"Borup's engaged ethnographic study breathes life into ideals and critically draws the reader back to a living religion, raising questions that will fundamentally enrich one's quest for satori with a compendium of descriptions of socio-historical, practical and embodied actualities, all the while guiding the reader with conceptual notions and Japanese terminology that are certain to be useful to any further academic study." - A. Sevilla, in: Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, 2008
"The strengths of Borup’s study is that it offers a clear and detailed presentation of the monastic system and practices—including education, rituals, festivals, and ordination—that constitute the center of Rinzai Zen religious life." - George A. Keyworth, in: Religious Studies Review, 2009
"Jørn Borup's detailed study of the Rinzai denomination of Buddhism gives us the opportunity to see Temple Buddhism as a multidimensional phenomenon in contemporary Japan and should be read by anyone with an interest in modern or contemporary Japanese Buddhism." - Stephen G. Covell, in: The Journal of Japanese Studies, 2010