FreeVol. 8

2017
SpringCherry Blossoms 桜

For Better or Worse
What does it mean to be happy? The
common understanding is that happiness means feeling good for somereason. But now we need to ask again:
What kind of reason? What actually
makes us feel good? If we give it somethought, most of us will probably agree
that good feeling arises when things go
our way – when the world responds
positively to our wishes and actions. In
other words, we are happy when wesucceed.
That is certainly a valid part of how weunderstand happiness. But it also has aflip side: If our happiness depends onsuccess, it means that there can be nogood feeling when we fail. To succeed is
to be happy, to fail is to be unhappy. Butlife is full of things that don’t go our way,and even those that do, seldom succeed in a complete way. Does it meanthat we are doomed to spend most of

our time in some kind of unhappiness?
As long as we understand happinessas depending on external things, theanswer to that must be yes. But luckily,
feeling happiness doesn’t have to be constrained by this limited definition. It canbe something larger than merely reacting
to events according to the degree towhich they seem to benefit us.
The things that happen in the world
don’t take place in isolation. They are interconnected—influencing, changing, andcreating one another in an infinite numberof ways. Buddhism calls this interconnectedness of all things “dependent arising.” Since we have no way of knowing all
the possible effects and ramifications ofany single event, it often becomes impossible to tell in real time whether an eventis in fact good or bad. Something thatmakes us unhappy can lead to happythings later on; something that feels good

now can end up being a cause forregret, or may itself be the positive
result of past misfortunes.
Yes, some things are unquestionable disasters while others are unquestionable blessings—but most areneither. How we classify them andreact to them depends on the larger
context, which takes time to know andappreciate. But one thing is certain:
what feels pleasant is closely linked towhat feels unpleasant. Success canlead to failure, and failure can givebirth to success. This means that weshould start looking more favorably at
bad things, and perhaps, less enthusiastically at good things. And above all,to find stable happiness, we need tolook elsewhere—into our own soul.
(Dan Bornstein)Leaves of ScriptureEndless Worries
A recent survey of young mothers andfathers published in a magazine foundthat they wanted money, houses, andcars. Of course, these are among thenecessities of modern life. But does
more money lead to more happinessor make our worries go away? Weoften hear news of people killing eachother over money. And while people

think owning a house will lead to acarefree, worry-free life, owning ahouse comes with its own set ofworries in the form of loans, fires,burglaries, and so on. Money, houses,and cars. We are worried if we havethem, and worried if we don’t. What are
we to do in this situation? Buddhism
has made it clear that attachment tosuch things is at the very root of oursuffering. While we may think having
things leads to happiness and it isunhappy to not have them,Buddhism teaches that attachment
to either state controls us andcauses us to suffer.

The Sutra of Infinite LifeThe Sutra of the Buddha of Infinite
Life, also known as the Sutra ofImmeasurable Life and the Longer
Sukhāvatīvyūha, is one of the three
Pure Land sutras, along with the Contemplation Sutra (Sutra on the Meditation of the Buddha of Immeasurable
Life) and the Amida Sutra (ShorterSukhāvatīvyūha). Set as a discussion
between Śākyamuni Buddha, Ānanda,and Maitreya, it first explains how
Hōzō Bodhisattva made forty-eightvows regarding his future Pure Landand its inhabitants, and then engaged
in “inconceivable millions of longcosmic ages” of practices, after which
MON Vol. 8 2017 Spring

he became Amida Buddha and his Pure
Land a reality. The best known of Hōzō
Bodhisattva’s vows is the eighteenth,which states that sentient beings will beable to be reborn in the Pure Landthrough the nenbutsu. This land is said
to be a place of bliss in the West filledwith various kinds of jewel trees (suchas ones with “roots made of lapis-lazuli,
trunks of crystal, branches of coral,boughs of agate, leaves of mother-of-pearl, flowers of purple gold, andfruits of white silver”), “ten thousand
varieties of spontaneous music,” aswell as ponds, with water “most sweetto taste, like ambrosia.” English transla-tions of this sutra can be found in
Luis O. Gomez’s The Land of Bliss(Honolulu: University of Hawai’iPress, 1996), from which the above
quotations were taken. (Cited fromInagaki, Hisao, 1984. A Dictionary ofJapanese Buddhist Terms. Kyoto:Nagata Bunshōdō, p. 215; and Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, s.v. “無量壽經 Sutra of Immeasurable Life,”
accessed 23 March 2017, http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?q=%E7%84%A1%E9%8
7%8F%E5%A3%BD%E7%B6%93)

