Osonae - Food Offerings for the Buddha

It may seem like magic to newer members or repeat visitors how the fresh fruits or vegetables show up at the altar every Sunday service.  On the other hand, sometimes the offerings aren’t noticed at all until the Sunday comes (it inevitably comes at some point) when the dan mori (offering holders) are bare. 

It’s not magic, of course.  It’s just us.

From the founding of Buddhism, it has been the practice where the monks would begin their day by going out to receive alms.  The common people would put food in the monks’ begging bowls in return for the guidance of the dharma, or a blessing, or good karma.  You will still see monks with their begging bowls early in the morning in countries like Thailand, Laos, Burma, and Sri Lanka, where the monastic tradition continues quite strongly.

In our own tradition, the offerings made to Amida Buddha stem from the practice of giving alms to the Buddha and his disciples.  The Japanese word for this is osonae, which means “honorable offering”.  Different temples organize the contributions differently, but we assign it by month to the temple organizations—in our case, the taiko group (our Buddhist drumming group), BWA (our temple’s Buddhist Women’s Association), our Dharma School (where our children receive instruction in the Dharma, and which includes participating in the life and offerings of the temple), and our Wednesday Group (our retirees, who come together weekly for fellowship and to work on projects to benefit the temple’s well-being). 

Sometimes we take a month out of the rotation – usually August when it’s quiet after the festivals – and give members who are not part of those groups the opportunity to experience osonae.  Sometimes—especially when it’s the children from the Dharma School handling the offerings – they will split it up so one is responsible for obuppan, or rice offering, and the other will do the osonae, or fruits and vegetables.  But generally, what we refer to as osonae includes all the food.

We also ask family members to bring the fruits and vegetable offerings for their funeral and memorial services.

When you are asked or volunteer to represent your group by providing osonae, you purchase four kinds of fruits/vegetables for each of the four altar offerings.  We’ve heard how some people get their sense of the seasons by looking at the altar and seeing what’s been offered this week!  You try to select the best fruits and vegetables possible, not those that have been bruised or scarred in handling, as these are being offered as gifts.  You should try to avoid choosing prickly (pineapple for example) or odorous fruit that would distract from the offering itself. 

In addition, you prepare two cups of cooked white rice to go into the cups at the altars.

The morning of your osonae, you come to temple about 20 minutes before the start of the service and bring your offerings into the back room behind the altar.  Scoop the rice into the three cups (two small ones for the smaller side altars that pay tribute to our founder Shinran Shonin, and Renyo Shonin—descendent of Shinran Shonin and an important restorer of the teachings of Jodo Shinshu)—and one larger one for the main (Amida) altar, and round them into mounds.  Lay out the offerings on trays.  Before going to the altar, remember to put on a montoshikisho (the cloth sash that goes over your shoulders, symbolic of the robes worn by monks).

Start at the main, center altar, and put the rice cup in the front of the holder.  Add the fruits or vegetables from top to bottom in a pleasing arrangement.  No “sleeping” offerings lying on their sides or with their labels showing, please!  Repeat that for each of the two side altars, making sure you keep the offerings in the same arrangement and adding the cup of rice.  Return the trays and montoshikisho and take your seat in the hondo for the service.

After the service, retrieve the fruits and rice after putting the montoshikisho back on.  You may wish to bring the offerings to the social gathering afterwards to share, but then bring all remaining fruits, vegetables and rice home and enjoy them.

It’s not “magic” at all! – except in the special way we all come together to make our beautiful temple a magical place of reverence.

O-Higan -- The Other Shore (Spring)

 “A spring day is perfect to contemplate the Dharma!”  a temple member wrote on our temple’s Facebook page recently.  And while it is true that every day is perfect for contemplating the Dharma, perhaps that member had spring O-higan in mind when she wrote her comment.  O-higan is as full of Buddhist teaching as it is about the change of the season.

Come to think of it, change of season is a Buddhist teaching too!

The word higan means “the other shore” of enlightenment.  We put that “o” in front of some words as a mark of respect, the way calling someone Mr. or Mrs. in front of their last name confers respect or politeness, keeping the relationship on a more formal basis.  You will see that here, with o-higan (Mr. or Mrs. Other Shore), or in highly respected objects like our temple altar (o-neijian) or at home (o-butsudan).  The Japanese culture that Shin Buddhism comes to us from has many other such “honorifics” as they are called, but this is the one you see more frequently—

—particularly since O-higan comes around twice a year!  We celebrate this special service both at the spring and fall equinox.  O-higan  is a Japanese Buddhist tradition, rather than a general Buddhist celebration.  There are no historical mentions of such an observance in either China or India.  But Buddhism shapes and adapts its teachings around the environment in which it is taught—whether that environment is one-on-one transmission, as in the Buddha’s time or from one culture to another, as when Buddhism moves from India into China, and China to Japan.  Even our own Shin Buddhist tradition, which arrived at this shore (in a more literal manner of speaking) with the Japanese farm workers who had migrated to Hawaii and California from Japan, is beginning to take on its own uniquely American adaptations as it settles into this country.

