Erin Kelly (blog for buddhism)

Today we had a lecture on Buddhism given to us by George
Tanabe. Our lecture was from 9 am- 11:30 am and it was on
the aspects of Buddha, and what the religion expects from people and what people expect from it. Some Buddhists believe that if they are true Buddhists then they must not drink alcohol, they must be celibate, not have a family, and the cant even have spices on their food. It is believed that Buddha is the "the enlightened one" and that everyone can be enlightened if we allow it.

Siddhartha (Buddha) was a prince that was conceived by his mother
dreaming him of being a white elephant, then he was born form
his mother's side and took 7 steps with each step turning
into a lotus flower. Buddha then said "this is my last
rebirth." He was raised as a prince in a kingdom where no
old age, sickness or work was seen by Siddhartha. One day he
was exposed to all of these problems and came up with an
idea that he wanted to treat all of the unhappiness in the
world. He sat under a tree for 35 years and then he began to
teach others of the ideas he came up with. He decided there
were 84,000 teachings and he taught 4 things; the four noble
truths, dependent origination, change, and karma. These four
things have many aspects that Buddha taught throughout his
life. From there a religion was formed on the basis of
finding happiness and being undesirable.
We also had a tour of three Buddhist temples in Honolulu.
The first one had international building style; the top was
of Indian culture, and the structure was British, and the
Buddhist part is Japanese. The interior was beautiful and
the altar was decorated with gold and colors around a statue
Amida. There were pictures on both sides of the statues and
an altar where the head monk gives the service to the
people. Tananbe spoke about Shinron who was a monk that
declared himself a failure and many rules were changed for
him. The second temple was surrounded by gold and mainly red
on the bottom part of the altar. There was also a statue of
Amida and picture around the temples altar. We were
introduced to the Bishop who showed us the cremated remains
of people who were apart of the temple. There were many
questions about the cubicles that held the remains of the
dead. I asked if there could be more than one person
cremated in the cubicles and in actuality a whole family can
be placed in the cubicles. Many just had the name tablets
and no ashes of the dead, and we learned many people have
their ashes sent home to family or put in other places. We
also learned that the tradition of bringing offerings to the
dead at their grave sites is a responsibility given to the
family to be carried out for 49 years. The next temple was
upstairs and we met a former Bishop. We witnessed him and
another priest pray and chant. We learned that the reason for the candles and
lights always being on is because darkness represents greed
and confusion. The Bishop was very knowledgeable and this
temple was definitely my favorite. In the end we got to
light the incense to help Buddhism and ourselves. Overall, we
had a great day and it ended with a short rain shower and a beautiful
rainbow on the horizon of the mountains. All in all a great
day to learn about Buddhism.
Erin K