JUST SAY MAHALO®

Category: Uncategorized

  • RACIST LIKE ME

    (originally broadcast on KZOO radio, AM1210, Honolulu, October 18, 2025) “Aloha! My name is Kerry and I’m a racist.” Which is ironic because I grew up as a “JAP” in Los Angeles of the 60s and 70s, and then lived in Japan for two decades. I was born the second son of second-generation Japanese Nisei…

  • Be True to Yourself, Be NamoAmidaButsu! 

    “Saying the Name is in itself mindfulness; mindfulness is the nembutsu; the nembutsu is Namu-amida-butsu.” —Shinran-shōnin (1173-1263), Passages on the Pure Land Way Collected Works of Shinran, Vol. 1, p. 296 “Be true to yourself” is a fashionable expression of the philosophy of not worrying about pleasing other people, living up to someone else’s standards,…

  • “There’s Too Much Time”

    When I consider deeply the Vow of Amida, which arose from five kalpas of profound thought, I realize that it was entirely for the sake of myself alone! Then how I am filled with gratitude for the Primal Vow, in which Amida resolved to save me, though I am burdened with such heavy karma. Shinran…

  • Reality-as-it-is vs. Reality-as-My-Ego-Wants

    Barkley the Dog and Lucy the Lady Bug present the Children’s Dharma Story Time book, “Who Pooped on Me?” by written by David Cunliffe and illustrated by Ivan Barbera. Which is a tough act to follow but I do my best by exploring the idea of “reality” from a “self”-centered human perspective, and “reality-as-it-is,” which…

  • Just Bon Dance Like a Fool!

    “Persons of the Pure Land tradition attain birth in the Pure Land by becoming their foolish selves.” —Shinran Shōnin, quoting his great teacher Hōnen Shōnin, founder of Jōdo-shū, in Lamp for the Latter Ages, Fascicle 6, CWS, Vol 1, page 531 Did you know the English phrase “bon dance” is unique to Hawaii? In Japan,…

  • “In anpan veritas” IN ANPAN, TRUTH

    When people ask me what I miss about living in Japan, I honestly tell them, “Anpan!” — the perfect bun filled with sweetened bean paste! Anpan was a major discovery when I was an exchange student in Tokyo in the early 1980s—the perfect fusion of a Western-style bread and Japanese-style sweets. In the 2010s, I…

  • I Love Japanese Branding #17

    Drip Coffee “Arigatō” (“thank you”)