Facebook

If you are registered with Facebook, Gardena Buddhist Church is also a group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=16332556812

Also, if you are interested in an Adult Buddhist Association group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14622502411

Gotan-E

We had a special service to celebrate Gotan-E, which commemorates the birthday of our founder, Shinran 845 years ago (May 21, 1163). Traditionally, the sutra Shoshinge is chanted because that is the sutra written by Shinran.


This coming Sunday we will have services the nearby cemetaries - starting with Pacific Crest in Redondo Beach, CA at 9:00 am and the chapel at Green Hills in San Pedro at 11:00 am.

May 11, 2008 - Mother's Day

The Adult Buddhist Association provides breakfast to the Sangha every Mother's Day. They get to the temple early (starting at 6pm), and roll out the tables, canopies, chairs and griddles to serve pancakes outside. In the meantime, inside the kitchen, sausages and eggs are being cooked, and apples and strawberries are washed and sliced.

The idea on Mother's Day started with Dan Shikuma years ago. He approached the then-YABA (Young Adult Buddhist Association) to serve breakfast on Mother's Day since the Jr. Young Buddhist Association had been serving hot dogs on Father's Day for years, without reciprocating on Mother's Day.

Then when the YABA dissolved itself to become the new ABA, the ABA members continued this Dana tradition. Dan Shikuma died a few years ago after fighting ALS, and in his memory the ABA members make pancakes and serve it free.

Ross and Elaine have been chairing this for awhile and they have made much improvements. We have bought two commercial griddles just for this purpose which are also being used for beef teriyaki during carnival time.

The ABA practices "dana" the buddhist idea of giving. The Sangha, in turn, gets together and share a meal, which is also known in Japanese as "o-toki."

Mother's Day

Services on Mother's Day start at 10:00 am instead of 9:30 am. This is to accommodate the ABA's pancake breakfast that will be served to the Sangha starting at 8:00 am. To get ready, the ABA members start setting up at 6:00 am! The breakfast is served outdoors at the Fuji patio. Its sausages and eggs with the pancakes. Plus fruit, including strawberries from Ventura County! There is no Dharma School as there is a combined English and Japanese service and a special art fair with projects from each Dharma School class.

May 3, 2008 - Fujimatsuri

Fujimatsuri was fun this year. We had a crowd early for plants and sushi, and continued throughout the day but it was so much as it was overwhelming. We sold out on sushi, udon and even hot dogs this year.

We also moved our performers from indoors to outdoors this year. We had a ukulele group, a keiki hula group, a Japanese dance group, our own Isami Taiko and the North Torrance Jazz Ensemble and North Torrance Stings-n-Things.

It took us awhile to wire up the stage for electricity.

Thanks to all who lend a hand in helping put it on for the community.

April 27, 2008

Cause and Effect was the theme for today's sermon Rev. N. We are so used to superstitions that we forget that cause and effect is what actually happens.

March 30, 2008

I was in church on Sunday, but I don't remember anything other than meeting a visitor from Hawaii - sorry! I think I lost the message of the day. It was probably because we came back home late the night before - we ate in Chinatown after watching the Dodgers-Red Sox game at the Los Angeles Coliseum with 115,300 of us in a Guiness-certified world record for attendance at a major league baseball game. The peristyle in the eastern side of the Coliseum was used for seating - the normal Sun Deck bleachers used for USC football games was missing, so the folks in the the far right field were seating on concrete or standing/sitting in the grassy area.

I was in what would be left field had this been at a regular ball park. This exhibition game was to commemorate the 50 years that the Brooklyn Dodgers have in Los Angeles. The first four years was played in the Coliseum while Dodgers Stadium was being built. Then the Coliseum floor space is bigger than it is now, but still not big enough for left field - so a high fence was erected. The Dodgers went to the World Series and then the attendance was highest for a major league game. The track and field stadium for both Los Angeles Olylmpics had its track taken out and replaced with seating while the field was lowered...so the length of the third base line was only 250 feet.

In fact the Dodgers did not play a left fielder - they had five in the infield instead. But they still lost the game.

50 years is also a common period for observance of memorials in Jodo Shinshu traditions. It is almost 50 years since a memorial for Shinran was held, so it is coming back again in a few years. The Hongwanji in Kyoto hopes that many of us will make a pilgrimage to Kyoto to attend the services and the BCA will be holding a national observance and memorial in 2010. This will be the 750th. Fifty years later, who knows what this world would be like and what the BCA will be like in 2061 when the next memorial services will be conducted.