2024 is our Anniversary Year! 
 
“ Those who are born first, guide those who come later, and those who are born later, join those who were born before them. This is so that the Boundless Ocean of birth-and-death may be exhausted.” 
 
(In “Passages on the Land of Happiness”, by master Tao-ch’o [562-645]) 
              
   On October 10, 1904, fourteen leaders of the Buddhist community held a meeting to voice their concern for a need of a gathering place for all Buddhist families. The vote was unanimously in favor of the construction of a temple, which became a reality shortly thereafter. With courage and dedication, our pioneers have since maintained our temple for the past 120 years and continues to provide a spiritual home for our   members and the community. To celebrate this milestone, the Vancouver Buddhist Temple has       declared 2024 its 120 th Anniversary since its founding and 45 th Anni- versary of our building. Throughout this year we will hold special anniversary ser- vices and events, so please come to join our celebrations! 
 
   On this special observance of the establishment of Jodo Shinshu in Canada, I would like to share a story of the famous physicist Albert Einstein, who was invited to Japan in the fall of 1922. He was interested in Buddhism and paid a visit to Reverend Jokan Chikazumi, a Jodo Shinshu minister. Einstein asked him about the Buddha Dharma, especially the heart of the Buddha (“Buddha-mind”). It is said that Rev. Chikazumi told him the story of Ubasuteyama (the old custom of abandoning old people,      usually women, deep in the mountains). A young man was hurrying along a      mountain path carrying his aged mother on his back.  Along the trail deep in the mountains, the mother was breaking off tree twigs and dropping them on the path. She was marking the path with a trail of twigs. The young man thought that his mother was leaving a trail of twigs so that she could later make her way out of the mountains. When they arrived at their destination, the son, bidding his mother    farewell, was about to leave when she said, “Since I didn’t want you to become lost, I left a trail of twigs for you. Follow it as you make your way back home.”  It is said that when the young man heard this, he didn’t have the heart to leave her there and so once again put her on his back and carried her home down the mountain. 
 
   For whom is the trail of broken twigs? It is for my child who is hurrying on his way to abandon his parent.  This fable reflects the feelings that the aged mother held in her heart. We can clearly see that they were not meant to reproach him for taking her deep into the mountains to abandon her; but rather it was her own abandoning of her “self”, and that as a mother, her sole concern was the safety of her child.      Although her son was intending to abandon her, she was receptive and accepting of him, completely as he was. Rev. Chikazumi told Einstein that this commiseration is likened to the Buddha’s compassion. Einstein, when he came to know that according to the Buddha - Dharma, the heart of the Buddha does not pass judgment on   whether something is good or evil, he was elated to have encountered this kind of religion for the first time, and said that in order for us to realize true peace that is free of conflict, we must learn from this. I feel that the Vancouver Buddhist Temple will continue to provide important religious values, not to mention relevance, to the Canadian society. 
 
In gassho,  
 
Tatsuya Aoki