Rev. Sol Kalu
Aloha, and a Happy New Year 2025 to all the members and friends of Windward Buddhist Temple!
We look forward to a New Year with renewed hopes and aspirations, greater efforts whether at work, school, family life in general and, not to neglect, our spiritual cultivation through the temple, to make the best version of ourselves ever.
The previous year, 2024, admittedly, was not a very good year for me. Besides continuing to be on dialysis treatments, it was a busy time of assignment transfer from Mililani to Windward Buddhist Temple and multiple travels to the mainland for medical testing as part of my continuing effort to receive a kidney transplant. And then, the worst crisis of my life came towards the end of the year, in December, when my mother passed away at the age of 94.
It was overwhelming to face several problems all at one time and there have been times that I longed for an earlier, easier time in my life when I have not yet lost much of my freedom to end stage renal disease. But that is all now wishful thinking. The Buddha taught that the present is all that we really have, the past is past, and the future uncertain. What this teaching tells me is that it is futile to dwell in the past and regret what could have been, and it is equally pointless to worry unnecessarily for that which is yet to come. I remember one of our lay speakers remarked that dwelling in the past is akin to having depression and worrying about the future is like having anxiety. It is so very true.
"If you want to know why you are what you are now, reflect on your past deeds, if you want to know what you will be in the future, reflect on what you are doing in the present moment." It is important for us to understand well the Buddha's words of wisdom about mindfulness and living in the present moment. For it is in the present that we can sow the seeds, not only of our happiness and well-being, through the law of cause and effect, but also progress towards our spiritual path to Enlightenment and the Pure Land.
Namu Amida Butsu,
Rev. Sol Kalu