Orange County Buddhist Church
Orange County Buddhist Church
The Pipe and the Water
Recently I attended the 60th anniversary of my home temple in Ontario, Oregon. I was asked to speak at the service in commemoration of that milestone in the temple's history.
I grew up attending the Idaho-Oregon Buddhist Temple from childhood. Reflecting back, there were many memories that I recalled. I can remember when the temple was actually built, in 1957. I was only four years old, but I remember my dad going to help everyday in the wintertime. The temple was literally built by the two hands of its members. Only one carpenter was hired, and the rest of the labor to build the temple were all the members volunteering. Since it is a farming community, they had to build it in the wintertime when farmers had time to help. It amazes me that they were able to build it with only one hired carpenter. My uncle even fell off a scaffolding when they were constructing the naijin or altar area.
In my message to the members of the temple there, I shared an example that I heard once in a message by Dr. Nobuo Haneda, in which he talked about the pipe and the water. The water is the Dharma, that has been flowing to us from centuries past. But in order for that water to reach us, it requires a pipe, a pipeline, to transmit that flow of water.
This example is something that we can reflect on here at OCBC as well. For the flow of water of the Dharma to reach us, it has taken centuries of sacrifice and dedication.
Buddhism had to be transmitted throughout India, during the time of the Buddha, and then went into China. Monks travelled from India to China, never to return to their homeland again, all to share the Dharma with others. Monks went from China to India, learned difficult languages like Sanskrit, and then brought Buddhist texts back to China and translated them.
This occurred in every country that Buddhism flowed through. Monks went from China to Japan, and monks went from Japan to China, at the risk of their lives, to bring the Dharma to Japan. These monks served as the pipeline that transmitted the water of the Dharma. The Dharma is only transmitted through living Buddhists, through their lives and experiences, through their deep spirituality and conviction. After tasting and savoring the water of the Dharma, they served as the pipeline that allowed the Dharma to continue to flow, to quench the spiritual thirsts of others.
Just to give you one episode of the unimaginable sacrifices of others in the past, let me share something that occurred during the time of Rennyo Shonin, the 8th patriarch of the Shin tradition. Rennyo was an amazing propagator of Shin Buddhism and in his lifetime he built several temples. At one of the temples he had built, the temple caught on fire. Within the temple there was a handwritten copy of Shinran Shonin's Kyogyoshinsho, his main writing. This was in the day of no copy machines, and a handwritten copy of Shinran's text was a most treasured item. Knowing that the text was inside the temple, one of Rennyo's followers ran into the burning temple, found the text, cut his stomach open, inserted the text and then fell upon it, sacrificing his own life, but preserving Shinran's Kyogyoshinsho for future generations. That is the kind of sacrifice and dedication that has occurred, that has enabled the flow of the water of the Dharma to continue for the past 2500 years of Buddhist history.
Our own pioneering members here at OCBC have made tremendous sacrifices to build this temple. They had an amazing sense of vision, to build something and to take on a huge mortgage, but to see that vision fulfilled.
That is the challenge for all of us in the BCA as well, as we have taken on a huge project in the building of the Jodo Shinshu Center. People complain about the magnitude and cost of the project, but I think about this example of the pipe and the water in this regard. We have a responsibility to be the pipeline for others, to ensure that the Dharma will flow for generations after us, beyond our own lifetimes. That was the spirit of our pioneering members of this temple. That was the spirit of the pioneering members of the Idaho-Oregon Buddhist Temple that built their facility literally with their own hands.
The important thing is that we must savor the water first ourselves. We cannot simply watch the water flow by. How could anyone watch a cool stream of water flow by and not take a drink from it? To be a part of this temple, but to not experience the Dharma that is flowing here, is like watching a stream of water flow by and not taste one drop of it.
Our contemporary world and society is in deep need of this water of the Dharma. People are dying of spiritual thirst, that they are not finding quenched from other religions and traditions. Buddhism is a teaching that is truly suited for this day and age. We have a responsibility to share this water of the Dharma with others. We too must be the pipeline that allows the water of the Dharma to continue to flow.
The Jodo Shinshu Center is not too big of a project. It is not too big if we have the vision, if we have the dream, the vow, to ensure that the Dharma will flow on and on, for centuries to come. Fifty years from now, our descendents will probably look back in wonderment and say, "How did they build that Center back then? They must have had a great sense of vision, of foresight to build something like that."
Here at OCBC we too must establish our vision for the future. Our Long Range Planning committee is doing exactly that. They are working on a 20 year master plan for OCBC. We are asking ourselves questions like, "What do we envision OCBC to look like twenty years from now? What is our vision for the future? How can we fulfill that dream, through programs and facilities?" Those are the kinds of questions we are asking ourselves.
I invite you to join us in creating our vision for the future. May we look beyond our own lifetimes, and create a vision, a dream for being the pipeline that ensures that the water of the Dharma will flow in Orange County, will flow in this country, for centuries to come.
Namuamidabutsu,
Rev. Marvin Harada
July 2007
