Identification

Reverend Koho Takata

 

As you know, I love a beer. After a meeting or a yard clean up, I drink a beer with members. When I experienced the bon dance for the first time at Kapaa, members gave me a nickname ‘Bud’ because I like Budweiser.

Since my arrival on Hawaii, I had times that I could not buy a beer, even now. One day, I went to a supermarket to buy beers. The store clerk told me, "Show your I.D." At that time, I did not have a social security number yet so that I did not have a driver’s license in Hawaii. Therefore, I could not buy beers. I remember I asked Rev. Shogaku to buy beers for me. He often bought beers for me.

Like this, I cannot buy a beer without I.D. Although I will celebrate the 29th birthday this year, most people still tell me, "Your face looks like of a teenager." In Japan, people treated me as an adult. So I could buy or drink beers.

We often judge the person by its physical appearance. Because my face looks young, I cannot buy beer. However, when they look my I.D., they recognize that I can buy beers. Sometime, even though I show my I.D., I have times that I cannot buy beers. Some people do not believe my I.D. When people do not believe my I.D., I show my minister’s I.D. Although they sell beers to me, they told me, "why minister drink?" I know what they want to say.

I am surely a minister. Although I am a minister, I am a human being as well as you. I am same as you. I also have many passions like you.

    "The ocean of birth-and-death, of painful existence, has no bound;

    Only by the ship of Amida’s Universal Vow

    Can we, who have long been drowning,

    Unfailingly be brought across it."

(The Collected Works of Shinran, page363)

Although Amida Buddha knows we human beings have always blind passions, he promised to save all of us at all times and in all places without any I.D. Furthermore, whether a person is good or bad, young or old, educated or uneducated, he promised to save all beings without any discriminations. For our parts, we simply receive Shinjin, the True Entrusting Mind, from Amida Buddha. We are all equal from Amida Buddha’s Compassionate Eyes. This is why we are truly grateful. Let us live happily and courageously by reciting his precious Name, Namo-Amidabutsu, in His Infinite Love and Unfathomable Compassion.

Namo-Amidabutsu