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Why the Jodo Shinshu Center Is Important Will Be Held Sunday, September 23, Spokane and Moses Lake 2007

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Why the Jodo Shinshu Center Is Important Will Be Held Sunday, September 23, Spokane and Moses Lake 2007 Spokane Buddhist Temple SEPTEMBER 2007 VOLUME 53 ISSUE 9 Page 2 Announcements September Sangha ing will be held in the base- are balanced with equal Services—Our ment at the temple. amount of daylight and Sangha Service night. The idea of balance (Sangha is the San- Seminar - “Static Buddha, in ones’ life does lend itself Spokane Buddhist crit word for Buddhist com- Dynamic Buddha”, Satur- to Buddhist thought. Temple Team munity) day, September 22nd - see Supervising Minister: is a tradi- article inside for details. The Sangha Picnic Has Rev. Don Castro tional Been Rescheduled – Due Seattle Betsuin Fall Higan Service – We Jodo to the many activities al- Minister’s Assistant: will observe this holiday on Paul Vielle Shinshu ready taking place on the Sunday, September 23rd service weekend of September with a Dharma talk by Rev. Board of Directors with 22nd, we will be postponing Don Castro and we will also Christine Marr, President chanting the picnic. A new date has observe Shotsuki-Hoyo. Leslie Green, Vice led by a Doshi. We meet not been chosen yet and President Fall Higan (Higan literally after service for refresh- we will let everyone know Ann Heineman, translates to the Sanskrit ments and discussion. as soon as it is decided. Secretary word “Paramita” which also Liat Parker, Treasurer YBA Meeting, Saturday, “other shore”) is one of the Fumi Uyeji, Auditor We are sorry for any incon- September 15 – We will few religious holidays which Janet Tamura, Board vience to you and hope that Member watch the movie “Kundun” has no direct origin in your schedule will permit Jefferson Workman, which is the story of the 13th Sakyamuni Buddha or a you to join us then. It will Board Member Dalai Lama and his escape founder, it appears to be a Bonell McLeish, Board be at the same location and from Tibet when it was in- distinct Japanese holiday. Member time. vaded by China. The show- This holiday celebrates the Jun Yugawa, Board Member Equinoxes when our days Newsletter Editor Dues and Donations Leslie Green The Spokane Buddhist Temple gratefully acknowledges the following dues and donations. Please notify Fumi Uyeji or Liat Parker of any omissions or errors. Dues are acknowledged when received and are often time for a few months or paid Inside this issue: 2 July 17—Aug. 20, 2007 Dues/Donations Dues In Memory From the Tatami Mat 3 Donations Tina Rodeen Liat Parker in memory One Day Seminar 4 Paul & Karen Vielle Paul & Karen Vielle of Bob Wheeler Rachel Scrudder Rachel Scrudder Heart Shrine Relic Tour 4 Tom Lande Tom Lande Ann Heineman in memory Tina Rodeen Barbara Braden of Bob Wheeler Looking Ahead 5 Kazuko Kirihara Ann Heineman Jim & Shirley Bennett Pat Omine Rachel Scrudder in memory BCA Update 5 Jeff Zahir Stephen Hiromoto of Lachen Joy Leo Kiyohiro Koseke Imamura Family Relic Tour Flyer 6 Leo & Yuriko Kiyohiro Jenifer Johnston 2008 Convention Flyer 7 From the Tatami Mat . Spokane Buddhist Temple Page 3 Walking the Nembutsu Path with Kenji Akahoshi In August of every year, Dr. Kenji Akahoshi from San utterly incapable of liberating ourselves (from our endless Jose, California comes to Spokane to present a three-day cycles of grasping, attainment and frustration)—through Jodo Shinshu retreat. It takes place on the beautiful any kind intentional, calculating ‘practice’. grounds of the Mukogawa Fort Wright Institute. This year nine people attended. Entitled “Nembutsu Journey—A The second component of Amida, the ‘compassion’ part, Path to Wholeness”, the retreat explored the many ways refers to the universal flow of life …beyond all notions of saying the nembutsu (i.e. the sacred name Namo Amida morality, justice or entitlement. It has nothing to do with Butsu) functions to bring joy, clarity and freedom to our the good-bad or right-wrong of a thing. Compassion is everyday lives. what sustains all life on this planet. It’s the result of innu- merable and ever-changing causes and conditions which It is often said that in Jodo Shinshu there is no “practice” allows us to live moment to moment. Compassion sus- as such—no set of prescribed activities like: meditation, tains everything in the universe: the sun, planets, people, alms-giving, burning incense, restricting one’s diet, sutra animals, trees, birds, rivers and rocks. This is another chanting and the like—that one must perform in order to way of saying that everything is interdependent or part of attain liberation. In fact, our founder Shinran Shonin did ‘Oneness’. Amida is wisdom and compassion. It’s