Nembutsu

Grounded in the Nembutsu (December 21)

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We warmly welcome you to join us in person at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple for our Family Dharma Service on Sunday, December 21.

As Rev. Henry prepares to complete his service as SMBT Resident Minister with the Joya-e New Year’s Eve Observance, this Sunday will mark his last regular Dharma Service before he begins his new assignment at the San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin on January 1. His Dharma Talk will reflect upon how the Nembutsu teaching provides us with a stable foundation to navigate life’s many changes.

Schedule
8:30 a.m. Shoya Raisan Chanting (click here for chanting text)
9:00 a.m. Sangha Social Hour
9:30 a.m. Dharma Service
10:30 a.m. Japanese Language Service 日本語法要 (Hondo)
10:30 a.m. Dharma Discussion (In person only in Dharma Room)

To join us for this online Dharma Service, CLICK HERE to sign up for “Live Broadcast of Services”.

Grounded in the Nembutsu (December 14)

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We warmly welcome you to join us in person at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple for our Family Dharma Service on Sunday, December 14.

Over the past 12 years at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple, Rev. Henry has heard the sound of “Namo Amida Butsu” fill the Hondo Buddha Hall whenever the Sangha gathers. This Sunday, he will offer a Dharma talk reflecting on the Sangha friends who have shared their grateful Nembutsu, celebrating in times of joy and taking comfort in times of difficulty.

This Dharma talk is part of a series of talks exploring the five circumstances that Rennyo Shonin identified as necessary for attaining the life of peace and bliss: 

  1. Stored good from the past
  2. A good spiritual teacher
  3. Amida Buddha’s light of wisdom
  4. The entrusting heart
  5. Namo Amida Butsu (The Name of Amida Buddha)

Schedule
8:30 a.m. Shoya Raisan Chanting (click here for chanting text)
9:00 a.m. Sangha Social Hour
9:30 a.m. Dharma Service
10:30 a.m. Shotsuki Hoyo Monthly Memorial (Hondo)
10:30 a.m. Dharma Discussion (Dharma Room)

To join us for this online Dharma Service, CLICK HERE to sign up for “Live Broadcast of Services”.

The Entrusting Heart (November 30)

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We warmly welcome you to join us in person at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple for our Family Dharma Service on Sunday, November 30.

On any journey through unfamiliar territory, having a reliable guide one can trust is essential. This Sunday Rev. Henry will share a Dharma talk about how the heart of entrusting in the Buddha’s wisdom can guide us through difficult and chaotic times in life.

This Dharma talk is part of a series of talks exploring the five circumstances that Rennyo Shonin identified as necessary for attaining the life of peace and bliss: 

  1. Stored good from the past
  2. A good spiritual teacher
  3. Amida Buddha’s light of wisdom
  4. The entrusting heart
  5. Namo Amida Butsu (The Name of Amida Buddha)

Schedule
8:30 a.m. Shoshinge Sofu Chanting
9:00 a.m. Sangha Social Hour
9:30 a.m. Dharma Service
10:30 a.m. Japanese Language Service 日本語法要 (Hondo)
10:30 a.m. Dharma Discussion (Dharma Room)

To join us for this online Dharma Service, CLICK HERE to sign up for “Live Broadcast of Services”.

 

Flowers that Bloom in the Springtime

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Growing up in Minnesota, I spent many hours in the autumn helping my mother in our family flower gardens.  We would clear out the dead plants and prepare the soil for the flowers my mother had planned for the following spring.  I remember one afternoon in early November when I was planting flower bulbs and thinking to myself, why are we putting these plants in the ground now, when the soil will be frozen for the next four months?

The following year in April when the snow finally melted, a bed of beautiful tulips and crocuses bloomed in the spot where the bulbs had been planted.  I marveled at how life had carried on through a long period where it seemed that everything in that place had died and then resurfaced with such striking beauty.  Life had not ceased in the garden.  It simply took on another form.  Today, recalling the understanding of the cycle of nature that I learned seeing those flowers bloom as a child, I can appreciate how conditions from the past bear fruit in the present.

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The Great Sage, the World-honored One

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From The Letters of Rennyo Shonin (Gobunsho) Fascicle 3, Letter 4

When we carefully consider the transiency of human life, we realize that the living will certainly end in death and that the prosperous will eventually decline. This is how life is in the human world. Even so, we vainly live days and nights, spending months and years to no purpose. Indeed, we may lament about it, but I feel that we could never really comprehend the true extent of this pitifully sad situation.

How true it is that impermanence is difficult to escape for all, from the Great Sage, the World-honored One, at the highest level, to Devadatta, who committed evil acts and grave offenses, at the lowest.

Moreover, to receive life as a human being is indeed rare and difficult, and even more so is it the opportunity to encounter the Buddha Dharma, the way of emancipation from birth-and-death through practices of self-power is difficult to follow at the present time in the latter days. Therefore, our lives would be spent in vain unless we encountered the Primal Vow of Amida Tathagata.

