Length of Ceremony: 35 minutes
Theme:spring/mothers/appreciation of mothers
Entertainment Factor/Ceremony: I arrived late to this one...A woman received me- panting, sweaty and wandering around with my bike at the gates. She was kind enough to let me bring my bike inside (the temple is in the heart of junky-bum town). Recognizing that I had no idea what I was doing, she ushered my into the ceremony and pointed out relevant pages in the provided ceremony book.
Did we ever chant! A super long list of Sanskrit words were sang/read in near monotone. I almost lost my breath. At about a third of the way through I thought I wasn't going to make it to the end. After a while, I kind of got into it. My breath regulated and the words seemed to flow from me...I meditated? Ran low on Oxygen?
Apparently, the regular sensei was in Toronto at a Buddhist conference. As was the case, the dharma talk on "Appreciation" was delivered by a teen-aged boy whose stage presence matched the rug he stood on.
He told us we all need to appreciate our mothers. Then he launched into a self-disclosure about how sometimes his mom cooks for him and he complains about the taste. He conceded that in those instances he is taking her for granted. As was also revealed, she wakes him up every morning and he takes that for granted too....
I can totally relate. I hate it when my mom makes my eggs all runny or doesn't put enough sugar in my coffee. OR when she balls my socks instead of folding them OR when she brushes my hair too hard....OH THE FUCKING WORST is when she doesn't do all the voices of the characters in my bedtime story. UNFORGIVABLE.
Nice kid. Made some good points in a roundabout way...
Promise of Heaven/Salvation: Enlightenment...salvation enough.
Space: Exterior was an 80's-style box. The immediate inside looked like a high school cafeteria with a reading area and long folding dining room tables. The inner area where the ceremony took place was lined with padded baby blue pews facing a large gold shrine to the Buddha.
Free Food: Coffee, cake, cookies, orange segments and chocolates.
Equity Policy: Not erebody completely welcome..... in a Buddhist text called the Vinaya, the Buddha is recorded as opposing gender bending and gayness :(
Community Involvement: Festivals in the summer, non-proselytizing but inviting/open to incredibly in depth conversations about faith and spirituality.
$$$$$(cost): Donations accepted...I was tempted this time around because a 4 year-old Japanese girl in a kimono was stumbling around with a collection plate. No money required.
Participants (looks, conversation, etc.): After the ceremony, we all gathered in the "high school cafeteria" room to have coffee and cake. The small crowd around the percolator parted and <3 Molly <3 emerged. She was a tiny and beautiful older Japanese woman. We introduced ourselves and proceeded to have an long conversation about the Buddhism/faith in general.
She expressed that she was originally Buddhist by default (both parents were Buddhists) and therefore unquestioning in her faith. As a young girl she and her family were shipped to the interior of BC with only what they could carry as a part of the Canadian government's internment of Japanese people (seen as a spy threat after Pearl Harbor).
Once in the interior, her family began attending united church. When she finally moved back to Vancouver, she attended Buddhist ceremonies and seriously questioned her allegiance to it. It was a long road for her to feel at home there but she values the emphasis on self-reflection.
Most of the congregation was Japanese-Canadian.... I'm talking like 4th or 5th generation Canadian. Tons of history. On behalf of the Mackenzie King government, I am disgusted.
Blind Faith Factor (BFF/WOW factor):
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1=“Naw, no thanks” and 10=“All in”
Mshuxtable's rating
8
^Makes beautiful sense to me, from the little I can get my head around...Still reeling from christian god shopping.
SAD NEWS: After Pearl Harbor, fear spread that Japanese people on the pacific coast could pose a threat and in fact be spies.
On February 24, 1942, an order passed under the War Measures Act that gave the federal government the power to intern all people of Japanese origin. 22,000 Japanese Canadians (14,000 of whom were born in Canada) were interned.
A 100-mile (160 km) wide “quarantine” strip up the Pacific coast was created, in which people of Japanese origin were displaced inland and men of between the ages of 18 and 45 were taken to road camps in the interior.
The government promised they would get their land back when they had come back from 'shelters'. However, while they were in the camps, their land was sold off cheaply at auctions. They did not know that they were going to prison camps.
After the war, they were given the option to move back to Japan or move east.
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