title tenen
Why do we perform Buddhist rituals? It is so that we can be born, live our lives to the fullest, and go to the Pure Land when we die.
On the middle day of the equinox, the sun sets due west. This allows us to know the exact direction of the Pure Land, so it is the best day to chant the Nembutsu in order to go to the Pure Land at the end.
We also chanted the Nembutsu at this year's Higan Festival. So how should we spend our time until we are reborn in the Pure Land? The answer is to live life to the fullest.
What does it mean to live your life to the fullest? It means to live with a constant awareness of the true essence of things and the things we should value. However, even though we have come into contact with the true essence of most things, we are so busy in our daily lives that we forget about it, or even if we remember, we are unable to put it into practice. Or perhaps we have come into contact with it but have not realized it. This is one of the roots of our suffering.
At the Higan ceremony at Shokoji Temple, we face Amida Buddha and our ancestors in a calm and introspective manner in order to reaffirm the true nature of these things and what we should cherish, and at the end we chant the Nembutsu. The purpose of the Buddhist ceremony is to live to the fullest until the next opportunity for reflection, based on what we have reaffirmed through this quiet introspection.
However, as ordinary people, no matter how hard we try, after a while we begin to neglect the important things. For such people, Buddhist ceremonies remind us of the true essence of things and what we should cherish.
Buddhist ceremonies are a place where we can replenish our minds during the process of being born, living our lives to the fullest, and then dying and going to the Pure Land.
Joining hands in prayer
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