Happy New Year!

It begins, as it ended, with the bells…

Our first temple service of this new year begins with the ringing of the kansho, or temple bell, and the chairperson opens the service by reminding us:

In our Buddhist tradition, the Temple hondo (or main hall) is a place of reverence, where we gather to hear the Dharma, or Teachings.  When the Temple bell is rung, the sound you hear represents the calling voice of the Buddha, and is a reminder to quiet our minds so we can focus on receiving the Dharma.” 

The last time many of us heard the calling voice of the Buddha was in the final hours of the year, when we were the ones ringing the bell at our December 31 service.  Each one of us rang the kansho three times.  Symbolically, our bell ringing represented 108 rings for the 108 human passions that keep us in delusion—

—symbolically, not literally, or else we would have been taking turns all night!

Many Shin Buddhist temples hold a service on January 1, called Shusho-e, or, as it is rendered in English, “Gathering to Recover the Correct Path”.  In Japan, where Shin Buddhism originated in the 1200s, New Year’s Day is by far the biggest celebration of the year.  Each year is viewed as completely separate from the previous year, and each year is a totally new start.  New Year’s Day is full of joy, and free from stress and anger.  The houses and temples have been cleaned, and no work should be done on New Year’s Day.  Traditionally, families in Japan visit shrines or temples and eat various special dishes such as osechi ryori, otoso, and ozoni.

The celebration of Shusho-e carries over the idea of temple-visiting and imbues it with the opportunity this shiny new year gives us to reflect on our past and to resolve to live a good life in the year ahead.

Sounds like New Year Resolutions!  But “lose 10 pounds” is a little more self-oriented and specific than “live a good life”, which seems to place our intention within the larger community.  Just the fact that this reflection and resolve take place in our temple with our dharma friends and families makes it an expression of gratitude and joy.

Our particular temple does not celebrate on New Year’s Day itself.  We did so as a young temple when our pioneering families and their elders wanted to continue celebrating the new year the way their elders did in Japan.  Some of us remember rushing to eat our ozoni first thing on New Year’s Day and then rushing over to temple for service.  Over time, however, as those generations departed, we began to resemble American Shin Buddhism with our thoroughly American sangha.  Our big celebrations take place on New Year’s Eve, and the first day of the new year is spent with family, friends, the Rose Bowl Parade and football bowls!  Some of us still start the year with the traditional foods, but just as many of us have moved on to the other traditional fare of chips, dips, and nachos.

But on this first Sunday of the new year, we return with gratitude for our lives, each other, our beautiful temple, and the ministers who drive long distances to share the dharma with us.  We say, “Happy New Year” to everyone we have not seen since the old year rung itself out.  The altar (naijin), in addition to its usual fruit offerings, has kasane mochi offerings, or “stacked mochi”, consisting of a large bun-shaped white mochi (representing the older generation) and a smaller one (representing the newer generation) stacked on top of it.  We top this with a mandarin orange, called dai-dai, meaning “generation to generation”.  We only put these on the altar at this first gathering of the year, so they are as much a sign of the new year as a Christmas tree would be indicative of that holiday season.  And we made the kasane mochi ourselves in December just for this occasion!

The new year begins as it ended with the bell.  We need its reminder that the Buddha’s voice is calling us.  It is not only welcoming each other into the new year.  The calling voice of the Buddha is welcoming us into the world of wisdom and compassion.  It is time to quiet our minds and prepare ourselves to listen.

Each day is new, each year is a new year—even as, generation to generation, like kasane mochi, our days and years and generations stack on top of each other.