January
Temple Membership 2012
Happy New Year!!! The New Year has arrived which means it is time to
renew your membership for 2012. We are continuing the tiered membership
program. This has been very beneficial for the Temple. Your membership
assists with the daily operations of the Temple and a portion is also
given to the Buddhist Churches of America for their operating budget.
Whichever level you are able to join is greatly appreciated. To those
who have already sent in their membership for 2012, we thank you.
Please fill out the Membership
Form and return with your payment.
Thank you!
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Garden Booth News
It's almost Oshogatsu or New Year's Celebration. One of
the Japanese traditions is to stack two large mochi (rice cakes) and
put a tangerine with a leaf still attached, on the very top. This is
called kagami mochi, sometimes referred to as kasane mochi. An explanation
of the name is that the shape of the two mochi is similar to the shape
of the copper round mirrors (kagami in Japanese) used during the Muromachi
Period of Japan's history. The tangerine on top is a Japanese daidai.
The kanji (Chinese character) can mean "generation to generation",
so the daidai symbolizes the continuity of the generations and long
life, while the mochi symbolizes the past year and the year to come.
Thus, the kagami mochi symbolizes the continuity of the family over
the years.
Which brings me to point of this article. The leaf attached to the tangerine
is GREEN. That's right, green as in the Garden Booth. It should remind
you to that the Garden Booth can use your donations at Hanamatsuri!
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Vista Buddhist Temple Book Club
The next Book Club meeting will be held on Sunday, January 29, 2012
at 12:00 P.M. in the temple foyer. The book selection for January is
Bright Dawn by S. K. Kubose. Reverend Kubose was the VBT Ohigan speaker
in September 2011. If you were fortunate enough to hear his Dharma message,
you will find a similar insightfulness and humor in his book. Do you
routinely offer gratitude for your shoes as does Kubose sensei? In this
book you'll find out why he makes offering gratitude to his shoes a
part of his Buddhist practice.
In addition to discussing Rev. Kubose's book, we will be asking for
your input on future selections for book club reading. You are invited
to participate even if you have not attended a Book Club meeting in
the past. We would like to have more suggestions regarding the types
of books we read. Not all of the books selected in the past have been
serious, heavy-duty reading. We've had lighter, fun-to-read selections
as well. We try to maintain a balance of themes in order to meet a variety
of interests. There has been some feedback that monthly meetings do
not allow sufficient time to read an entire book. Maybe selecting a
new book every two months would be more appealing. Let us know what
you think. We want to hear your suggestions so that we can make the
Book Club accessible to more people.
Book lists with short descriptions and some suggested books will be
available at the meeting to help us choose books for the future. A goal
will be to select books for the entire year, as other Buddhist temples
do for their book clubs. We encourage as many people as possible to
give their input so that we can keep our Book Club a viable VBT temple
activity.
Please remember that a good selection of books is available for sale
at the temple. The books can be purchased in the social hall after Sunday
services. If you can't find a particular book, or have suggestions for
a book to be acquired, let Ros or Judy know the title and author. We'll
do our best to obtain your request.
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Vista Buddhist Temple Food Drive
The Outreach Committee wishes to thank Sangha members and friends
for the generous donation of food and money collected in November which
was given to the North County Food Bank in San Marcos. Over two Sundays
we collected 274 pounds of food. The combination of food and money was
sufficient to feed approximately 300 people.
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