The Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada - Living Dharma Centre has its own channel on YouTube.

You can watch dharma talks for Jodo Shinshu ministers, see the Jodo Shinshu Centre in Berkeley, California and even learn how to repair your ojuzu.

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A birthday cake for Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur.
Photo by Saeed Khan for the Agence France-Presse.

Campaigners across the globe are honoring the birthday Friday of Burma's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burmese pro-democracy leader spent her 64th birthday at Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, where she is on trial and facing up to five years behind bars. Activists and politicians are marking Aung San Suu Kyi's 64th birthday with gatherings of support from Thailand to Europe and the United States. In addition, a coalition of 23 Burma rights groups has formed "64forsuu.org", a website where supporters can post messages urging her release from detention.

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The Buddhist Temple of Southern Alberta is the talk of the town. While the casino just across the street might be a bigger draw. The right choice might be the new Lethbridge Buddhist temple.

This week the temple was the focus of the local TV newscast and a chance for many to see the temple without leaving home.

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The University of Calgary is pleased to welcome His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama as an honoured guest at NOW – a two-day event and conference from September 30th to October 1st, 2009.

Tickets for the Dalai Lama's public address at Calgary, Alberta's Pengrowth Saddledome are no longer available. Officials are optimistic that additional tickets may be released when stage configurations are finalized.

Two-day packages are also sold out. Tickets for the one-day conference which includes appearances by F.W. de Klerk (shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela), the Dalai Lama, Bryan Adams, K.D. Lang and actor, Sandra Oh are still available.

"The Dalai Lama helps serve lunch at a San Francisco soup kitchen on Sunday, April 26, 2009.
Speaking as Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, he told visitors "Me too, homeless person.'"
-Photo by Noah Berger for the Associated Press via Rev. Danny Fisher

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On April 26, 2009, a Dedication Service was held to open the new Buddhist Temple of Southern Alberta. The celebration included a Chigo parade, a Japanese tradition when a temple or shrine is constructed. Children who participate are said to be "happy for life." The dedication of the new temple in Lethbridge, Alberta also marked the 80th anniversary of Buddhism in southern Alberta, drawing visitors from across Canada and Japan, including Sensei Ulrich of Manitoba Buddhist Temple. Ministers and delegates attending the annual general meeting of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada were also in attendance.

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The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, "Departures" opens in North American this May. The film is a delightful journey into the heartland of Japan as well an astonishingly beautiful look at a sacred part of Japan’s cultural heritage.

The movie is based on the book, "Coffinman-The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician" by Shinmon Aoki. In the Foreword, Shin Buddhist scholar, Rev. Dr. Taitetsu Unno writes,

This little book, a diary of a mortician, invites the reader into the fascinating world of Buddhist spirituality which sees the extraordinary in things ordinary, mundane, and even repugnant. Written with deep affection for life and poetic sensibility, the author Shinmon Aoki evokes theworld of boundless compassion found in Shin Buddhism which evolved from the Pure Land tradition of Mahayana Buddhism.

SYNOPSIS
“Departures” follows Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a devoted cellist in an orchestra that has just been dissolved and who is suddenly left without a job. Daigo decides to move back to his old hometown with his wife to look for work and start over. He answers a classified ad entitled “Departures” thinking it is an advertisement for a travel agency only to discover that the job is actually for a “Nokanshi” or “encoffineer,” a funeral professional who prepares deceased bodies for burial and entry into the next life. While his wife and others despise the job, Daigo takes a certain pride in his work and begins to perfect the art of “Nokanshi,” acting as a gentle gatekeeper between life and death, between the departed and the family of the departed. The film follows his profound and sometimes comical journey with death as he uncovers the wonder, joy and meaning of life and living. A story of love, of discovery, of revelation and of the transcending human spirit, “Departures” will linger in your heart and mind long after viewing.

Expect to see "Departures" in Winnipeg by the end of 2009.

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Daily Buddhism has been asking for practitioners of Buddhism to explain their denomination. It is inviting essays explaining "your " version of Buddhism.

Up for the challenge, we get this great explanation of Shin Buddhism from Jeff Wilson. He begins with a description of Shinran's interpretation of Buddhism.

Shinran taught that Amida is actually reality in its true, liberated nature, and the Pure Land is a poetic description for nirvana. Putting the insights of Mahayana Buddhism into narrative format, he talked about how Amida embraces all beings no matter how bad or good, and liberates them from their greed and delusion. In fact, this liberation is something that has been accomplished in the primal past (i.e. it is always naturally present), and so we should stop endlessly chasing after attainment. Instead, when we give up attachment to our ego-laden efforts to become enlightened, and relax back into the embrace of inconceivable wisdom and never-abandoning compassion, we are freed from our anxieties and pettiness. Our practice, then, stops being about getting Buddhahood for ourselves, and instead is refocused to be about expressing gratitude for all that we have received, spiritually and materially.

Wilson points out that the main focus of Shin is the practise of "gratitude." And that, everyone can become a Buddha by reciting the Nembutsu.

None of us are deluded about our level of attainment-we are ordinary people, prone to foolishness. But everyone, Shin Buddhist or otherwise, exists within an inconceivable network of support from all things, an ever-changing matrix that provides us with nourishment, shelter, love, and, if we don’t let our egos get in the way, pushes us on toward final liberation. Awakening to this inner togetherness which we all share helps us to get a perspective on our karmic limitations, and this engenders humility, patience, and a sense of humor about our shortcomings and those of others. When we wake up to how power-beyond-self is always nurturing and supporting us, we often say the nembutsu in gratitude. Nembutsu is a phrase, Namu Amida Butsu, that expresses our happiness and thankfulness. It isn’t a mantra or a prayer-it doesn’t accomplish anything other than letting out that bottled-up gratitude in a joyful utterance.

Jeff Wilson is currently an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Renison College on the campus of the University of Waterloo in Canada. He recently wrote the book, "Mourning the Unborn Dead A Buddhist Ritual Comes to America" from Oxford Press.

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