A Byrd's Eye View

What A Pretty Altar!

The other day, I paid a visit to my good friend Michele, who lives in the Antelope Valley, just north of Los Angeles. You can recognize the Antelope Valley by the gazillions of Christian churches - I mean, on every corner! In English and in Spanish. Of course, down here in the San Fernando Valley, we can go them one better, because we have Christian churches in English, Spanish, Armenian, Thai and Korean, too! All the more reason for inter-denominational Nichiren Buddhist cooperation, in my opinion.

At any event, Michele officially joined the traditional Nichiren Shu last month, and so now she has a fabulous new mandala Gohonzon, which is a copy of the the Nichiren Shu "shutei" (or "authorized") mandala Gohonzon (warning: if you are superstitious about photographs of Nichiren's mandala Gohonzon, you may not want to go to this site):

http://www.nichirenscoffeehouse.net/ShuteiMandala/index.html

At any event, since I had never (to my knowledge) chanted to a mandala which was a copy of one actually inscribed by Nichiren, I was super-eager to see Michele's new set-up and chant at her new altar.

The set-up was truly beautiful. A lovely new dark wood Butsudan (altar), with a new incense burner to boot. It's a very peaceful place to chant, with a warm and homey feeling. Michele's black cat, Raleigh, sprawled on the floor and soaked up the good vibrations. Animals seem to love the practice, regardless of who inscribed the mandala in the altar. We could learn something from them, I think.

The mandala itself was sort of a surprise to me. I am accustomed to the much larger, "okatagi" gohonzon which I have in my home altar, and which is the mandala which the SGI bestows on members who have been chanting for over 15 years. The mandala which I have is much bigger, with a stark white background color. The calligraphy on my mandala is also quite large, and contrasts sharply with the white background.

Michele's Nichiren-inscribed mandala is smaller, and with a darker background. To me, it felt "older", somehow. The "Namu-Myoho-Renge-Kyo" which is written down the center is very large and bold, and most of the other characters are quite delicate, almost as if they had been written with a toothpick dipped in sumi ink!

I truly enjoyed this visit, and the opportunity to chant to a Nichiren-inscribed mandala.

More on Buddhism later!

Be flexible, be adventurous, be cool.

Byrd in LA

Posted by wahzoh at May 15, 2008 05:01 PM