Happy New Year! Our BCC Theme this year is '2001 - Dharma Odyssey.' Let us all go on a journey with me ....starting with some wise words of wisdom contained in the book Kyo Gyo Shin Sho(True Teaching, Practice, and Realization of the Pure Land Way) and quoting Doshaku's Anrakushu contribution.

   "I have collected true words to aid others in their practice for attaining birth, in order that the process be made continuous, without end and without interruption, by which those who have been born first guide those who come later, and those who are born later join those who were born before. This is so that the boundless ocean of birth and death be exhausted."

    On this journey of life, it is very hard to maintain a sense of connectedness, or consistency. A sense of alienation seems to pervade all that we do. There are any number of causes that we can look to account for this feeling.

    We in the Japanese Canadian community have been quite lucky thus far in that divorce has been, traditionally, a less common experience in our families. Just having access to a relatively stable parental relationship has given us a sense of consistency. Even though we may have rebelled against the perceived boredom involved in stability at times, we still had a sense of firmness and consistency to draw on in our later years, when it really counted.

    Although most of us have managed to stay in the Southern Alberta Area for the majority of our lives, we largely exist in the midst of a transient society. Certainly many of us who are of the same generation as I am, left home to go to school, found work in a different city, and work in a world that may force us to change cities each time that we change jobs, or even as we naturally progress within the same job.

    This can tend to create a situation in which we are always leaving the security and comfort of family and friends that we have made and diving into a new situation that is full of encountering people that we have not really grown close to yet. The more adventurous of us certainly find some enjoyment in encountering new people and places; but even they would have to admit to some feelings of loneliness and discomfort at times.

    The separation from friends and family incur feelings of loneliness and alienation but there is no more complete feeling of loneliness and separation than the one that we experience on the occasion of the death of a loved one. At that time we encounter some very strong and dark emotions.

    The strange thing that few of us are willing to admit to is that we are, in at least some sense, creating this condition for ourselves. Half of the darkness is natural in that a majority of our experiences have to do with physical things metaphysical, it can be very shocking to experience the death of a physical body of someone that we love.

    The other half of the darkness comes from our own fear that maybe all of our experiences ends for us at the moment of death. This fear is absolutely unfounded. The basis of all religious thought is the firm belief that we experience some form of existence after the physical experience that we call death. Religion is merely the manifestation of an inkling that all humans, at all times, have had. Namely that the universe in which we exist is actually an eternal thing, and that we, as parts of it, are also eternal entities.

    Shinran Shonin, in his major work the Kyogyshinsho, quoted from one of the Chinese patriarchs, Doshaku, partly to explain why he adopted the literary form that he chose for his mjaor work but the part that explains why he started the work at all contains one of the basic positions of the Jodo Shinshu belief system. It goes again: I have done this so that "the process be made continuous, by which those who have been born first guide those who come later, and those who are born later join those who were born before." For the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, Birth in the Pure Land, or the Enlightenment experience itself, is not an ending at all. Rather, it is the beginning of a whole new life of guiding others to the same experience that we have had.

    I sometimes feel lonely here in Canada, since my family lives in Japan. Sometimes it feels like they are very far away, I guess because they are. When this feeling gets really dark and depressing, I say the Nembutsu and think that even in the very worst of possibilities, the members of my family and I will be born into the same place called the Pure Land. The Nembutsu then comforts me by reminding me that Amida Buddha cares for me anytime, anywhere.

    We are never really alone, even though we may feel intensely lonely.

   Amida Buddha is never far away; and neither is the Pure Land. The Meditation Sutra states: "Amida Buddha is not far from anyone. His Land of Purity is described as being far away to the West, but it is also within the minds of those who earnestly wish to be with Him."

    My father passed away a long time ago. He died of a stroke at 42 years of age. I was 9 years old at the time. I was very sad and confused when he seemed to go away. My grandmother comforted me by saying; "He is in the Pure Land. He has become a Buddha." This greatly lessened my worries about my father and what happened to him.

    I do not see him literally sitting by my side, or anything like that; but I do feel that, at certain times, he is guiding me. Even though he is gone, physically, I still feel a very strong relationship with him.

    For those of you who have lost someone recently, please try not to be so sad. Yes, the feelings are very dark, but the reality is much brighter. For those of you who wish to recall the thoughts of those who have passed away some time ago, try to make your journey a Dharma Odyssey!

Please join me in Gassho saying the Nembutsu, Namo Amida Butsu.

Submitted by Rev. Nariyuki Hattori