Project Dana

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Dana Day & Pet Memorial Dharma Service

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Cyndi Osajima, Project Dana

Dana Day and Pet Memorial Dharma Service for Sunday, February 11, 2024 with a Dharma Talk by Cyndi Osajima, Executive Director of Project Dana at Windward Buddhist Temple. The service was officiated by Rev. Brennan.

Dana, or selfless giving, is one of the six paramitas. Project Dana is a program that provides a multitude of services to the elderly and disabled through a corps of volunteers. For more information about Project Dana, please visit their website at https://projectdana.org.

Today was also our annual Pet Memorial Remembrance Service. Pets provide us with selfless giving with their unconditional love and companionship. A loss of a family pet is often our first encounter with mortality as children.

  • 00:00 - Opening Remarks & Program

    00:15 - Ringing of the kansho (temple bell)

    02:58 - Meditation

    03:43 - Vandana & Ti-Sarana (page 7 in the red service book)

    06:22 - Pet Memorial Aspiration

    07:18 - Pet Memorial

    12:20 - Sutra: Twelve Homages (page 120 in the red service book)

    19:45 - Recitation: Golden Chain of Love (page 126 in the red service book)

    21:01 - Gatha: Buddha Loves You (page 24 in Praises of the Buddha)

    20:34 - Dharma Talk: Cyndi Osajima, Project Dana

    21:01 - Gatha: Golden Chain

    37:29 - The Nembutsu (page 135 in the red service book)

    39:46 - Announcements

    50:11 - Dharma School Presentation

    52:07 - Words of Thanksgiving (page 126 in the red service book)

    53:00 - February Dharma Service Schedule

    53:16 - How to Donate to WBT

  • We are now able to accept secure online donations using PayPal or a credit card. Please visit our Donation page for instructions or scan the QR code in the video.Item description

  • Download the Jodo Shinshu Service Book (the "red service book"): https://tinyurl.com/GetServiceBook

Dharma School Activity

Bingo

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Dana Day Service & Dharma School

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Today’s Dana Day service focused on the principle of dana, or “selfless giving.” Jean Fukumoto, the Windward coordinator for Project Dana, shared an update of the organization. Project Dana was founded in 1989 by the late Shimeji Kanazawa out of Moiliili Hongwanji. Today, it is a multi-faith coalition of 32 churches and temples across Hawaii with over 800 volunteers providing thousands of hours of services and support to the elderly. For more information, or to learn how to participate in Project Dana, please visit their website at www.projectdana.org.

We hold Dharma School on the second Sunday of the month during the school year. Today’s session continued the discussion of interdependence by investigating the interconnectedness found in nature in our local ecosystem.

Dharma School

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Dana Day Service with Guest Speaker Cyndi Osajima

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Our Dana (Sanskrit meaning "selfless giving") Day Service featured a guest speaker, Cyndi Osajima, Executive Director of Project Dana. Project Dana is a program that provides a multitude of services to the elderly and disabled through a corps of volunteers. Our M.C. for today, Jean Fukumoto, is Windward Buddhist Temple's Project Dana site coordinator.

Watch Cyndi’s Dharma Talk below.

Project Dana: July 2016

When a new client is referred to Kailua Hongwanji’s Project Dana program, we locate where the client lives and try to match them up with a volunteer that lives in the same area. I meet with the family and obtain a signature on a permission document.

We then schedule a meeting for the new client and their volunteer. I normally attend these meetings to do the introductions.

Recently, due to my family commitments, I was unable to attend a new client meeting. Our volunteer; however, found his way to the client’s apartment and discovered that they were around the same age!

They hit it off – and had a lot to talk about!

Betty Okamoto

Project Dana: June 2016

When working with our clients, we sometimes have to accommodate special requests in regard to our volunteers. As an example, a new client, who was in her nineties, preferred not to have a male volunteer drive her to appointments. This apparently stemmed from the teenage notion that a male driving you around was thought to be a “boyfriend." I had to arrange for several women to drive her to various places.

Another elderly client needed someone to visit her in her home but she was “deathly afraid" of men. I had arranged for a nice gentlemen volunteer who already had waited over a year for a client, for “friendly visits” on Wednesdays at nine o'clock’; however, during our intake interview, her daughter said that a man would not be satisfactory. Because of this sudden request, I had to hurriedly locate a woman who could visit her on Wednesdays.

Betty Okamoto