Wow, I just looked at my title for this entry and it looked like something Stephen King would author. I don't read a lot of Stephen King, but I'm sure those of you who do can tell me if there is such a book.
No, the "gathering" I'm talking about is the so-called Gathering of Friends, an eclectic and non-denominational gathering of Nichiren Buddhists which meets once a month at the home of Bill and Jean Anker in Granada Hills, a northern suburb of Los Angeles. What I like about the group is that you can sort of check your denominational affiliations at the door. I have been asked by some SGI members "are there temple members there?", as though Nichiren Shoshu Hokkeko members could be spotted on sight, like pitiful drooling spiritual morons who need our help in finding their way to the Gohonzon. Actually, the ongoing concern in regard to "temple members" and evil priests infecting the faith of SGI members sometimes reminds me more of the AIDS scares of the 80's when people thought that the HIV virus could be spread by a handshake or a hug. When asked this question, about "temple members" at the Gathering of Friends, I can honestly shrug my shoulders and say I don't know, and you know what? I don't care, either. Actually, the regular attendees includes Nichiren Buddhists of every affiliation, as well as a couple of regular Hindus and a New Ager or two.
Some of us lobbied for different names, including "Empty District" and (my personal favorite) "Evil District", but somehow the Gathering of Friends has stuck so far. It sounds like something the Quakers would do, but it's not.
This Gathering got kicked off back in April, 2005 when Bill Anker, who together with his wife had been an SGI district leader for over a decade, was removed from his leadership post and told that SGI meetings could no longer be held at his home or the other district meeting house. Ryuei Michael McCormick gave a good history in his blog on the topic, entered back in January, 2006:
http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/ryuei/archives/000805.html
The first year, we studied the Lotus Sutra, the second year, we studied (on and off) the actual figures on Nichiren's mandala Gohonzon (using Ryuei's book "Lotus World" as a suggested text), and this year we are reaching out to other religious groups and doing some interfaith activities. This has been a very liberating experience, overall.
This has been an eclectic Spring. In April, a number of us participated in the annual celebration of the establishment of Nichiren Buddhist practice:
http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/byrd/archives/001454.html
http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/byrd/archives/001455.html
In May, we were visited by someone called a "reconnective healer". She chanted together with us and we all sort of learned to run healing energy into each other. Well, that was special. Last month, June, we were visited by a Wiccan couple and their son, who led us in a backyard summer solstice celebration. I thought that was very cool, as I had never been to a Wiccan ceremony before. We all stood in a circle around a table on the Ankers' back patio and welcomed the sun.
I have no idea what the future will hold as far as this interfaith thing goes. Part of me is in the World of Hunger, getting greedy for cool new guests...ooh! ooh! ooh! Can we get that wonderful young Thai Canadian meditating monk? Ooh! ooh! ooh! How about that yogi? Can we get this one? That one?
We're circling back into Nichirenland next Sunday July 29th with another visit from Michael McCormick, who will be speaking on the Four Aims or the Four Methods of Teaching and how they relate to what Nichiren said about benefit and tie it in with the current new age fad over "The Secret". I have a neighbor who is seriously into "The Secret", and so I hope this will be a good Nichiren Buddhist lecture for her.
Part of me loves the eclecticism of the Gathering and part of me really loves the predictability of my good old SGI district. Well, here I am, enjoying a sunny July afternoon, having my cake and eating it, too...
I shall report on the talk next week.
Be flexible, be strong, be cool.
Byrd in LA
Wow, I totally had my purse snatched last Thursday. It got me thinking about a lot of stuff.
Anyway, there I was, leaving one of those timeshare vacation presentations. You know, the ones where they give you two free nights in Big Bear or Vegas if you sit through an hour and a half pitch? I need a vacation so I took the plunge. Afterwards, there I was, walking to my car on Ventura Boulevard in Encino, California (a pretty upscale neighborhood) when a nice looking young fellow asked me directions to Roscoe Boulevard. Now, Roscoe Boulevard is far, far away from Ventura Boulevard. It's sort of like being in Chicago and wandering around looking for Pismo Beach.
"Poor young man! How lost he is!" I thought to myself. And then, BOOM! as I am gesturing in the general direction of Roscoe Boulevard, he grabs my purse and starts running away. He stumbled and fell down, which is when I should have kicked him in the soft parts, but honestly, I was just too stunned. Then, he got up and ran into a waiting late-model car. "There's nothing in it, Asshole!" I cried after him, "I have no money!" Which wasn't exactly true. I had a $20 bill and a few pounds of loose change. How annoying. Fortunately, I had a spare key in my car. I went home and got on the horn, cancelling all my cards and my checking account. Fortunately, my social security card wasn't in there. This week, I must go to the DMV and get a new drivers' license. That's always a character-builder.
The next day at work, I told my friends about the incident. They seemed uniformly amazed that I wasn't more upset or agitated. Well, what good would that have done? But the fact that people kept remarking on my demeanor when talking about it kind of got my interest. I mean, was I supposed to suffer over this incident? Why? Was the calmnesss with which I faced this incident a by-product of my Buddhist practice, or was I just thick?
