It’s difficult for me to realize I am now an old man. I am surprised that I have even made it to sixty-eight years old. I wonder if we ever grow out of our childhood fears and insecurities, or if we just get used to them and integrate those into our lives and personalities. As I see the advertisements for back-to-school sales and see the kids in my neighborhood getting ready for school, I’m reminded of my youth. In fact, I don't really feel like an old man; I only notice how old I am because of the way others treat me. When I go to restaurants or any public venue, people call me “sir”. I have spoken about this in the past, but on airplanes, when I fly Southwest Airlines, pretty women will even sit next to me because I am an old man and appear to be safe. If only they could see what is going on in my mind!? In general, I have found that people do treat me much kinder than they were when I was young, or is it me that has changed? After sixty-eight years of life, in my mind’s eye, I am still in my thirties. In a similar vein, I am still the fat, shy kid from the poor part of town. However, there is one thing I have noticed, which is evidence of my senior citizen status. After sixty-eight years, it seems as though there aren’t as many ugly people walking around. Let me clarify, there are probably just as many ugly people now as when I was younger, but I don’t see them as ugly anymore. It reminds me of something the late Rev. Shoki Mori of the Los Angeles Betsuin told my mentor, the late Rev. Russell Hamada.
Rev. Hamada and I were in the Coast District; he was at Mt. View Buddhist Temple, and I was at San Jose Betsuin. BCA still held major conferences with nearly 1,000 attendees. Buddhist Women’s Association (BWA) and Western Young Buddhist League were two of the bigger ones. He and I would often sit next to each other on the “Naijin” and as everyone came forward for Oshoko (incense burning), we would comment, “She’s cute” or “She or he is ugly”. Now you know what the ministers are talking about as we sit in the naijin and you come up for Oshoko. Rev. Hamada told me that at one such conference, Mori Sensei told him, “You are still young because you can discriminate between beautiful and ugly concerning the young women here. When you get to be my age, all the young women are beautiful, just because they are young. (Mori Sensei was probably in his early sixties at the time. Rev. Hamada and I were probably in our thirties.) I finally understand what Mori Sensei was talking about! It only took me thirty years to figure it out.
Growing up, I always felt that I was in the ugly group. I have always wanted to fit in and be one of the cool kids. I wasn’t unpopular or a loner without friends; in fact, I had a lot of friends, but I was the only non-white kid in these groups. If you are a non-Mormon, non-white person in Salt Lake City, it is difficult to fit in. In our teenage years, my friends began dating. I wanted to date, but I was so afraid of rejection. It wasn’t just being Japanese American or non-Mormon; I was also fat and nearly blind. My glasses were the proverbial coke bottle lens. I don’t think being non-Mormon or Japanese American was the problem. I realize that much of the fear was inside myself.My cousin Glen Furubayashi was a cool kid, and he was pretty much like me, but wasn’t fat and didn’t wear glasses. But when we were younger, he was in a rock band, along with a number of the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple members. They were called “The Road Agents”. On one occasion, they even won the battle of the bands. The lead singer was Richard Doi, the bass player was Glen, the keyboardist was Bruce Sakashita, and the drummer was Steven Doi. I think the manager was Robert Fujinami. Glen was 14 years old, and he had a 16-year-old girlfriend who would drive him around. I thought he was so cool. He married her. Back then, I was in junior high school, and Glen was only two years older, but he was cool. And I felt like such a dud, I couldn’t even talk to girls. I believe it is my encounters with various people through the temple that have led me to where I find myself in life. The positive and the negative aspects of the social interactions I have had have created this space that I can call “My life”.
