Which Path

Which Path? - K. Ken Fujimoto

There is often a delicate balance in many aspects of life and in our world. We see this in our relationships, in our work, in our physical and mental well being. This is part of what the Sakyamuni Buddha is referring to in discussing the Middle Path.

This is the case not only with our individual lives, but it can also be seen in our institutions and organizations. We can see this in the dynamics of what needs to be considered by us as a temple in terms of the responsibility to our members and our role in the immediate and greater community. Without a focused goal and direction, we can easily lose sight of the reason for our existence. The parable of the white path between the rivers of fire and water, anger and greed, illustrates this as well with Amida Buddha calling us from the other shore to show us our goal and Sakyamuni Buddha encouraging us from this shore that we are taking the right path.

This balance is so critical and pervasive that it can relate to almost anything. Some of you may think you know where I am going with this and others may have no idea. I would think that those who have no idea are actually closer than those who think they know. My concern here is the visitation of groups and individuals to our temple.

We need to welcome those who are interested in our teachings and practice, but we must not become a tourist attraction, museum piece or curiosity if we want to continue as a living and thriving temple.

Churches and temples that attract people as a tourist site die as religious centers. We only need to look at the missions in the area or at the temples considered tourist attractions in Japan to see examples of this. There may be some churches or temples that are arguably both, but they are the exception rather than the rule. How many people do we see going to Mission San Juan Bautista for mass? How many school buses go there for field trips each year? How many people go to Sensoji, the big temple in Asakusa in Tokyo, to rub the incense smoke on their heads to become smarter or grow back hair or on their faces to become more beautiful? How often have we heard or seen people go there for service or even into the hondo? These are just random examples, but we can see many cases where the great numbers of people visiting has no connection to the religious teachings. These are examples of the balance being tilted towards openness and accessibility without regard to the primary focus or the reason for being.

Seeing these examples can be of great benefit to us if we heed the warnings that they give us. We must not lose our focus as a religious organization that has, as its core, a teaching that addresses all beings. Our teachings are not just for Japanese, Japanese-Americans and a handful of others. Our teachings address the human condition. There may be a Japanese slant to the resolution, but that can be adapted or, at least, raise the question of whether the prevailing way of looking at things in our society today, is necessarily the best or only way.

To share this teaching, we need to be open and welcoming. However, we need to be open to those who are seeking the teaching and not for those who want “to drop in to the quaint, Japanese church in J-town.” We are here to teach and share. We do have a wonderful history that needs to be shared and communicated to future generations, but we are not a museum piece or a tourist site.

That this even needs to be mentioned is an example of how contemporary Shinran’s teachings really are even after 800 years. His writings express his lament that many of the temples of his day had become centers for tourists and pilgrims for all the wrong reasons. This was interpreted by him as a definite sign that it was the Last Age of the Dharma, where the teaching may be true, but realization and practice was not possible because we were too far removed from the days when Sakyamuni Buddha taught the path to enlightenment. The only means for us to be freed from the cycle of birth and death was to hear the call of Amida, the Namu Amida Butsu, and attain the assurance of life in the Pure Land that takes us to a state equal to that of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the future Buddha, who will start a new age of the true Buddha-Dharma.

We, each of us individually and collectively, are the ones who must make sure that our temple remains as a living, viable center to learn about the Nembutsu teaching and cultivate a life of gratitude and appreciation. We must not lose sight of our teachings and goals if we are to maintain the balance between openness and as a thriving Sangha. We must open our temple in order to share our teachings and show that our temple is an expression of our feelings towards those teachings. We must show that our temple exists as a living, vital expression of our religious journey where others are always welcome as fellow travelers, but that it is not just an “interesting place to visit.”