisaki (1989), Kansha (1987), Kakehashi (1989), Yamamoto (1988), Mizukami (1988), Ueda (1989), and Nakamura (1987) have all published excellent inochi books. All these are well worth [99/100] examining. However, I shall leave such an examination for another time. Instead, I shall examine here the most noteworthy inochi books I have yet encountered: the Ministry of Education’s Guidelines for Developiing a Spirit of Respect for Inochi: for Primary School Students (1988) and Guidelines for Dveloping a Spirit of Respect for Inochi: for Junior High School Students (1988).

These are guidebooks for school teachers in moral education classes, written by school teachers, professors, and officials of the Ministry of Education. These are excellent inochi publications in that the authors have prepared well studied discourses on inochi, and have made such discussions simple and practical enough for children to understand.

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The Concept of Inochi, Part 2
(1991)
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