JUST SAY MAHALO®

  We are unhappy because we make ‘me’ the center of everything 苦しいのは 自分を中心に しているからだ Takayama Betsuin Shōren-ji Gifu, Japan

Definitely Back in Japan #32: a mountain of aluminum cans and plastic bottles—it’s the weekly recyclable trash collection day. In Honolulu, collecting cans and bottles is an important source of income for homeless people since each can/bottle is worth $0.05 for its deposit redemption value. Thus, cans and bottles placed outside like this would disappear…

Definitely Back in Japan #31: nice lady with a megaphone urging the neighborhood to vote for the Communist Party of Japan (note: this is entirely legal and allowed under the election laws of Japan, although it did wake up the baby next door).

Mimy has been making Hongwanji-style nenju using Hawaiian kukui nuts as the beads with carved wood oyadama, shitennō, bosa, and colorful cords purchased in Kyoto! ミミが作っている本願寺スタイルのお念珠はハワイのククイナッツと京都で購入した木彫りの親玉と四天王とボサや多彩な色の紐を利用。

I am profoundly grateful to Chuo Bukkyo Gakuin for the chance to chant the entire liturgy of the Three Pure Land Sutra (the Sutra on the Buddha of Infinite Life, the Sutra on the Contemplation of the Buddha of Infinite Life, and the Sutra on the Buddha Amida), the foundation of Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha doctrine.…

After the Typhoon, a Rainbow in Kyoto 台風の後、虹の京都 “My eyes being hindered by blind passions, I cannot perceive the light that grasps me; Yet the great compassion, without tiring, Illumines me always.” Shinran Shōnin Hymns of the Pure Land Masters 煩悩にまなこさへられて 摂取の光明みざれども 大悲ものうきことなくて つねにわが身をてらすなり 親鸞聖人 高僧和讃