Sermon -22:    Holiday Blues and Nembutsu

As so many people the world over joyfully celebrate the holiday season and year-end, an equal number of individuals will find this to be a time of sadness and loneliness.

For the traveler or person in a strange city – also for a person being alone - there is nothing lonelier than watching others enjoying the shared closeness and love of the holidays. Food alone is no recompense for the warm ness of being among family and friends.

For the poor, as well as those living in unsettled and troubled area of the world, the holiday season is not a happy time. Nor it is for many of the elderly, even those who are fortunate enough to celebrate with children and grandchildren still feel the pangs of loneliness and past memories of holidays celebrated with those who are no longer with us.

For every adult the holidays and year-end bring a feeling of nostalgia - and a secret yearning to touch and feel what is no longer - the naivete of childhood and first experience of joy and wonder, as well as tasty foods that over the years come to loose their savor - that was associated with first experiences.

And how many, even in the bosom of loving families still feel lonely at holiday times with fears, worries and sadness that cannot be shared?

In this respect, all humankind carries a perpetual loneliness. We are born alone - we die alone - and not another living soul is capable of totally understanding our emotions, experiences, joys, failings, happiness and discouragements. We each must walk our solitary paths and can barely even extend our hand to actually - truly "touch" other, who also dwell in their private shells of loneliness.

Buddhism teaches that the way to break this shell of individual aloneness is to look inward rather than outwards -- for the superficial forms that our senses reveal to us are illusory. And iｔ is only within us that we can discover and communicate with our Buddha Nature. For it is our Buddha Nature that is the part of us that is integrally related to the real world about us -- as well as every other sentient being past and present.　Each person is connected to others as we share this interdependent world. Every individual is not an isolated being but every person is an integral part of this world. Mountains, rivers, and the world as a whole are part of ourselves.

Let us recite “Namu-Amida-Butsu” repeatedly when we feel isolated and lonesome. The recitation does not require any reasonings or elucidation. Sincere calling the name of Amida Buddha gives us inner peace and strength.

Reno Buddhist Church