The building was in good repair and obviously loved and cared for by the congregation.
View of the main altar from the kitchen.
Main Altar with Kanzeon
Category Archives: Teachings
Every Day, is Every Day.
And then there are the people who do the hard work sweeping up the fallen leaves and petals.
There is a saying in Zen Buddhism which goes “Every day is a good day”. Ms. Yoko, who we met for lunch yesterday in Nagoya, remembered her teacher Yogo Roshi saying “Every day is every day”!
The late Yogo Roshi was one of Rev. Master’s Jiyu Kennett’s Dharma teachers when she was in Japan.
Eiko the Cook.
You might want to go and read one of the comments attached to the posting titled Eiko. Edera, Iains wife, kindly translated a posting Eiko had put on her blog around the time we had lunch at her place. Eiko is a cook we might want to take example from in terms of her attitude of mind as well as her wonderful ability to make food that feeds not only the body.
Crossing the Road.
This afternoon when we were out in the car we gave way to a school girl who wanted to cross in front of us. First she bowed to acknowledge the offer then walked briskly across the road and then turned and bowed again in the direction of the car. This, apparently, is relatively normal behaviour for young school children.
Earlier Edera, Iain’s wife, saw this Haiku on the side of the road:
If you hold the wheel
With the Buddha Mind
No accident will happen.
The green mountains are forever walking
*From the Shobogenzo, (The Eye and Treasury of the True Law), chapter Sansuikyo, “The mountain and river Sutras” by Great Master Dogen. Note: In some translations of this chapter the above quote reads “The green mountains are forever moving…”
This morning I woke with the words of something I wrote while I was out walking a couple of days ago. You can see part of it over there to the left under the title to this ‘Blog’, (that’s short for ‘Web Log’ by the way). Here is the whole piece:
Rise up!
Rise up and greet the dawn.
Step out!
Step out and the Great Earth,
Leaps joyfully.
Walk on!
Walk on and forget…
It is said that the Great Earth is the foundation of gratitude and refers to the fundamental ground of Everything. That’s a ‘great’ larger than normal conceptions.
So, now there are many hours in the air with Air Canada, 18 hours I think.