Silence and Noise: Growing up Zen in America is a book about Ivan’s childhood at Green Gulch, a Zen monastery and community near Muir Beach, CA, USA.  Ivan’s parents, Lew and Amy, got involved with Zen in 1967, when they met Zen master Sunryu Suzuki Roshi in San Francisco.  Suzuki ordained his father as a Zen priest and his mother as a lay practitioner.  They were residents of Green Gulch from the late 70’s through the early 80’s.  “Silence and Noise” is a memoir about Ivan’s childhood there.  It was a different world from ordinary America.  In the book, Ivan describes that leaving it and moving into suburban America made him feel like an immigrant into his own country.  Green Gulch was a quiet place, dedicated to meditation and spiritual growth.  The monks, nuns, priests, and lay practitioners who lived there and practiced Zen were committed to non-violence, non-materialism, and a withdrawal from popular culture.  Ivan reflects on what it was like to grow up with those values, rather than the materialistic, capitalist, and not always friendly consumer culture of America.