TOBAN: My Turn of Duty

Toban has showed up on our temple’s monthly calendar for as long as any of us can remember.  In the newsletter, it is quite specific:  “Toban Group 2” it may say, and then list members of Group 2—sometimes to the astonishment of a new member unaccustomed to seeing their name in the newsletter at all, and uncertain as to what a “toban 2” is anyway.

Over time, we have gotten better about adding “temple cleaning” to the word “toban” (right before the osonae assignments—sometimes our assignments and Japanese words do run together!), and also about introducing the concept to new and prospective members during orientation.  But temple cleaning doesn’t always read like a membership opportunity no matter how well we present it—

—even if it is.

The English translation of the Japanese word toban is “my turn of duty”.  We have used the word to describe the groups of members who work together for the temple in cleaning the temple and bringing refreshments for after the service.  This tradition has been passed on to us from our pioneer families who started the temple.  It came from Shin Buddhist temples in Japan, where it remains a very strong tradition.  But it is already fading away in the US as we more to a more American Shin Buddhist practice.

Ideally, toban brings small (5-6 members) teams together once a month to clean the temple—vacuuming, dusting, emptying trash, cleaning bathrooms.  We share this time of service as a team, so ideally it is a team-building activity.  It also helps create a sense of ownership—“our temple”, not simply the place that “I” visit and where “I” attend services.

That’s been the ideal for many years, but in the past 5-6 years, many older members have become too frail or simply too old to push vacuum cleaners all over the hondo.  Newer members, entering from other religious traditions (or no traditions at all) are unfamiliar with the concept of toban.  Some are simply not interested in doing this on a regular basis.  With the full calendars many of us keep, coming together as a team outside service gets harder to do.  Conscientious team members fulfill their duties when they can—but the notion of “team” has become stretched as a result.

Finally, no matter how well intentioned we are, most of us are not professional cleaning people!  Our temple deserves to be cleaned at a professional level and look consistently presentable to our visitors and sangha members. 

Everything changes—even toban!  So our definition of toban is undergoing change.  We are hiring professionals for that consistently presentable appearance of the temple.  But we will come together as an entire temple membership the week after our festivals (first week of May after Hanamatsuri, first week of August after Obon) to dig deeply into restoring our temple after welcoming a few thousand guests and friends.

Our temple groups –BWA (Buddhist Women Association), Taiko (drumming), Wednesday Group (seniors), and Dharma School (children and their teachers)—will work together as a group during the months they are assigned to osonayae (altar offerings) to set up and clean up refreshments after service.  In other words, we will “host” each other and our guests.  No doubt, some of our visitors will pitch in too, and our sense of ownership will spread as well.

HANAMATSURI: The Photo Exhibit

We have been fortunate to be able to offer a solo photography exhibit at several of our festivals.  This is not the kind of photography where you walk past beautiful photos of landscapes, sunsets, exotic travel sights, or even botanicals (which would make sense at a Flower Festival).  This is Buddhist photography—the Dharma, or teachings, in visual form.

Confucius, born less than a hundred years after Shayamuni Buddha, said: “By three methods we may learn wisdom:  first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Educators tell us there are three styles of learning:  auditory, visual, and kinetic.  Visual learners need to see material to learn; auditory learners hear information to absorb it; and kinetic learners move when they learn—think cooking, sports, arts, mechanics.   Although students may have a mixture of styles of learning, traditional teaching most frequently takes place with the teacher who speaks and the students who listen.  It is how we receive the Dharma in our Sunday services.  But the Buddha tells us to test and try for ourselves the truth of his teachings, and not to rely on them solely  because he taught them.  “O monks and wise men, just as a goldsmith would test his gold by burning, cutting and rubbing it, so must you examine my words and accept them, not merely out of reverence for me.”

Our lives become Dharma; the world becomes Dharma when we test the teachings in our lives—very much like kinetic learning.

Toward the end of his long life, the Buddha took his disciples to a quiet pond for instruction.  As was the practice, the disciples sat in a circle around him, awaiting his instruction.

Without speaking, the Buddha held a flower in his hand.  The disciples waited for him to expound on the meaning of his gesture, but still the Buddha did not speak.  Suddenly one disciple, Mahakashyapa, smiled.

The Flower Sermon was a wordless teaching that Mahakashyapa grasped, also without a word. 

The Hanamatsuri photo exhibit is a teaching on Buddha nature—an important reminder that our Buddha nature is within all of us, even if we can barely discern it (especially in ourselves).  As the festival attendees make their way into the temple hondo and move along the row of images of Buddha statues photographed in Asia and the US, one man reaches the last image—an ordinary Tibetan child, a nomad with a dirty face and untroubled eyes—and bows.  He has just seen and recognized Buddha nature in an unexpected image.