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The Peace of Mind We Receive from Sakyamuni Buddha

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In February, we observe our Nirvana Day Service commemorating Sakyamuni Buddha’s passing from this world into the lasting peace of parinirvana.  In departing from this world, Sakyamuni embodied the essential truth that all who are born into human life will eventually pass through the gate of death.  Given that our bodily form will not last forever, where shall we find meaning and purpose in this life?  Observing the world in which we live, it seems that many lives are devoted to the pursuit of fame and profit.  Shinran Shonin himself concludes his Hymns of the Dharma-Ages with the following verse:

I am such that I do not know right and wrong
And cannot distinguish false and true;
I lack even small love and small compassion,
And yet, for fame and profit, enjoy teaching others.

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Great Compassion is Untiring and Illumines Me Always

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Heartbreaking news arrives daily from the Middle East, the war in Ukraine rages on, and gun violence in America continues unabated, reminding us that the darkness of greed, anger, and ignorance continue to prevent the people of this world from recognizing our shared humanity.  In discouraging times like this, I find comfort and hope for the future in gathering with friends from other religious traditions to affirm our shared wishes for a world in which peace and kindness prevail.  Recent conversations with Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Christian friends have reminded me that many of the world’s religious traditions observe festivals that celebrate light transforming darkness, such as Ramadan, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Diwali.

In the Buddhist traditions of Japan, Bodhi Day, the day of Sakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, is observed on December 8.  This service is a time when we reflect on Siddhartha Gautama’s heroic journey in search of the light of clear wisdom that shines through the darkness of ignorance and mistaken thinking. 

In the traditional telling of the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment, it is said that as the moment of his awakening approached, a brilliant light shone forth from the place where he sat in meditation.  When Mara, the Demon King of Illusion, saw this light, he knew that Siddhartha was about to transcend the world of illusion and break free from Mara’s control in the unending cycle of birth and death.  Mara came at Siddhartha with the full force of his army of illusion in the hope of disrupting Siddhartha’s meditation. 

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All the Sacred Scriptures

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From The Letters of Rennyo Shonin (Gobunsho) Fascicle 5, Letter 9

The essential point of the settled mind in our tradition lies simply in the meaning of the six-character Name, “Na-mo-a-mi-da-butsu” (literally, paying homage to Amida Buddha).

This means that when we pay homage － “namo” － to Amida Buddha, we are immediately saved by the Buddha. So the two-character word, “na-mo,” means to take refuge.

“To take refuge” means that we, sentient beings, setting aside various practices, entrust ourselves unwaveringly to Amida Buddha for our emancipation in the afterlife Accordingly, Amida Tathagata, knowing this fully, saves all of us, without exception.

Thereupon, since Amida Buddha saves the sentient beings who entrust themselves － “namo” － to the Buddha, the six-character Name, “Na-mo-a-mi-da-butsu,” manifests how we, sentient beings, are all saved without discrimination.

For this reason, when we speak of attaining the entrusting heart of Other Power, we find that it is exactly what the six-character Name, “Na-mo-a-mi-da-butsu,” means. We should, therefore, realize that all the sacred scriptures indeed are solely meant to make us entrust ourselves to the six-character Name, “Na-mo-a-mi-da-butsu.”

Humbly and respectfully.

This Marvelous Human Life

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This past month we had the opportunity to gather three generations of our family at the Grand Canyon when my wife and I traveled with our sons to join my parents in celebrating their golden wedding anniversary at a place they visited on their engagement trip 50 years prior.  We had all visited the Grand Canyon together five years ago on the occasion of my father’s 70th birthday.  Plans are already in the works for another visit in five years’ time to celebrate my father’s 80th birthday.

I find the Grand Canyon to be an ideal place to reflect upon the passage of time in our lives.  Viewing the layers upon layers of rock that were formed over millions of years, and then gradually carved out by the waters of the Colorado River, the flow of time is on display in a rare and magnificent fashion.

On this trip, we learned that the canyon continues to evolve as the river flows like sandpaper, carrying sediment and boulders in its current.  When the spring snowmelt comes down from the Rocky Mountains, strong flows of water carry boulders the size of automobiles that scrape against the riverbed, helping to carve the canyon even deeper through the layers of hard, dry rock. Even with all these dramatic and powerful forces of nature at work, a park ranger told us, “You can come back in 50 years and the canyon will be deeper by about the thickness of one Harry Potter book.” 

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A Place to Hear the Nembutsu

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During the month of October we observe our annual memorial service in honor of Shinran Shonin’s wife Eshinni, their youngest daughter Kakushinni, and the many the Buddhist women who have passed the joy of the Nembutsu down through the generations.  Following Shinran Shonin’s birth in the Pure Land, Kakushinni provided land and received support from Shinran’s followers in the Kanto region to build a hexagonal mausoleum dedicated to his memory.

Kakushinni took responsibility for the care and maintenance of the mausoleum and made an agreement with the Kanto followers that her descendants would continue to serve as its caretakers in the future generations.  That hall is called the Otani Mausoluem (Jpn. Otani Honbyo) and is considered to be the precursor to our present-day mother temple, the Hongwanji.  Down through the generations, the descendants of Shinran Shonin have maintained the Hongwanji as a place where we can come together to share in the joy of the nembutsu.  In many ways the Hongwanji temple serves as model for our activities at the San Mateo Buddhist Temple.

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