Kuki spoke about our Founders Day which was celebrated last Sunday to honor temple leaders that came before us from over 50 years ago to present who helped make WBT what it is today. He also expressed his gratitude for the late Dorothy Ono for her generous donation to the temple that allowed us to build our beautiful temple.
We also celebrated March birthdays. After the service and refreshments, our intergenerational activity was making spring butterflies.
Today’s Dharma Talk was presented by Dr. Mike Jaffe. Mike, who also presented at the first Windward Interfaith Service last Tuesday, shared his knowledge of Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion, which are all strongly interrelated, and interwove it with parallels in Buddhism, specifically Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
After today’s service, we celebrated our February birthdays. Our intergenerational activity for February had a Valentine’s Day theme and the crafts were enjoyed (and modeled) by all.
Rev. Sumikawa welcomed the New Year in his Dharma Talk and discussed the importance of making resolutions. Making resolutions means that we recognize the reality of our imperfect selves and are trying to make improvements. We also celebrated January birthdays, including Patsy’s 96th!
After the service, we had an intergenerational craft activity. Chinese New Year is on January 25 and this will be the Year of the Rat, so we made colorful rocking rats.
Prudence read a story called “A Swim” from the children’s book, “Adventures of Frog and Toad.” The story is one of several stories in the book about the friendship between a frog and a toad. The story Prudence read was fun for the children but also was interesting for the adults.
Today we celebrated November birthdays, but only Rev. Bert was present. Two children celebrated with Rev. Bert as the congregation sang happy birthday.
Our inter generational activity was Thanksgiving card making.
Today’s Dharma Talk was given by Keiji Kukino. Kuki gave a brief history of yesterday’s first ever Bon Dance Festival at Windward Mall and how it came to be. Kuki also shared how he came to the understanding through Shinran’s teachings that the remembrance services after a death are really for the living, as the deceased are already cared for.
After today’s service, we celebrated October birthdays and, following refreshments, we welcomed the return of our monthly inter-generational First Sunday activities. Today’s activity was a toilet paper pumpkin craft.
Happy October birthdays, Jett and Annette!
Today was our first Sunday service after our summer break in August. Our Dharma Talk was given by our resident minister, Rev. Bert Sumikawa. Rev. Sumikawa spoke about importance of perseverance as well as dukkah, commonly translated as suffering.
As announced in the September newsletter, our monthly First Sunday family activity is back by popular demand. Following this morning’s service, we folded large origami cranes for International Peace Day, which we will observe on September 22, 2019. The cranes will be distributed by our Dharma school students to neighborhood businesses in hopes they will display them as part of International Peace Day.
For today’s Dharma Talk, Dennis discussed symbolism in both everyday situations, such as emojis, and in national icons, such as the Statue of Liberty. Did you notice that the Statue of Liberty is taking a step forward?
One of today’s First Sunday’s activities had to do with Indra’s net, and Dennis shared the symbolism around the interconnected jewels that we attached to the image of the world as we entered the temple. Our second activity was a Valentine’s Day craft, which both the kids and the adults enjoyed.
Rev. Sumikawa welcomed the new year in our first family service in 2019. It is the year of the pig, the twelfth of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac cycle. It is a year to reflect on the previous 11 years and period of joy and relaxation. He also shared Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii’s theme for 2019, “Embrace Change: Transformation (Walk in Peace).”
We celebrated January birthdays today. One member, Patsy, is celebrating her 95th birthday. Happy birthday!
After refreshments, which included ozoni, we held our monthly First Sunday activity. This month, we made botamochi (ohagi), a Japanese sweet made with glutinous rice, rice and sweet azuki paste.
Rev. Sumikawa gave today’s Dharma Talk. He shared that the appeal of Buddhism is that we are able to apply many Christian or other belief systems principles to our own. There are many similarities and differences in each other’s approach in words.
We celebrated December birthdays today. Happy birthday Betty and Margaret!
After service, there was a very special guest. Santa (and his 100% recyclable beard) visited with the kids and adults and gave everyone a bag of holiday treats.
Our “First Sunday” craft activity was decorating ornaments with glitter. Each ornament was unique based on the colors that were mixed.
home | news & events | calendar | activities | donate | join us
