In the book Kokoro, Zen Buddhism helped me understand the character K in various ways. K's background is influenced by practice because his father is a Buddhist priest. When he is adopted by a family of doctors he does not want to study medicine, instead he wants to continue practicing Zen Buddhism to find the path to enlightenment. When she moves in with Sensei, complications begin to arise as she begins to develop feelings for Ojosan. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original EssayK coming from a Buddhist family was a significant detail for me because he has feelings for Ojosan. When he confessed his love for her to Sensei, I realized that Buddhists cannot have a significant other, so he could not tell Ojosan how he felt. Unlike Sensei, K was a strong and courageous boy as Sensei had feelings for Ojosan for a long time and had never told anyone even before K moved in with them. This may be due to Sensei's distrust of humanity as he never spoke about his feelings. When Okusan informed K that Sensei and Ojosan were getting married, I didn't think that K would commit suicide because in Buddhist practice suicide is despised. His suicide is very similar to Sensei's because they both wanted to escape loneliness. Unlike K, however, Sensei's wasn't gory for Shizu's sake. Having applied Zen Buddhism while reading Kokoro, I now better understand K and his actions towards Ojosan. Furthermore, I learned that in Japan, at least during the period chronicled in the book, suicide was not uncommon and was not necessarily an act of cowardice. K went against his practice of committing suicide, but might still have planned to abandon his path to enlightenment until Sensei acted first and asked Okusan for his daughter's hand in marriage. Using what I learned about Buddhism makes me question K's intentions before committing suicide. I want to go back and reread part three to see if I notice clues that perhaps K was ready to give up his practice for his feelings or if the author wanted us to come to our own conclusion.