Things Worth Knowing about Shin Buddhism

Kikyoshikio
Question: Inside the main hall, I saw
one of the priests standing behind afollower, performing some kind ofceremony, during which he touches
the followers head with a razor. Whatkind of ceremony is this?
Answer: This ceremony is calledkikyōshiki.
Kikyoshiki is a ceremony, in which
one takes refuge in the Buddha’s
teaching, leaving the self-centered
lifestyle behind. In other words, it is aceremony, in which one vows tobecome a disciple of the Buddha.
During this ceremony, one recites the“threefold refuge.” Threefold refugemeans taking refuge in the “three treasure,” the Buddha, the dharma, andthe sangha. The Buddha is the person
who attained perfect awakening, his
teaching is the dharma, and the community that follows this teachings isthe sangha. One vows to make thesethree treasures the center of one’s

everyday life. The head is not reallyshaven, but the priest touches thefollowers head three times with therazor to symbolically shave it. “Iwant to win against others,” “I want
to be famous and powerful,” “I want
to become rich,” these thoughts arealso called “the three queues.” The
priest touches the followers head
three times to cut away thesethoughts.

Question: What is hōmyō?
Answer: Hōmyō is the Buddhist name one receives during kikyōshiki. Usually, this name consists of three Chinesecharacters. The first character is always the same. It is the first character of Śākyamuni, the historical Buddha’s name,when written in Chinese. In Japanese, this character is read as “shaku,” therefore every hōmyō begins with shaku atits beginning. We receive our names from our parents, but our Buddhist name is a name we receive, when we becomea disciple of the Buddha.

Question: Where does kikyōshiki take place?
Answer: At Higashi Honganji, the head temple of our denomination, the Shinshū Ōtani-ha, and at all affiliated temples.

Question: What are the people, who participate kikyōshiki, wearing around their shoulders?
Answer. This is called ryaku kataginu in Japanese. It is a ceremonial accessory that followers put around theirshoulders, when they worship the Buddha to show respect.
MON Vol. 8 2017 SpringGoeidō-mon
If you walk down Karasuma Street in Kyoto,
you can find a big gate that welcomes thevisitors of Higashi Honganji. This gate iscalled Goeidō-mon, sometimes also
Daimon or Sanmon. With its two roofs andits height of about 28m, it is one of the“Three Big Gates of Kyoto.” Together withthe other two big gates of Kyoto (the gatesof the temples Chion-in and Nanzenji) andthe gate Minami Daimon of the Tōdaiji inNara, it is one of the tallest temple gates inJapan, but because it is comparativelynarrow, it sometimes fails to make thisimpression.
On the gate, there is a sign which read
Shinshū Honbyō (Shinshū Mausoleum). The
reason for this is, that this temple started as
the mausoleum for the founder of ourschool, Shinran Shōnin. Now it is a place tolisten to his teachings. On the left and rightof the gate are two smaller buildings, calledsanrō, which house the stairs that lead tothe top of the gate. From there, you have agreat view at the mountains of Higashiyama
in the east, and on the large roofs of Higashi
Honganji’s main halls. Inside of the gate,
three statues of Śākyamuni Buddha,Ananda, and Maitreya Bodhisattva areenshrined. This is a representation of thescene of the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutra,in which Śākyamuni teaches Ananda, Maitreya Bodhisattva, and others, about Amida
Buddha and his vow to bring all beings into
his Pure Land, if they only call his name withan entrusting mind.
The gate’s current appearance was determined in the year 1739, when also the position of the main halls and the layout of thetemple grounds were decided. The temple
burnt down four times after this, but wasrebuilt every time. The reconstruction of theGoeidō-mon always marked the end of thisgreat effort. The last reconstruction of thegate took place in 1911, sixteen years after
the two main halls were rebuilt, using woodfrom all over the country.
Published by: Shinshū Ōtani-ha (Higashi Honganji), Kyoto
Kindly supported by: Dan Bornstein, Markus Rüsch
Website: www.higashihonganji.or.jp/english