I'll tell you what did bother me....the young woman at the Wells Fargo Bank who kept insisting that she couldn't give me a new check card without ID and I didn't have any ID. Now she was as dense as poured cement, and that bothered me. Ultimately, a manager intervened and I got my card. I got over it pretty quick and it just became a sort of "dumb bank bureaucrat" joke to tell my buddies when I got back to work from that adventure.
Would I have been more bothered if I had been richer, or if I had more credit cards? I've never really been richer, so I don't know. Would I have been more upset if i didn't have a daily Buddhist practice? It's been so long since I didn't have a practice that I don't know that either.
Hmmm...well, this has given me a lot to think about. Has anyone else here learned to deal with "stuff" better as a result of thei practice, and if so, what? This incident has made me curious.
Be vigilant, be calm, be cool.
Byrd in LA
My name is Wendy Ehlmann and this is my book report. The book I red is called "You Gotta Have Wa", and it is by Robert Whiting. This book is about baseball in Japan. Like they even say baseball different in Japan. They say basu-baru. But that's OK because that's how they talk. You will like this book if you like baseball or if you ever wonder about how things are in America and how they are in Japan and how they are different. Either way, you will like this book. I think it is here on Amazon, but maybe not:
http://tinyurl.com/yoxbg6
Some people complane that the book is too old, cause it was written almost 20 years ago that is before most people were even born. But that didn't bother me. I thought it was fun to read anyway.
The name of the book is from a song "You Gotta Have Heart" that is in a show and the show is called "Darn Yankies". But the writer changed it to "You Gotta Have Wa" cause that is how things are in Japan. At first, I didn't know what "wa" was. I thought it was like how Helen Keller said water in that movie. That was a good movie. Or I thought it was what you say when your brother hides behind the door and jumps out at you. Like... "WA!"
But that's not what wa is. In Japan, wa means kind of going along with everybody and not making any trubble. You don't want to stand out or be different or be a trubble maker on the playground or make your team look bad by making people look at you. You don't even want to have a new idea without asking if it's OK. That's wa. It's not like in America where everybody wants to be special and that's OK to be a little different.
This book tells about American baseball players who went to Japan and how the game was different over there. The way they train the players is different. Like if a player is hurt in America, then he doesn't play because he doesn't want to make it worse. But in Japan it's not like that. There was one story about a Japanese picher who tore a ligument in his piching arm but kept piching and piching anyway even if it hurt so bad it made him cry and he kept piching anyway. He was too embaresed to go to a doctor in Japan for the arm he piched with. It would have hurt his team's wa. Then it just got too bad and he sneeked away to America to see a doctor. The doctor in America told him what was wrong and he had an operation and then he could pich again. Then all of a sudden lots of players from Japan came to America for the doctors because they were too embaresed to go to the doctor in Japan cause they didn't want to look like they were asking for attension and upset the wa.
Here's another eggsample of how they trane the players differntly in Japan. They had a picture in the picture part in the middle of the book. It was a picture of a Japanese cacher who was skwadding down like cachers do behind the plate. But to keep him from sitting down too low, the traner had put a piece of wood under him and the piece of wood had great big nails poking up! The nails were poking strait up at the bumpy part of his pants! You know, how men have a bumpy part in the pants and ladys don't. That part of his pants! If he had sat down, his bumpy pants parts would have been stuck with the nails! Wow! Think about that! How would you like to sit down on a bunch of nails? If you tried to trane an American player like that, he would hit you with a bat for sure. Or at least call the players yoonyun. But the Japanese player didn't hit his traner with a bat or call the yoonyun cause he didn't want to upset the wa. He just skwadded behind the plate with his bumpy pants parts over the nails! I showed that picture to my dad and he said a bad word.
These are just two eggsamples of how things are different in Japan and in America. The same writer also wrote another book about Japanese players coming to America. But I don't remember the name of that book. You can find it on Amazon. Anyway, after reading this book I have decided that the best way is to play by American rules when you are in America, and play by Japan rules when you are in Japan. That way nobody gets confused.
I hope you like this book.
Wendy Ehlmann
;) byrd
Well, after five years of waiting, North Hollywood has finally gotten a new SGI Activity Center in fabulous Burbank, California! (crowd cheering wildly). For those of you who have not been involved with this drama, the fabulous history of the North Hollywood CommunityCenter began back in 1975 when the SGI-USA (then NSA) purchased two small pieces of real property on Weddington Street in North Hollywood, California.
The members put up drywall, painted, and launched the community center which was headquarters for members as far away as Malibu (believe me, that's a drive from North Hollywood). The SGI-USA North Hollywood Community Center on Weddington became a home-away-from home for hundreds of SGI Buddhists in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys (and that's a big stretch of land). Lots and lots of growth for kosen-rufu happened out of that building. It wasn't big, but the members loved it.