  But there is no need to adapt O-higan out of the rotation of special services.  It comes at a time when the winter rain has rendered the landscape from brown to green.  The plum blossoms that surround our temple are in full flower, and cherry blossom festivals are a short drive away in our Japanese gardens.  The length of days and nights are evenly balanced, and the weather is mild.  (At least, that’s the expectation.  Last year’s spring O-Higan was celebrated in 90 degree weather, and the cherry blossoms had no idea what season it really was!)  There is balance and harmony around us, creating the ideal conditions to meditate and reflect on the countless causes and conditions that have brought us to this moment.  

As we make time for this reflection, even if it is only within the timeframe of our special service this month, we come to the realization that all of these conditions are gifts to us.  We express our gratitude in the words that both acknowledge and create the entire face of gratitude:  namo amida butsu.

During the service, we will read together the six paramitas, resolving in our hearts to follow them on our journey to the Other Shore, enlightenment:

dana, or generosity, usually understood as the entry into the dharma or teachings;

sila, or morality, the development of compassion;

ksanti, or patience, in the face of personal hardship, patience with others, acceptance of the truth;

virya, or zeal, making a courageous, heroic effort to realize the truth;

dhyana, or meditation, to cultivate the mind and achieve clarity and insight; and finally,

 prajna, or wisdom, the ultimate paramita that contains all the others.  We cannot achieve wisdom through intellectual effort, but rather through the practices of generosity, morality, patience, energy and meditation.

That’s the underlying teaching we will explore and reflect on at our O-higan service this month.  We will listen to an outstanding teacher who will try to bring us closer to the wisdom of the Sixth Paramita.  We will recognize and enjoy the beginning of Spring and see our sangha—all of us, together—in balance in the even light and dark of the equinox—

 —and then we will share potluck, badger our beloved teacher over the points he made in his talk.  We will move off the balance beam as the days’ light rapidly lengths and consumes more of the dark,

—until autumn’s O-higan restores us to balance again along our path to that Other Shore.

Grief and Loss - a Buddhist Education Class

In recent years, the topic of death and dying has captured popular attention. “Tuesdays with Morrie” and a number of books by Buddhist authors such as the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Sogyal Rinpoche have popped up on best-seller lists. Buddhist methods for coping with dying have become influential in medicine, psychology, and hospice care.  Our Buddhist Education Committee brought the Venerable Dr. Karma Lekshe Tsomo to our temple to talk about the Buddha’s teachings on death and dying, Buddhist cultural practices, and questions about controversial contemporary bioethical issues.

(Venerable Dr. Karma Lekshe Tsomo, who taught this class, is a Buddhist nun and professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego and is a specialist in Buddhist studies. Her educational background includes studying Buddhism in Dharamsala, India for fifteen years and having an MA in Asian Studies, an MA in Religion (Asian), and a PhD in Comparative Philosophy, all from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. )
“It’s better to talk about this now than wait until later,” said Dr. Tsomo when she surveyed a full hondo of students on a beautiful Sunday afternoon ready to learn about death and dying.  “Death has come out of the closet—particularly since the AIDS epidemic.  And people are interested in religious views on the subject.”
She is asked what the Buddha said about extended life care and has to answer, “Nothing!  It wasn’t an issue then.”  But the Buddha’s first precept for lay people (not to take a life) and compassion can be used as guidelines for decision making about these difficult issues.
By dying, Dr. Tsomo said, the Buddha gave his final teaching.  He died.  “Life is a terminal condition,” she said.  All of us will die, even the Buddha.  In meditating on death and dying, she said:

1.     Death is definite.

2.     The time of death is indefinite.

3.     At the time of death, only our spiritual practice will be any benefit at all.

We need to learn to calm our mind, focus our mind, be attentive.  Meditation helps us live better and helps us die better.

To sooth the transition between living and dying, she mentioned:

1.     mindfulness of breathing

2.      meditating on loving kindness

3.     meditating on the dying process and stages

4.     chanting sacred texts and mantras (this is particularly done in Tibetan Buddhism)

5.     Transfer of consciousness (another Tibetan Buddhist practice), and

6.     Pure Land practices:  in Chinese forms of Buddhism this is chanting the name of Amida (Amitaba) Buddha; in Japanese forms of Buddhism, such as our own Shin Buddhism, it is saying the Nembutso (Namo Amido Butsu)

Death, Dr. Tsomo finished her presentation, is the opportunity of a lifetime.

