Buddhist Thoughts is the SLC Buddhist Temple newsletter which is mailed to Temple members each month. Here we provide excerpts from archival Buddhist Thoughts.

2001 June

Golf, Dharma, and Parents
by J.K. Hirano

"Golf has probably kept more people sane than psychiatrists have."

-- Harvey Penick

"Golf is good for the soul. You get so mad at yourself you forget to hate your enemies."

-- Will Rogers 

This year is the first year that I have really begun to enjoy golfing.  Maybe it’s the fact that I have finally realized I will never be a great golfer, or even a good one.  Just going on the course and enjoying the company of the people I am playing with and just to play the game as best as I can.  This is enough and extremely enjoyable in and of itself.  Maybe this is how we can each enjoy our lives more.  It is very difficult to be a perfect human being.  In realizing that I will never be perfect or even close to being perfect.  If I could just be happy with the fact that I was born a human being.  Then to live as the best human being I can be and just enjoy the company of those playing the game with me.   

While on the golf course, I can’t really remember anyone that I have disliked while I was playing the game, even when they may have taken money from me, by beating me, which is the norm.  To just laugh at the bad shots and cheer one another on at the great shots.  In this way we get to share our sense of humanity with one another, the good times and the bad.  Isn’t this what friendship and life is all about?           

Over the past week, I played four full rounds of golf.  I’m used to playing nine holes about three times a month.  Physically I’m not in shape for four full rounds.  In one week, I played more than I do in two months.  However, during those rounds, I was able to meet some new people and learn more about life in general.  On Sunday after our Gotan E service, Rev. Ogui, our guest speaker from Chicago, and I played golf with my father and Paul Terashima.  We got to know about one another and we were talking about our parents.  I told him how my father and I try to get out together and play nine holes once a week.  He thought that was great that we were able to enjoy our lives together.  I asked him about his parents and he told me his mother was still alive, 96 years old, living in Saga, Japan.  I asked him if she had visited him in the United States.  He said she had, once while he has in San Francisco and once while he was in the Midwest.           

He told me this story about her visit in San Francisco.  The Buddhist temple in San Francisco is in the heart of the city, near Japan town.  The minister’s residence is an apartment in the temple.  Rev. Ogui’s mother doesn’t speak any English and had never been to the United States before.  However, one day, when Rev. Ogui came back to the apartment, there were three large rather dirty looking Caucasian men sitting in his apartment.  To say the least, he was a little surprised and immediately went to see if his mother was all right.  He found her in the kitchen, smiling and preparing food.  He asked her, “Whom are those men sitting there!?”  She smiled and said, “They were standing around outside and looked hungry, so I invited them to come in and eat.”  Rev. Ogui said, “You have to be careful here, this isn’t like Japan.”  She agreed and explained,  “I was surprised that in a rich country like America, there are people going hungry.”  He said, “How do you know they are hungry, you don’t even speak English?”  She smiled and said, “I’m a mother.  I don’t need to speak English to see that they were hungry.”   

They fed the men and the men thanked them and left.  Even though he had to caution his mother about letting strangers into the apartment, he learned about his mother’s character.  We both laughed and said how lucky we were to have such kind parents.  We agreed our parents were much kinder and gentler than either of us personally, and we realized that it is our exposure to the inherent kindness of both our parents’ character that had allowed us to become ministers.           

My next golfing experience came about in Wendover, Nevada, at the Beehive golf tournament.  Since we didn’t have service on Sunday, I invited one of my best friends from L.A., to golf with me in the tournament.  My friend, loves to golf and to gamble.  We have known each other for close to 20 years, from our time in Berkeley.  While in Berkeley, we worked in the same Japanese market and had a lot of fun together.  He was at U.C. Berkeley studying, while I was at IBS.  He left to further his studies in Tokyo about six months before I left for Kyoto.  He greeted Rev. Matsumoto and I when we arrived in Tokyo and helped us make our connections to Kyoto.  On many of my school breaks and vacations, I would visit him in Tokyo or at his grandmother, Uncle and Aunt’s  home in Hiroshima.  As our lives moved forward we lived in different cities, he moving back to L.A., when I was in San Jose.  However, we always stayed in touch and remained close.  When I divorced, he was one of the people to make sure I was okay.  We both married at about the same time, he for the first and I for the second.  Before our impending marriages, we discussed what we wanted in our married lives.  He now has two boys about the same age as Kacie and Taylor.  When I’m in L.A. I can always depend upon him to take me around.  We call each other often and discuss many things, mostly kids, wives, career and golf.

 For this Memorial Day weekend, our wives Lori and Cheryl gave us passes and allowed us to go and play for the weekend.  When he got off the plane we were both so excited about our upcoming weekend.  He said he couldn’t sleep the night before thinking about his trip. I admitted I hadn’t slept very much either.  I was awake by 6:00 am looking forward to our trip.  Both of us said, “Wow, it’s like we’re bachelors again.”  We high fived and giggled like little school girls all the way to Wendover. 

Friday night when we arrived in Wendover, we were having a great time.  I suggested we get to sleep before 2:00 am since we have to golf tomorrow.  He reluctantly agreed but said, “I don’t know if I want to sleep.  I can sleep in L.A., it seems that I’m wasting my free time with sleep.”  However, we did get to sleep by 2:00.  We were no longer young men, gone were the days of not sleeping for a weekend of play.  

At the golf course the next morning, we both asked each other how we slept and if our snoring kept one another up.  He said he didn’t sleep that great, but it wasn’t my snoring, it felt strange to not have  his kids around.  I agreed, with a somewhat solemn look saying “Yeah, it sure was nice of Lori and Cheryl to let us play hope everything is okay at home.”  Then I burst into a big smile and said, “But we still have two days of golf and another night at the casino!”  Another high five and more giggles, the time passed quickly, golf and another evening of gambling.   

On the golf course the next morning, he was talking to his wife on his cell phone.  I asked him if everything was okay.  He said it was, “I just thought I better make sure everything’s okay.”  I asked him if he slept okay.  He said, “I got to sleep pretty good, but I kept dreaming about my family.  Man…I can’t even get away while I’m hundreds of miles away and in my sleep.”  We both laughed about our change in life’s situation.  I realized this is the life of a parent.  Even when we are physically separated from our children and families.  Our true selves are with them always, in mind and heart.           

There are many reasons to golf.  This weekend I learned that, golf can reflect life.  Or maybe, it is that we are able to really see the important aspects of our lives, while we play the game of golf.  The unconditional love of a parent for their child.  The deep gratitude for our parents.  The importance of friendship and family.  Golf as an avenue to appreciate the Dharma.  Thank you doesn’t seem adequate an expression.  It must be, “Namo Amida Butsu.”

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