Starting the Journey
I drove my daughter back to college in northern California last September after 1-1/2 years of remote learning at home. My husband and I have had mixed feelings about it. We miss her and still worry about her during the pandemic, but we’re glad she’s on her own again. She had barely started her first year of college the fall of 2019 when she along with many other college students in the country were abruptly sent home in March 2020.
Just when we had started to see her gain independence and we were enjoying the empty nest, she was back. Like many other families we learned to coexist. I was struck with the how she had changed and grown in the short span of time she had been away. We were poor substitutes for dorm friends, however I was surprised to find out how much we enjoyed discussing what she was studying. She caught me off guard last year when she asked me if I would be the subject of an interview/final paper for an Asian American Studies class. I was so uncomfortable because she was going to record several video interviews (which were uploaded for the professor to audit) and then write a report. I thought I probably made an easy subject being isolated together during the pandemic. But her interest was in me as a Japanese American Buddhist and how ethnicity and religion played out in my life. I had never stopped to think about my journey so it was ultimately an opportunity for honest self-assessment.
I am a Sansei (third generation) Japanese American with strong Jodo Shinshu Buddhist family ties through Issei grandparents who farmed in the Pacific Northwest, but was not raised as a practicing Buddhist. I was raised in a small logging town at the foot of the Olympic peninsula, an hour away from the closest Buddhist church and my grandmother’s home in the White River Valley south of Seattle. Religion did not play a large role in my life other than attending family memorial or funeral services, or occasional special services when we visited for the weekend. As life continued – college, career, it seemed I moved even further away from any religion, nor was I close friends with any Buddhists. I had not grown up in an Asian American, let alone Japanese American community. I honestly did not feel anything missing in life while time seemed to fly.
I shared all of this in my interview. My daughter knew the part of the story that explains how we eventually joined the Orange County Buddhist Church. She was a sophomore in high school and had a friend who invited her to come along to Buddhist services with her and her mother. I think she was bored and wanted companionship rather than trying to convert my daughter. After several visits, my daughter told me she really enjoyed it and was especially taken with the chanting and the members had invited her to join the church. I was taken aback, not expecting this. Despite how nice the members of the Nichiren group were, I suggested/insisted that if she was seriously interested, we would join the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist sect, my family’s religion. She had to be committed to attend regularly and I would go with her.
She had to keep reminding me to take her to the church, maybe I was procrastinating, and we joined in 2016. It was everything she had hoped it would be and more, but this article is about me, not her. As she wrote in her paper, “religion had up to then, not yet been made tangible for either of us. Except I now knew it had. My mother and I had been subject to its gravitational pull all our lives and now it was our epicenter.”
I felt a familiarity immediately with the rituals and chanting. It was a comforting reminder of visits to my grandmother’s temple when I was young. But I also had mixed feelings of guilt and inadequacy. I had so little doctrinal knowledge and felt I had so much to catch up on for someone my age. I’ve always believed that I needed to be closer to my family’s religion out of filial obligation, but I knew that this was not enough to bring me back and keep me coming every Sunday (especially after my daughter started driving). I felt I needed to “catch up” and was astounded to find how much published material is available on Buddhist education- in English! I found it all so enlightening and interesting. I caught myself with a stack of books that I would read simultaneously. Eventually it became clear that there’s no “catching up”. I was benefiting so much from just practicing. Chanting with the sangha was meditative and the ministers’ talks linked the Dharma to the relatable world. I continue to study, but I also try to focus on being more aware of the Dharma in my everyday life. I’ve started on this journey maybe a little late in life, but the Dharma path will be a personal journey and influenced by my own story, my own history. I know that is never too late to find yourself on the path, however and whenever you get there.
Jodo Shinshu Buddhism in the United States has evolved in the years since our Issei founders. It will thrive as long as the Dharma continues to reach and touch people of all ethnicities, race, gender, and sexuality. I shared with my daughter in my interview that as a Japanese American I take comfort in the cultural, racial and ethnic ties with my religion, but am even more comforted and proud of the growing diversity I see in it and how much more relevant and great it has become because of it.
When I introduced my daughter to Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, I did so as a parent because of her interest and she needed my support. I didn’t realize how much I would get out of it for myself. I did not tell her this in the interview. I’ve spent so many years both nurturing, and nagging her as she grew up, but it took my daughter to lead me to the Dharma path. I’m so grateful for what she has taught me. She got an A for her final paper and in the class.
Namo Amida Butsu
