Dharma Talk Salt Lake Buddhist FellowshipChristopher Kakuyo Sensei + As I am working on the content for our certified dharma teacher course, I have been thinking about what makes our fellowship unique. First, we are different because the Pure Land tradition and its teachers inspire many of us, but we are not a Shin Buddhist…
Tag: utah buddhist
Haiku as Awareness Practice.
I would like to talk about Kobayashi Issa and Haiku, well technically senryu as practice. Haiku’s focus us usually nature and senryu is like haiku but the focus is primarily on human nature and emotion. For today, when I say haiku I mean both haiku and senryu. So who is this Issa fellow. He…
Dharma Glimpse: ” I can see clearly now, the rain is gone “
DHARMA GIMPLSE BY JOSEPH CALDIERO Here is the Dharma glimpse; Shinran Shonin said, “Although I too am within Amida’s grasp passions obstruct my eyes and I cannot see him; nevertheless, great compassion is untiring and illumines me always. “ quoted in Shinjin, 17 In light of this statement I’ll tell you a story to help…
Not knowing is the most intimate.
The Master would teach his students, “Understand your true self.” One day, one of his students asked him, “Do you understand your true self?” He said, “I don’t know. But I understand this ‘don’t know’.” From a young age, many of us are afraid to be someone who doesn’t know. Maybe we are afraid…
Offerings to the Buddhas
In his commentary of the Tan Butsu Ge or the Song of the Buddha; a section from the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra, Gyomay Sensei writes, “ Ku Yo, of offering is a very important virtue in the Buddha’s Way…Ku Yo is done in relation to someone who is more worthy than oneself…to do Ku Yo is…
in the company of good people
I would like to start with this line from the Shorter Sukavati Sutra on why it is a good idea to cultivate a heartfelt desire to be born in Amitabha’s pure Buddha field. This Buddha field is an auspicious place where humans and Bodhisattva intermingle. The Buddha says it is good to aspire to be…
Meaningless Meaning
“ A reporter from a local newspaper came to our house to interview my wife about the Japanese tea ceremony. This report continually asked, “What is the meaning? What for? Why do you do that? What is the purposes for that?” This kind of question was directed at everything in the making tea – at…
My Blind Self: a poem
vii. My blind self pierced by Amida’s light illuminated and dissolved into the great ocean of compassion into the Oneness of life – Palms together, embraced just as I am. Each step with the Buddha, my truest self, my Amida self – the deep flow of the oneness of realty – all beings one…
The Bowing Bodhisattva
One of my favorite parts of the Lotus Sutra is the story of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging. This Bodhisattva was said to have lived in the mythic past and he did not devote his time to reading or reciting the scriptures, but simply went about bowing to people, bowing in reverence to everyone he met…
We are all Refugees.
Lately the world seems on fire, with mass shootings, mass migrations and terrorist attacks. People are more polarized of late, cultural shifts, deep old wounds are festering and all of these are changing the landscape, the earth seems to be moving under their feet and many are taking refuge in nationalism, bigotry and fear. The…
Everyday Nembutsu 