all all these things for twenty years as a Tendai monk. After around us at all times, like gravity or air. We don’t ask for all that time, he realized he was still a creature of shallow it. We’re not entitled to it. But it comes to us anyway. desires, lust and greed -- an utter failure as a monk. It was then that he met his teacher Honen, who showed him Awakening to Amida’s presence (i.e. Wisdom & Compas- a different path, the nembutsu path. This is the path of sion in our life) is a totally subjective experience; not Dr. Kenji Akahoshi taking refuge in Amida Buddha. something to be described or explained by the intellect. The best one can do is catch glimpses of it, rather like a Kenji pointed out, that in our tradition (Jodo Shinshu) fleeting intuition, --a knowing beyond words. And what is meditation, chanting and so forth are neither required nor it that one catches-a-glimpse-of? What is this realization Kenji asked us to recommended as forms of “practice”. But they’re not that moves us to proclaim in gratitude, Namo Amida prohibited either. It’s fair to say however, the reciting of Butsu? consider two the nembutsu “Namo Amida Butsu”, (which translates Put clumsily, I think it’s that brief moment, wherein I be- roughly to “I take refuge in Amida Buddha”—or— hold my true nature, namely, that I am an ignorant, fool- questions: “What is “Oneness with Wisdom and Compassion”) comes the ish, deluded being with no hope of thinking or “practicing” closest to anything we might call a practice. my way to liberation. Every thought I have is delusion and the content of this falsehood. That being the case, I have no choice but to We spent quite a bit of time discussing the notion of nem- entrust myself completely to wisdom and compassion wisdom and how butsu as a practice. Kenji clarified that unlike ‘practice’ in (Amida Buddha). When I can do this, really do this, I other traditions, the nembutsu is not goal oriented; that is, become truly free, that is, one with Amida, one with the might this it’s not said with any intent or expectation of ‘gaining universal flow of life. I am able to live my life naturally something’ --like happiness, prosperity, forgiveness or and spontaneously, just as I am—without the constant compassion manifest assurance of benefit-after-death. Rather, nembutsu is an grasping at the world. There is great joy in this realiza- expression of the profound gratitude felt at awakening to tion. One cannot help but exclaim in gratitude and humil- itself in our lives?” Wisdom and Compassion (Amida Buddha) operating in ity, Namo Amida Butsu! Understood this way, it makes our lives. perfect sense to think of nembutsu as our ‘practice’ in Jodo Shinshu. Kenji asked us to consider two questions: What is the content of this wisdom and how might this compassion Throughout the retreat, Kenji led us through several exer- manifest itself in our lives? What follows is my recollec- cises to help us “catch a glimpse” of nembutsu practice in tion of the group’s attempts to answer these questions. our ordinary lives. In one exercise we each took a turn sitting in the “hot seat” for two minutes and silently looked The first component of Amida, the ‘wisdom’ part, has to at the group, while they silently looked back. Speaking do with the Buddha’s discovery of the Truth of Imperma- for myself, I found this a powerful and deeply moving nence. His insights into the human condition: interde- experience. During that exercise, nothing else in the pendence, no-self, emptiness, attachment, suffering, world mattered to me. I felt intimately connected to every- compassion all follow from this single Truth of Imperma- one in the group and for a brief time I forgot myself. It was nence. In Jodo Shinshu, understanding Impermanence a wonderful moment. means recognizing ourselves as foolish, ignorant, de- luded beings, full of greed and blind passions. We don’t All in all, the weekend retreat with Kenji was a most satis- “see” this because we’re so attached to the delusion of fying experience. I’ve come away with a deeper apprecia- the self as something permanent, real and good. The tion of what it means to walk the nembutsu path with my content of wisdom is the insight, that we are helpless to sangha friends. Namo Amida Butsu! see ourselves as we truly are. Because of this, we are Paul Vielle—Minister’s Assistant Page 4 VOLUME 53 ISSUE 9 Seminar - “Static Buddha, Dynamic Buddha” Saturday, September 22nd dhist perspective. The cost is an M.A. in Buddhist Studies from (10:00 am – 3:30 pm). Join Rev. $10 donation for the day, and the Institute of Buddhist Studies. Don Castro and Chaplain Shuri lunch is on your own. You can Saigusa for a one day seminar at bring a sack lunch or visit the Chaplain Shuri Saigusa is or- the temple.
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