Buddhist Thoughts Newsletter
Happy Hoonko and New Year, Namo Amida Butsu! The traditional New Year greeting in Japanese is “Akemashite Omedetou gozaimasu” it is basically a congratulations on the opening of a new year. This quote I began with is from one of my favorite Buddhist writers Sharon Salzberg. Although, she is referring to the first of the Noble eightfold path, I think it is an appropriate explanation for the Buddhist view of greeting the new year. Although everyday can be viewed as a good day, the New Year season allows us to aspire and see it as a good year.
This has been the first Thanksgiving in many years when all three of Carmela and my daughters, Katie, Kacie and Taylor have been together for Thanksgiving. We now have a new member “Arrow Raja” Katie’s new baby boy. Yes, there are son in laws, boyfriends etc. However, from personal experience I understand that these may come and go, so I am just including the immediate family. However, for my holiday traditions, I like to include all the in laws, boyfriends, girlfriends etc. and cousins, friends of my family who come to my home for the Thanksgiving meal.
How many of you watched the game with the University of Utah (U of U) and University of Southern California (USC) on Saturday October 21? I know there are many of you who may not be fans of the University of Utah or even like college football. But I love watching college football. I am not a jock in any form. However, I do like college football.
Of my experiences on my long spiritual journey, one of the most surprising has been my encounter with the European Shin Buddhist Conference (ESC), particularly those held at Eko Haus in Dusseldorf, Germany. I feel a personal connection with Eko Haus which was founded by Mr. Yehan Numata in 1988. He was a friend of my grandparents in Los Angeles in the early 1900s.
When Carmela and I were first married, she asked me what does “Okusan” mean? Because members of the temple, especially the older members would call her “Okusan”. I explained it meant “woman behind the man”. She asked me, “What do you call a woman in front of the man? I gave her a one-word explanation, “Jama” (Obstacle). Of course, I was joking, it is a very obvious realization that without women, there would be no man.
This summer has been very busy and hectic. However, if I compare it to the lockdown of the Covid Pandemic, I will take busy and hectic any day. During the Covid lockdown, I did have the opportunity to visit our 48 contiguous states. I would not have been able to do that without the pandemic. Isn’t it interesting how some of the worst times, can be some of the best times.
When the one thought moment of joy arises
Nirvana is attained without severing blind passions
When ignorant and wise, even grave offenders and slanders of the
Dharma, all alike turn about and enter shinjin,
They are like the waters that, on entering the ocean, become
One in taste with it.
Shoshin Nembutsu ge
As for me, Shinran, I have never said the nembutsu even once for the repose of my departed father and mother. For all sentient beings, without exception have been our parents and brothers and sisters in the course of countless lives in many states of existence. On attaining Buddhahood after this present life, we can save everyone of them.
Tannisho: Chapter 5 CWS 664
It is hard for us to abandon this old home of pain, where we have been transmigrating for innumerable kalpas down to the present, and we feel no longing for the Pure Land of peace, where we have yet to be born. Truly, how powerful our blind passions are! But though we feel reluctant to part from this world, at the moment our karmic bonds to this Saha world run out and helplessly we die, we shall go to that land.
Tannisho CWS pg. 666
Ryogemon or Statement of Conviction was written by Rennyo Shonin and is still recited to this day. It is the bane of most students preparing to take their ordination “Tokudo”, for it must be memorized in Japanese. Rennyo wrote this in establishing Hongwanji, finally settling down after years of persecution. He returned to Kyoto and retired to a small area at the mouth of the Yodo river
Carmela, Kacie and I returned from the Philippines last night. Except for a few glitches in luggage, it was a good trip. My one suggestion is never travel Asiana Airlines. I have done a lot of traveling and I have been fortunate to have never lost luggage. I would guess over one hundred domestic flights and a dozen or more international. However, o
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.
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