The Buddha’s teaching has been transmitted without a word spoken.

HANAMATSURI: THE FESTIVAL

The Hanamatsuri we celebrate at temple could be considered “private”—not that we don’t welcome all seekers, but that the service isn’t an event we advertise beyond our website and newsletter calendar—

—compared to what the community knows as our Hanamatsuri festival, which we advertise for months in advance in every available format---newspapers, magazines, fliers, websites, and online listings.  Is the public welcome?  Gosh yes—we’re throwing a birthday festival party and we want you to come!

And a few thousand people, more or less, will show up for either or both days of our Hanamatsuri Festival.  About the time the flyers arrive in some 10,000 newspapers delivered to strategically selected zip codes, the temple phone starts ringing and the web site takes its hits.  When is the talk on Buddhism?  What hours is the photo exhibit open?  Does the tea ceremony require tickets?  How much for admission?  Where do we park?  How do I get there?

Many of our sister Shin Buddhist temples serve a Japanese-American population, and their festival more closely resembles the local matsuri in Japan, where they hold and attend their own celebration.  While we do not have the luxury of a guaranteed population base to draw on, we do have the opportunity to invite the larger community to share our celebration with us, eat our hand-made food, buy our crafts, visit our plant booth (especially popular at Hanamatsuri—our plumeria are famous for quality, and this is their planting season), buy produce from our mini farmer market…

…and yes, attend a talk on Buddhism, taught by one of our sensei (teachers), watch classical and folk dance performances, take in the photo exhibit, experience the Japanese Tea Ceremony, and feel the taiko drumming.

It is a testament to the interest and orientation of our community that the “introduction to Buddhism” talks are usually full.  Despite the vagaries of spring weather (even in North San Diego County), where we’ve frozen, baked, burned, and been rained on, the community comes out in curiosity, in support, in serious craving for strawberry shortcake—a bow here to the remaining small farms who help us with fresh strawberries in April!—and we celebrate the birth of the Buddha together.

We’re ready for you.

HANAMATSURI: The Special Service

If it’s April, it’s all about Hanamatsuri at temple.  Hana means “flower” and matsuri means “festival” in Japanese—and that word is used a lot in Japan!  Every town has at least one shrine, and every shrine has its own matsuri, drawing the entire population together to put on and attend the festival.

The Flower Festival is far bigger than a local shrine festival however.  It’s when we celebrate the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha, born over 2,500 years ago in what was then India and is now a southern corner of modern-day Nepal.

Stories of the birth of great teachers and gods are frequently surrounded in beautiful legends, and Shakyamuni Buddha was no exception.  The stories that have come to us say that at his birth, the very earth itself shook in all of the six directions (north, south, east, west, up and down), and flowers bloomed everywhere.  Devas (or gods) filled the air with music, and heavenly beings scattered flowers from the sky.  The newborn infant Buddha immediately stood up and took seven steps to the north and pointed his left hand at the earth below and his right hand to the heavens above, and declared, “In the heavens above and on earth below, I alone will become the Honored One.”  And with each step he took, a lotus flower bloomed under his feet.  Hence we call the celebration of his birth Hanamatsuri—the Flower Festival.

The stories are beautiful and about as literally “true” as mangers, stars, and Wise Men.  The legends carry teachings and imagery that appeal to all of us, particularly children being introduced to the story of the Buddha.

Our children, for instance, build a hanamido, or miniature flower altar of bright flowers to approximate Lumbini Garden where the Buddha was born.  Inside the hanamido, we place a statue of an infant Buddha with arms extended to the heavens and the earth.  During our Hanamatsuri service, instead of burning incense as we normally do, we have the opportunity to pour sweet tea (amacha, made from hydrangea leaves) over the statue to represent the sweet gentle rain that fell in Lumbini Garden and washed the infant Buddha.

Flowers play a conspicuous role in many Buddhist myths and in the Buddha’s birth.  It is no accident that this celebration takes place in spring, when all the flowers are in bloom.  In Japan, the sakura (cherry) trees bloom at this time, and are sometimes used as offerings for the festival.

We are a long way from Japan, and our gardeners will tell you we don’t have the climate for cherry trees.  But we are fortunate to be located in an area that has been called the Flower Capital of the World since the 1920s.  Much of the flower growing was dedicated to poinsettias—that flower most associated with the celebration of a different sage’s birth.  Our temple was founded by issei (first generation) Japanese immigrants who owned and operated the farmlands of North San Diego County until they were moved to relocation camps during World War II.

Although we no longer have much more than memories of our farmlands and flower-growing history, Hanamatsuri is a much-loved opportunity to return to our own symbols of the past, as well as to celebrate those of our earliest teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha.  Happy birthday, Shakyamuni Buddha!