Salt Lake Buddhist Temple

When I was a child, the New Year was all about having to go back to school, thinking of the Christmas toys I had already broken and how many mochis I would get to eat that day. My Mom tried to restrict me to six mochi on New Year Day, two at Bachan’s (Grandma) in the morning, two at her Mom’s at lunch and two more at dinner back at Bachan’s.

In science and religious circles, there is a term called “magical thinking” or “magical ideation” and it is connected to a belief in God. Magical thinking is to believe something that has no basis in empirical truth. 

With the immigration of Japanese to America and Hawaii at the onset of the Meiji era 1868 to 1912, these Japanese immigrants who were 99 percent Buddhist, requested their Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji Ha (Nishi Hongwanji) in Kyoto, Japan to send priests. Thus began the migration of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism to America.

When I was in High School, I remember clearly thinking about who I was and who I wanted to be. I had just turned 16. My parents had bought me a 1967 Dodge Charger. My Dad wanted me to get a 1965 Ford Mustang. As with so many things at that time in my life, I didn’t want a mustang, not just because my dad thought I should. I

The nembutsu, for its practicers, is not a practice or a good act. Since it is not performed out of one’s own designs, it is not a practice. Since it is not good done through one’s own calculation, it is not a good act. Because it arises wholly from Other Power and is free of self-power, for the practicer, it is not a practice or a good act.

Chapter 8 Tannisho

Obon, Obon it’s festival day!

We will gather friends all along the way

and bring fruits and vegetables for the shrine.

Like Mogallana many, many years ago.

Obon, Obon it’s festival day!

All our humble thanks we will here convey,

to our dearly loved ones who lived in the past.

With nembutsu, nembutsu ‘pon our lips.

Obon, Obon it’s festival day!

O’ the streets are lined with our lanterns gay,

and the wind bells twinkling a top the trees.

Sway to and fro, to and fro in the breeze.

Obon, Obon it’s festival day!

Words and music by Yumiko Hojo

“Faith, then, is a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service: a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, and meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen to oneself at the level of immediate event. Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe and confusion, affluence and sorrow, unperturbed; face opportunity with conviction and drive, and face others with cheerful charity.”

The meaning and end of religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith

I wrote this article a few years ago. However, since our temple and BCA temples are trying to get back to a pre pandemic open temple system, I would really like us to remember what I hope we will strive for as a temple culture (Sangha).

I recently discovered this book How Do You Live? first published in 1937. It was written in Japan by Genzaburo Yoshino. The Japanese title is Kime tachi wa do ikiru ka? In English, it is translated as How Do You Live? After I read it, I couldn’t believe I had never heard of this book before. It was one of those surprises when you find something amazing. I found this book quite by accident. I was searching for another book by my favorite author Neil Gaiman and in the google search, this book came up because he had written a foreword to the first English translation of this book published in 2021.

If we can look upon our lives as being rare and wondrous events, then we will truly have lived.
If we are able to realize this realm of gratitude,
in which we are able to live-and-die in gassho,

then what else could we need?
Bearer of Light Rev. Jitsuen Kakehashi