1.     It gives insight into impermanence.

2.     It gives insight into suffering.

3.     It allows the practice of patience.

4.     It allows the practice of compassion.

5.     It allows the practice of momentary awareness, and finally,

6.     There is the possibility of enlightenment.

Grief and Loss - A Buddhist Parable

Grief at the loss of a loved one is not a competitive sport, but we frequently subscribe to popular perceptions that some losses are deeper than others – a friend’s loss is deeper than losing a pet; a parent over a friend; a spouse over a parent.  And all of these losses pale compared to the pain of the loss of a child.

Maybe that’s why the story of Kisa Gotami rings through the centuries to bring us to understand grief and loss in the hard, but liberating light of impermanence and the universality of suffering and death.

The First Noble Truth in the Buddha’s very first teaching since his awakening spells this out clearly:

…the noble truth of suffering—birth is suffering, old age is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering.

Suffering is a common bond that we all share.  The word “suffering” in the Pali language of the earliest Buddhist texts is dukka, meaning the suffering that comes from being incapable of being satisfied.  But when we lose someone we love—maybe a child in particular—the meaning of our suffering comes right out of the dictionary’s definition:  the state of pain, distress, or hardship.  It is nobody’s preferred state of mind or being.

So it was with Kisa Gotami, a young woman who lived during the Buddha’s lifetime, and who gave birth to a son.  Her happiness was shattered when the infant sickened and died.  Her grief was so overwhelming, she refused to believe her beautiful baby boy was dead.  She carried his dead body with her, asking her neighbors how to resuscitate him.  The sight of her horrified her neighbors, who saw her becoming deranged with her grief.  They advised her to accept her son’s death and make his funeral arrangements.  But Kisa Gotami kept begging her baby boy to wake up.

An elder in the village finally took compassion on her suffering saying, “We can’t help you—but there is a great teacher near by, a Buddha.  Perhaps he can bring your son back to you.”

In great haste and excitement, Kisa Gotami went to find the teacher, clutching her dead child.  Who of us would not do the same—seek out the second opinion, do whatever it took to bring our beloved back to us again? Kisa Gotami used the words of desperate hope when she found the Buddha and asked him to revive her child:  I will do anything to bring my son back.

The Buddha saw her desperation and probably her madness as well, and said:  “Find me a mustard seed—from a home where no one has ever lost someone to death.  Bring the seed back to me, and your son will be restored to life.”

Kisa Gotami took her dead child and went to find mustard seed from a home where there had been no death.  Mustard seed in the India of those times was as common as table salt is in ours and even less expensive.  Everyone she met was willing to give her mustard seeds, but everyone had lost a grandmother, a husband, an aunt, even a child, to death.

It took some time before Kisa Gotami’s wild hope turned to the quiet realization:  no one is spared death; it is an inevitable and natural part of life, and pain and the suffering of loss is just as natural a part of the survivors’ lives too.

Putting aside her grief, Kisa Gotami prepared her son for burial and then returned to the Buddha to become his disciple.

In a poetic interpretation of this return meeting between the Buddha and Kisa Gotami, the Buddha says:

Seeing one dead, know for sure:  ‘I shall never see him in this existence’.  And just as the fire of a burning house is quenched, so does the contemplative wise person scatter grief’s power… He who would seeks peace should pull out the arrow of lamentation, useless longings, and the self-made pangs of grief.  He who has removed this unwholesome arrow and has calmed himself will obtain peace of mind.

And Kisa Gotami can now respond:

I’ve cut out the arrow,

put down the burden,

done the task.

I, Kisa Gotami,

my heart well-released,

have said this.

It is not one of those  “and they lived happily ever after” stories.  It is not a miracle story of the dead returned to life.  The Buddha didn’t perform miracles or tell happily ever after stories.  He assigned a practice, a job, a task.  In performing that practice or job, that task, what unfolded before you was the clear vision of truth, life as it truly is, not life through the clouded eyes of seeing what you wanted to see.

Death is inevitable; the sharp arrow of grief and loss shoots straight through us who are left behind.  Our job must be to remove the second arrow, the suffering of denial, wishful thinking, groundless hope.  In the middle of our lives, for all its sorrows and suffering, there is still a way to free ourselves from our grief—when we see it as part of our life and see it in the lives of everyone around us as well.  We are not alone, not even in the terrible grief of a terrible loss.  We share that with our fellow beings who, like Kisa Gotami, like her neighbors, have been on the path before us.