Out of the blue, in the Fall of 2001 (I believe that's the right date - if it was the Fall of 2002, someone correct me), our Area Leader announced to us that the Weddington Community Center had been sold by the SGI-USA. Just like that. No committee of affected members appointed to look into a new place, no warning. Just boom! a bomb was dropped on the stunned members. The building in which hundreds of members had learned to practice and had brought their guests had been sold out from under us. Like that. We heard all sorts of stories as to why the sale had been made. The parking wasn't plentiful enough. We had outgrown the Weddington kaikan and needed a larger one. Yadda yadda yadda. Essentially, a decision had been made at the national level of the SGI-USA, where all property is owned, to sell the Weddington community center and the members simply had to "be flexible" about it. Chant to find a better place. Chant to change poison into medicine. Don't ask any questions about who makes these decisions and why the members had no voice...just chant about it and you'll see.
So, we chanted and chanted about it. That's all we could do - it wasn' t like we had a vote or anything. Up until the Weddington kaikan actually changed hands (and was turned into a parking lot), we had daimoku tosos there(for those of you unfamiliar with the SGI's Buddhist practice, this means long stretches of chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo). People came to the Weddington kaikan from work, chanting hour upon hour for a new, larger, and more beautiful kaikan with lots and lots of parking. We were going to change poison into medicine! We were going to get someplace we could really expand into and grow. At least that's what I was chanting for.
The membership became disgruntled. A chipper leader was dispatched from Santa Monica to tell us that the money from the sale of our community center had been set aside in a "special account" just for getting us a new kaikan and that we were going to have a fabulous new place. Now, normally, special accounts set aside for particular purposes are generally called "trust accounts", and the intended beneficiaries of the trust typically have a right to see the trust documents and get an accounting of the trust. But the chipper leader who had been dispatched to tell us about this special account apparently didn't know that, as no-one I know ever got to see any accounting on the sale of the Weddington community center. Apparently, the funds were placed in a what I sometimes call a "Trust Me Trust" - as in, "the money is in a special account. It's set aside. Trust me." No problem - the local memebership has no local financial control, and the SGI-USA isn't legally obligated to allow it. I just don't like being led by the nose, that's all.
Some members became frustrated and behaved inexcusably. One of my leaders reported to me in a tone of great indignation that a renegade member had written to Daisaku Ikeda, Honorary President of the SGI. This misbehaving member had "threatened" to urge the North Hollywood membership to pool their resources and obtain a community center building on their own. A building that wouldn't be sold out from under them. A building they could pay for and manage themselves like any normal American religious congregation. Imagine writing to President Ikeda and saying something so outrageous! So un-unified!
Actually, I thought this outburst from my leader was odd. Lutherans, Baptists, Tongue-Speaking Pentacostals, synagogues and ashrams all manage to pool their local resources and obtain local church buildings which are held by the local organizations. But for anyone within the SGI to suggest such a thing to our Mentor in Japan is a "threat." Go figure.
I think the North Hollywood members were supposed to go quietly and forget about the new kaikan we had been promised. Some people joined a committee to search for a new kaikan. The one person I know who did this got quite discouraged. We didn't know there would be so many limitations placed on our ability to choose a space. This was the first that any of us had heard that the SGI-USA has standards for how much space local activity centers are allowed to have. Despite the promises of a larger home, our space allotment was apparently somewhat smaller than the old kaikan we had outgrown. As you may well imagine, the people wo had been chanting for a larger activity center found that discouraging. However, we did hang in there and a few hardy souls continued to chant for a new kaikan.
Amazingly, this past February, I heard word that the North Hollywood Area had finally aquired a new activity center!
It would be opening in April!
It would be opening in May!
It would be opening in June!
The opening ceremony was held on two days, this past Saturday and Sunday July 7 and 8. As the space holds about one-third to one-half as many people as the old place held, the grand opening was split up into two ceremonies - two chapters came on Saturday and two chapters came on Sunday. The parking lot holds about 6 cars, and we are not allowed to park on the residential side streets. In fact, as soon as SGI-USA General Director Danny Nagashima finished leading gongyo, an emcee stood up and told anyone parking on a side street to get up and leave. There is no pedestrian crosswalk across the busy street in front of the building where the activity center is located, and jaywalking will get you a ticket. So much for selling the old kaikan because the members needed more parking.
The official story is that this activity center is smaller because the members in the San Gabriel Valley are also getting a small activity center. So now, instead of the SGI-USA owning one small community center, we are leasing (I believe) two eenie-weenie activity centers.
Danny Nagashima made a nice speech about how North Hollywood was the "Kansai of America". Although I know that this is a great Gakkai compliment, I personally look forward to the day when Americans are allowed to view themselves and their religious associations in American terms. It will be nice when we stop aspiring to be like Japan in the 1950's and start taking care of our business in the 21st century.
I don't want to look a gift kaikan in the mouth, as I know a lot of leaders struggled hard to get any activity center at all for the North Hollywood area. They took a lot of heat from the membership about a decision to sell the old place which they had no voice in, and that must have been tough. On the other hand, I think the nasty, "threatening" member has a point. Religious congregations across the country manage their own financial affairs, lease or purchase their own property, elect a treasurer who makes regular financial reports to the membership of the congregation. So what's up with the SGI?
Oh, well- you can see the fabulous new activity center on the front page of your next World Tribune. I am glad we have a new home.
Be joyful, be grateful, be cool.
Byrd in LA