Family Promise: July 2016

Mahalo to our Kailua Hongwanji Ohana volunteers who helped to make our participation in Family Promise May 29 – June 5 at the Betsuin a very successful and rewarding dana activity. Volunteers helped to set up the sleep area for our guests, prepare the meals, socialize with the families, sleepover, take down the sleep area and do the laundry. Thank you to Amy Eggers, Pauline and Richard Horita, Amy and Roy Inouye, Janet and Keiji Kukino, Prudence and Allen Kusano, Cynthia and Roy Miyamoto, Rev. David and Irene Nakamoto, Bob Nishita, Gerry and Stephen Ochikubo, Dennis Tashiro, and Ron Yanagisawa.

Your kokua is sincerely and gratefully appreciated!! Our ohana always comes through. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Shirley Yanagisawa

KHBWA: July 2016

The HHMH Hawaii Federation of Buddhist Women’s Assn. extends an invitation to women, ages 17-23 years old, to Japan in the late July to early August in 2017. The purpose of this program is to send 2 delegates to Japan as “exchange students” in accordance with a resolution adopted during the 3rd World Buddhist Women’s Convention in June 1967 “as means of nurturing future leaders for Jodo Shinshu Women’s activities through exposure to Buddhist culture in Japan, oriental culture and youth movement and as a mission of good will.”

For more information please visit the following website http://www.hawaiibwa.org/Student_Exchange/student_exchange.htm.

BWA members are preparing for the upcoming bon dance where they will have a table selling manju and gift items. They are also involved in various capacity from helping with preparations for the food concession to donating food items to feed the bon dance performing groups and temple members after the bon dance is over. 

Joy Nishida

Project Dana: July 2016

When a new client is referred to Kailua Hongwanji’s Project Dana program, we locate where the client lives and try to match them up with a volunteer that lives in the same area. I meet with the family and obtain a signature on a permission document.

We then schedule a meeting for the new client and their volunteer. I normally attend these meetings to do the introductions.

Recently, due to my family commitments, I was unable to attend a new client meeting. Our volunteer; however, found his way to the client’s apartment and discovered that they were around the same age!

They hit it off – and had a lot to talk about!

Betty Okamoto

Obon

Obon is a time when families come together. It is a special time because families being together is truly special. Together they honor their parents and ancestors through the service and have fun together at the bon dances. This family togetherness is not always acknowledged and it is important to realize that the specialness of the time is made special because the family is interacting and feeling the importance of the connection that occurs with family coming together. Imagine what it would be like to not be able to be together as family? The feeling of loneliness is the direct opposite of togetherness, and this for many of us, is something we can understand well.

Obon in the Shinshu tradition is oftentimes called Kangi E or “Gathering of Joy.” Kangi, or joy as it appears in the Ullambana Sutra, should be nurtured and developed to a stage where it is synonymous with “Shinjin Kangi” of the 18th Vow. What we are saying here is that to blissfully trust in me with the most sincere mind brings great joy. The bon service addresses this understanding. Shinran addresses this in the Tannisho, saying:

“Saved by the inconceivable working of Amida’s Vow, we attain birth in the Pure Land thus entrusting ourselves to the Vow, with the thought of saying the nembutusu arising from deep within, immediately do we receive the benefit of being grasped, never to be abandoned.”

During obon, let us be reminded of our gratitude to our parents and ancestors. Through this awareness may we more fully realize the interdependent nature of life and be able to express it in our daily lives. Let us at this time of obon take full advantage of the opportunity for family to come together and realize the specialness of the conditions that allow the family to be together.

Namo Amida Butsu

Rev. David Nakamoto