#28. NEVADA

 Between Samsara and Nevada:  

Anyhow, Reno!  I watched the Livestream from the Reno Buddhist Center, which was set up strangely like the Methodist services I attended as a kid; pews, a children’s service, where all the kids were pipered out to ‘Let the Buddha Walk With You’,  a procession to start after lots of bells, and people lining up for the Shoshinge incense offering. 

The RBC is a Shin temple, after the founder Shinran (1173-1263).   I was quite moved by the lengthy prayer to Amida, in no small part due to the recent tragic death of our cat Mihi.   It was to Amida (Amitabha in Tibet) that my friend Chenrap said to offer prayers, that essentially, he be reborn in heaven.  

The Amida chant was a nasal drone, I don’t know how ‘authentic’ it was but it was intense, serious, and also lovely; a piece translated here: 

He discloses the mind that is single so that all beings be saved
By Amida's directing of virtue through the power of the Primal Vow.
When a person turns and enters the great treasure ocean of virtue,
Necessarily he joins Amida's assembly;

And when that person reaches that lotus-held world,
He immediately realizes the body of suchness or dharma-nature.
Then sporting in the forests of blind passions, he manifests transcendent powers;
Entering the garden of birth-and-death, he assumes various forms to guide others.

Following the chant was a sermon on the Kaccayanagotta Sutta, wherein the Buddha notes that the world (The 'world' from the Buddhist perspective is that which is judged by the senses) is built on polar views of existence and non-existence, and we require insight into these views, and into the 12 links of dependent causation. 

Following that was a rather dense blast on everything; Anatta, Anicca, Dukkha, Nirvana and the Eightfold Path.  Whew!