Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
Because a lot will be said and written of the other significant event in June,
viz., graduation, I thought I’d write a little something about Father’s Day.
For me to write about Father’s Day is not as easy as you
might think, because I never had a father that I can recall, since he died
before I was two. Of course, I can write from my own point of view as a father,
and, in fact, there is no other point of view I can write from. So that is what
I shall do.
Our first son was born in Japan, during my last year there as
a student; our second, in Los Angeles, where I was assigned as a Buddhist
Churches of America minister to the Hompa (or Nishi) Hongwanji Rafu (Los
Angeles) Betsuin, after returning to the states.
By now, if you’ve listened to, or read, any of my words, you
know that things originate together depending upon the causes and conditions.
That is the meaning of the Sanskrit words, “pratitya-samutpada,” or
literally, “conditioned co-origination.” In the Buddhist way of seeing, this is
the primary principle. As the song goes, “you can’t have one without the
other.”
You should know what this is leading up to: There is no
father unless there is a child, or children. On the other hand, if a child, or
the children, of a father has died, he does not revert back to no longer being a
father. He becomes a childless father; more properly, a grief-stricken father,
which is what the Nembutsu follower, Issa, was when he lost his two-year old
daughter, Sato. Coincidentally, she died on June 21st. It was on
that occasion that he wrote the haiku that I quote so often:
The world of dew
is the world of dew
And yet, and yet
I very much hope that
neither you nor I will ever lose a child before we ourselves go. It is asking
too much, probably, to say I hope that we will never experience the sorrow that
permeates that haiku. In case you’ve forgotten, it means that I know everything
in the world is impermanent and changing; yet, when I lose someone I love or
something to which I am attached, I am filled with grief.
I hope all of us fathers will see the true reality and
love our children all the more while we can. Too, I hope our children also
realize it and love us fathers more while they can. Not to speak of mothers.
Gassho,
Donkon Jaan, Rev. John Doami