Initially, I began to go to the WYBL conferences in California because it was the first time, I didn’t feel so isolated and different. I didn’t understand why I was so uncomfortable at home, and yet at these BCA conferences, I felt at home. Of course, there were still the cool kids at these conferences and I definitely wasn’t one of them. About ten years ago, Carmela and I went to a dance that was held at one of the BCA conferences. The purpose of the dance was to allow those attending to somewhat relive their years when they attended the WYBL conferences. I had a Deja vu experience while walking into the dance with Carmela. The music was the same type of music, and as we walked in, it felt as though everyone was staring at us, as if they were thinking, “Who are you and why are you here?” Although I was no longer a teenager, but a minister, I had a flashback to when I first went to a WYBL dance. I had to remind myself, you no longer have a reason to be so insecure. You don’t need to try to act cool; you are with Carmela, and you don’t need to ask someone to dance. It was a very strange experience that, after close to thirty years, I was reliving how I was such an outsider when I was now one of the ministers running the conference. I was not an outsider at this conference, but I felt like it. These feelings of inadequacy never go away. This combination of comfort at conferences and my questions about why I felt so insecure otherwise led me to study Buddhism. In Buddhism, specifically Jodo Shinshu, we talk about the meeting of our insecure self with the infinite wisdom and compassion of Amida Buddha as the essence of “Shinjin. ” Amida Buddha does not take away my insecurities; these will always be a part of who I am. Amida Buddha will not make me one of the cool kids. However, the encounter with Amida Buddha allows me to see that I am okay as I am.
I have found that my encounter with Amida Buddha is rooted in the kindness of others. I was not a cool kid, but I had many friends who were cool kids, like my cousin Glen. Some cool kids are not nice, but the kind cool kids made my world a better place. As I said, Amida Buddha will not make you one of the cool kids; Jodo Shinshu does not make you cool. However, Jodo Shinshu has made me realize that, possibly, most people in the world, no matter how cool I may think they are, may not feel so cool. They are also filled with anxiety and fear about what others think about them. The one thing these sixty-eight years of life have taught me is that, whether cool or uncool, kindness is the great equalizer. Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is a teaching that can help make us kinder, and that is what being cool is truly about. We outsiders are the majority. What is sometimes difficult is to try to see the other outsiders as we want to be seen ourselves, fellow human beings, trying the best we can. This is possible within the Nembutsu way of life. Besides, as much as I wasn’t a cool kid, I ended up marrying one of the popular cool girls. I think it was worth all my ups and downs to come to this point in my life, at least married to one of the cool kids. I would never have thought that possible.
I recently came upon this poem, “Outsider” by James Berry OBE. He was a Jamaican poet who lived in the United States for a time and moved to England in the 1940s. His poetry is notable for using a mixture of standard English and Jamaican Patois. His writing focused on the tension he felt between black and white communities. He died at the age of 92 on June 20, 2017. His poem “Outsider” reminded me of what I felt as an outsider, or at least how I perceived myself as an outsider throughout my life. With school beginning, I hope that we adults can teach others that, beyond achieving good grades, school is an excellent opportunity to learn kindness. Suppose you see others mistreating someone different than them. If you can step up and treat themwith kindness, you can not only change that person’s life, but the entire world. We are currently in a time when bullying and mistreating others is modeled by many of our country's leaders. These are not the things that can benefit the world. Kindness can and hopefully prevail. Namo Amida Butsu!
Outsider
If you see me lost on busy streets,
my dazzle is sun-stain of skin,
I'm not naked with dark glasses on
saying barren ground has no oasis:
it's that cracked up by extremes
I must hold self
together with extreme pride.
If you see me lost in neglected
woods, I'm no thief eyeing trees
to plunder their stability
or a moaner shouting at air:
it's that voices in me rule
firmer than my skills, and sometimes
among men my stubborn hurts
leave me like wild dogs.
If you see me lost on forbidding
wastelands, watching dry flowers
nod, or scraping a tunnel
in mountain rocks, I don't open
a trail back into time:
it's that a monotony
like the Sahara seals my enchantment.
If you see me lost on long
footpaths, I don't set traps
or map out arable acres:
it's that I must exhaust twigs
like limbs with water divining.
If you see me lost in my sparse
room, I don't ruminate
on prisoners and falsify
their jokes, and go on about
prisons having been perfected
like a common smokescreen of mind:
it's that I moved
my circle from ruins
and I search to remake it whole.