Words of a bulletin board 11

This is a bulletin board at a zen temple near my house.
The meaning of these words are as follows.

  The look of a man seems to be formed by the attitude of him or her.  
  If he is avaricious, he looks greedy.
  If he is always angry, he looks evil.
  If he is always complaining about something, he looks  dissatisfied.

So we should be careful not to have a bad face.


 

Words of a bulletin board 10

Ume blossoms of the zen temple

  Today is 'the first day of spring' according to the calendar.
But it was a very cold day and I feel as if I were in the refrigerator.
In the evening, I went for a walk as usual and I felt warm after the walk.

While taking a walk, I found a bulletin board whose words were newly written by the gate of a zen temple.

The meaning of the words is ' Everyone looks good when he(she) is young. Everyone(someone?) becomes beautiful when he(she) gets old .' 

Will I be able to become a beautiful woman ! 

 

Words of a bulletin board 9

I found the words of a bulletin board at a zen temple had been changed yesterday.
Three months have passed since the last one.
The meaning of the words is ' don't be angry, don't be arrogant, don't be hasty, don't be depressed, don't give in ; be cautious to these feelings.'
I'd like to lead my life with these words in mind though it is difficult.

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Words of a bulletin board 8

This is a bulletin board at a zen temple.
The meaning of the words is as follows.

'If we thank to everything, it will make our mind rich .'

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Words of a bulletin board

A zen temple

  This is the seventh time I see the words on the bulletin boards at the zen temple near my house.
The meaning of the words is as follows.

   'Hurry up doing good and put off doing bad.'

Flowers of oleander are blooming beautifully and look nice on the white wall. 

 

 

Visiting a shrine

Ki-bi-tsu shrine
I visited a shrine the day before yesterday.
The roof of the main building had been being renewed and it was finished last September.
So the buildings were so nice !
The roof is to be renewed every fifty years.



These long stone steps lead to a main main shrine.
I was surprised to see many many paper lantern.



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The lot number was 1 and it showed large good luck.
This year might be a nice one for me !




There were many votive pictures wishing for passing for entrance examination.




Long corridor was also very beautiful.

Calendar from a zen temple

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We were presented a nice calendar from a priest of our zen temple this year too.

This words is one of the zen words.

The meaning of Chinese characters drawn with Indian ink is 'There have been no way but to live a life doing what is happening before his eyes earnestly'.

It's important for us to lead a life living this valuable instant.

The Sound of Zen

The Sound of Zen
What is the silence of Zen ?
・・・・・Listen to the silence.

 I went to a zen -lecture that was held at Ta-ka-ha-shi culture hall yesterday afternoon.

 Following to the opening speech, there was a lecture by a writer; Ki-yo-shi Shi-ge-ma-tsu who got 124th Na-o-ki Prize in 2001.
The name of his work is 'Vitamin F'.

In his lecture titled 'The power of words', he emphasized the meaning of life.
He said that life contains both energetic life and death and that we should learn and teach about death more especially to the children and the youth.

Next he told about the importance of priests who know more about death and said that priests should be the spiritual leader of the community and have good connection with  common people more.

Last he told about the importance of face to face-communication using the words.

 Last we had a main event of this meeting ; ZA-ZE-N on the chair for about thirty minutes.
A priest facing to us sat on the stage, and three priests and three person sat there facing to the wall with zen stile.

The silence was magnificent and so beautiful !

It was my first experience and sitting on the chair silently felt very long time.

Words of a bulletin board

This is the sixth time I see the words of a bulletin board at a zen temple near my house.
The meaning of these words is as follows.
If we don't worry about the problems too much, we aren't greedy and we have some reliable company or friends, we will be able to have a happy lives.
In short, our mind depends on our ways of thinking.

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Lecture meeting of Buddhism

It is rainy today.
We had a lecture meeting at our zen-temple.
The meeting began at one o'clock in the afternoon.
First we recited a sutra called 'Ha-n-nya shi-n-gyo' with eight priests from some temples.
After that a lecturer from a temple in Hokkaido made a speech for about an hour and a half.
He told us that each life is so valuable that we should not treat it lightly and that what is really important is the thing we can't see.
Last he told us a message from the Soto sect superintendent priest named Ta-i-ho Fu-ku-ya-ma.
The slogan of this year is 'The words of love'.
He says we should value the words to make a good personality and a good society.

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Bon festival

A priest of our zen-temple

Bon festival is being held from August 13 to　August 15.　
It is said the spirits of our ancestors come back from heaven during the festival.
Our priest came to my house to recite a sutra before an altar where the principal image of Buddha and mortuary tablets of our ancestors are set.
He recited sutra for about twenty minutes.

A priest from a temple called 'O-da-i-shi sa-ma' also came to my house the other day.
He recited a sutra before a stand called 'Mi-zu-ta-na sa-ma'.
It took only a few minutes.

Bon festival gives a chance to gather a family together. 

Today I also went to my brother's house and prayed for my dead parents before an altar.

Bon festival is a big event for Japanese people !

 

Buddhist service

  The main building of our family temple that had been under construction was completed.
So a Buddhist service celebrating the new building was held yesterday.

Some little boys and girls called 'chi-go' also attended this ceremony.
They were very cute !

The Buddhist service by about ten priests was solemnly executed and about fifty people  recited a sutra with the priests.

After that we had a party to celebrate the construction of this building.

By the way, I was very busy in helping the party. 

 

Festival at I-na-ri shrine

We held a small festival called Ha-tsu u-ma (first horse day) this morning at I-na-ri shrine near my house.
About eighty people got together to clean the shrine as well as precincts of the shrine.
The building of the shrine is too small to go into all of us, so
after cleaning, only one thirds of us prayed good harvest and good luck of this year.
After praying, we had sake and some steamed rice with red beans that had been offered to the god.
And we were presented a piece of offered rice cake cut into pieces too.

We hold the festival twice a year, July and February.

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Se-tsu-bu-n

Ta-ka-ma-tsu sa-i-jyo i-na-ri

February 3 was the last day of winter on calendar called 'Se-tsu-bu-n'.
They scattered fried soy beans at many shrines all over Japan.
And we also did this at home to drive out evil spirits and summon good luck saying ' 'Out with the demon and in with the fortune !'
But they say only 'In with the fortune' at this temple.

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Prayer in the main temple


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Fried soy beans put in small bags were scattered from a corridor

Words of a bulletin bord

A bulletin board of a zen temple

I saw this nice sentence on the bulletin board at the entrance of a zen temple.

It means that we are always cared by someone and we always trouble someone if we know or not.

For example, carbon dioxide that isn't good for environment increase when we breathe.

We should know that we can't live without the help of others so we should help each other.

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