I have been avidly playing the game Fire Emblem: Three Houses since fall of last year. Yes, the game is that good. But also the game makes you think about things too, including religion. One of my favorite characters in the game, is the leader of the Golden Deer House, Claude von Riegan (also mentioned here and here), voiced in English by Joe Zieja. Claude’s background is unusual for the game’s cast, and he keeps his identity close to his vest, but needless to say he’s had a very worldly upbringing, and sees things different than the other students who mostly grew up in Fódlan. He is just as a ..read more

In our last episode, we talked about some basic, fundamental particles used in the Japanese language. Today, we’ll cover some other, essential particles: “ni” に, “de” で, “yo” よ, and “ne” ね. The first two are often required for parts of speech, but the second two are often used to provide “flavor” or “nuance” to conversation. All of them are frequently used, and necessary to speak Japanese well. As with the previous post, this post assumes you know how to read hiragana script. If not, now would be a good time to review. Kanji will be kept to a minimum for now. The targeting particle ..read more

Next week, according to the solar calendar, is the Buddha’s birthday. Many communities observe this holiday using the lunar calendar, and different communities use different lunar calendars, so the dates will vary quite a bit. I use the Japanese-Buddhist calendar which in turn uses the Western calendar since the 19th century, thus April 8th.1 But I digress. How does one celebrate the Buddha’s birthday? Based on my limited experience in Japan and such, Buddhist holidays tend to be pretty laid back affairs. Buddhist temples usually do not hit you over the head with religious teachings, but often ..read more

The Lotus Sutra, one of the most important sutras of Mahayana Buddhism, is the size of an epic novel, and thus much too large to recite cover to cover. Even reciting a single chapter can be daunting because each chapter contains a large narrative section, and one or more verse sections that recap the narrative. For this reason, certain verse sections have become popular for chanting because they get to the heart of the Lotus Sutra and convey its essential teachings, in a manageable size. Popular examples (among others) include the Kannon Sutra, the verse section of chapter 16, and the opening ..read more

The Lotus Sutra, one of the most important sutras of Mahayana Buddhism, is the size of an epic novel, and thus much too large to recite cover to cover. Even reciting a single chapter can be daunting because each chapter contains a large narrative section, and one or more verse sections that recap the narrative. For this reason, certain verse sections have become popular for chanting because they get to the heart of the Lotus Sutra and convey its essential teachings, in a manageable size. Popular examples (among others) include the Kannon Sutra, the verse section of chapter 16, and the opening ..read more

This was a neat dialogue between two of the characters in Fire Emblem: Three Houses that I wanted to post here.1 It’s very Buddhist in my opinion. Or as Leonard Nimoy said before his passing… I am one of those people who likes to take lots of photos of scenery on my phone, but I admit whenever I do this, the photos just aren’t the same as the original experience. I never could fully explain this to myself until I saw the dialogue above. It reminds me of a famous quote from the Analects of Confucius: [9:17]  子在川上曰。逝者如斯夫 不舍晝夜。 The Master [Confucius], standing by a river, said, “It goes o ..read more

This is me, most of the time. I am the sort of person who is bad with names. I recently met some new neighbors, and they told me their names, and I made a point of remembering those names, but 5 minutes later, I had already forgotten one of them. In the early Buddhist sutras, the Buddha described the mind as a monkey flitting from branch to branch: Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what’s called ‘mind,’ ‘intellec ..read more

After a couple recent posts, I realized that I had never covered a very weird, disastrous war in Japanese history: the Ōnin War (応仁の乱, Ōnin no Ran) from 1467 to 1477. The Onin War is something most Westerners would not be familiar with, but it had a devastating impact to Japan that can still be felt today in Kyoto. The war spanned 10 years, but was almost entirely fought within and around the old capitol of Kyoto, rather than across the countryside. The war practically flattened Kyoto, and with it centuries of culture and history. The war began as a succession dispute. After the current shogun ..read more

I’ve been talking a lot about heavy, often historical subjects lately, but today I just wanted to share something more local. Every year, my family and I go to see the cherry blossoms at the local University of Washington. This is part of a popular Japanese tradition called ohanami (お花見) or “flower viewing”. Ever since our children were little babies, my wife and I never fail to go to the University of Washington every year, and take lots of family photos and such. A lot of other people come too, and it is a fun community event. The UW has even created a dedicated website just for the occasion ..read more

In a recent post I talked about how Zen imported from Song-Dynasty China found patronage with the elite samurai families of the city of Kamakura. Sometimes this was due to the cultural prestige of Zen among “country bumpkin samurai”, but also the new Zen monastic community drew sincere students as well, helping it take root. Zen still had a very small presence, compared to other Buddhist institutions in medieval Japan, but it was definitely the “up and coming” sect. By the 14th century, and with the destruction of the Hojo Family (ending the Kamakura Period of history), the seat of government ..read more