Kodo Nishimura's 'This Monk Wears Heels'

High heels, makeup, sparkly earrings, and an open declaration of being a member of the LGBTQ community are not the first associations that pop into your mind when contemplating Japanese Buddhist monks. But Kodo Nishimura, 33, who describes himself as both ancient and trendy, seems determined to upend any expectations or limits in his mission to promote Buddhist teachings while inspiring people with beauty and fashion.

"If I can be a monk wearing heels, you can be who you are," he says.

Selected by Time magazine as a Next Generation Leader, his 2020 Japanese book has recently been retitled and translated into English with added content to promote his message that diversity offers hope for the world. "This Monk Wears Heels" is part memoir and part guide to self-love and self-acceptance, proclaiming unapologetically one can be who one really is.

The book succeeds best with Nishimura's stories from his own compelling life. His father is a priest, so Nishimura grew up in a Tokyo Temple in the Pure Land Buddhist sect. As a child, he enjoyed princess role-play, as fairy godmother teaching his classmates how to pretend to be Cinderella.

At home, he'd put on a miniskirt, twirl around, proclaiming, "I'm a girl!" His favorite activity was to dance to the song "Bonjour" from the "Beauty and the Beast" movie.

Although he went to a private high school, classmates called him a "faggot."

"I was barely able to survive," he wrote. "I was constantly depressed and lost. I was not good at academic subjects and I was not able to make any friends. Nobody seemed to have similar interests to me."

He later entered Parsons School of Design in New York. Because so many of his peers were openly gay, he felt safe enough to come out. He started to work as an assistant makeup artist, with many models and celebrities as clients.

Gender-gifted

He considers himself gender-gifted, transcending the binary, "able to think and live beyond the expectations based on gender and provide new or alternative perspectives... perceiving yourself with an optimistic viewpoint."

He seeks to liberate people from living a stereotypical lifestyle.

Much sought after in his field, Nishimura is often asked to work at the annual Miss Universe beauty pageant, as well as join the Miss USA and New York Fashion Week makeup teams.

He reached the pinnacle of fame when he appeared in the Netflix series "Queer Eye: We're in Japan." As an LGBTQ activist, he's spoken at Yale and Stanford Universities as well as the United Nations Population Fund. He's also been profiled on CNN and BBC.

Despite being surrounded by glamour, Nishimura learned by meeting and listening to the stories of top models that "beauty and confidence do not always lead to happiness."

At age 24, he summoned the courage to come out to his parents. His father, also a professor of Buddhist Studies, told him to live the life he wants. Confronting his anxiety about his roots, he "imagined himself becoming stronger as a person by knowing Buddhism," that he needed to have some obstacles and challenges to become mentally mature.

He decided as a disciplined person to train as a monk, "doing something that only I can do on the world stage." He was ordained as a priest in 2015 and serves in his father's temple.

A well-respected Buddhist master informed him that "everybody can be equally liberated. Buddhism is accepting and it doesn't deny anybody based on their sexuality, color, ethnicity, sex, or disability."

Thus, Nishimura doesn't see any conflict between Buddhism and makeup, but rather two distinct mediums accomplishing the same goal. "Everybody should have confidence in their existence physically and mentally."