July 6 and July 13, 2008

It seems like I took a little vacation from the affairs of our temple the last two weeks. Because Kirstin was to attend the one-week Youth Advocacy Committee Retreat, in Sacramento, I saw an opportunity to attend services at San Francisco Buddhist Temple on July 6 and this past Sunday I was at the Obon and Hatsubon Services at Sacramento Betsuin.

Saving the visit to the Stupa for another day, we were able to talk briefly with the San Francisco sangha after the service during their “Sunday social.” It is a small congregation, so someone brought a few pies and baked goods, and with coffee and ocha it ended up being a nice visit in their Social Hall. I was able to reunite with my roommate from my Hongwanji trip last November, before he and the others went into their choir practice for the following week’s Obon service. Even Rev. Abiko sat down with us to talk about the temple, and even wrote a little note for Kirstin to take back to Dharma School.

While we enjoyed the refreshments, volunteers were collating their newsletter to send out.

We came back to Sacramento July 13 to pick up Kirstin. We participated in the Obon Dancing the night before in their parking lot. It was covered with canvas and they also strung lights and coverented them with lanterns which made it very festive. We did about 20 different dances, following the teachers in the center – only a few, i.e., Obon no Uta, Honen no Uta, Tokyo Obon Odori, were familiar. The parking lot was filled with dancers and onlookers – not as big as ours.

The next morning we attended their Obon/Hatsubon service. With about 1,300 members, there were a lot of names to call out. We noticed that some of the people got up more than once to do o-shoko when a name to remembrance was called out. Their oshoko representatives were in reverse to what we are accustomed to, the church president was first, followed by the fujinkai president, ABA president, etc. Much like us, they have to make to with what they got…so when the videographer called in sick, the assistant minister, Rev. Kaz, got the honors to fill in for taping. Rinban Bob is aided by a few minister’s assistants, who also served as instructors for the YAC Retreat that Kirstin had attended during the week.

Socho Ogui was the guest speaker. The reason Rev. Kaz did the videotaping was that they were going to put this Dharma talk on the website. In fact, all of the Dharma talks, including the guest speakers, are video-recorded and archived at their website, www.buddhistchurch.com.

In a later service, Socho Ogui also presided over the presentation of the Homyo to each of the YAC participants, which was one of the reasons we decided to return to Sacramento for the pickup.

In Gasssho,