LIHUE — Siddartha Gautama was born in the eighth day of the fourth month in the 5th, or 6th Century BCE in Lumbini Garden in an area of Nepal.
He grew up to become the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, one of the great religions in the world, and April 8 has been designated Hanamatsuri, translated to Flower Festival, in celebration of his birth.
The Kauai Buddhist Council will host its annual Hanamatsuri service Sunday at the Lihue Hongwanji Mission starting at 9:30 a.m., and the public is invited to celebrate one of the significant days in the Buddhist calendar.
Keynote address will be presented by Rev. Art Kaufmann who is the minister at the Lihue Hongwanji since late last year, and refreshments will be available following the service.
During the service, a flower shrine known as a hanamido is set up in front of the main alter to symbolize Lumbini Garden where the Buddha was born. Inside the hanamido, a statuette of the infant Buddha, with right hand pointing to the heavens, and left hand pointing to the earth, sit while people at the service pour sweet tea over the statuette, symbolic of the rains that drizzled the birth.
The Kauai Buddhist Council also hosts the annual calendar of bon dances at Buddhist temples around the island, and has become known as a source for unique food offerings and fellowship while dancers perform in a special ring to celebrate reunion with souls of those who have deceased. During bon, it is believed that spirits of those ancestors return to earth and is a reason for celebration and rememberance.
Rev. Tomo Hojo of the West Kauai Hongwanji Mission said in addition to Hanamatsuri, the Waimea Buddhist Ministers Association that includes Rev. Kohtoku Hirao of the Waimea Shingon Mission, and Rev. Koen Kikuchi of the Waimea Higashi Hongwanji, will be hosting its third Animal Memorial Service, Saturday from 6 p.m. at the Hofgaard Park in Waimea.
“Rev. Kikuchi serves from Oahu,” Hojo said. “He comes over for special services and will be here for Hanamatsuri. We decided to hold the Animal Memorial Service because he will arrive a day earlier so he could participate in the service.”
Hojo said the third service, relocated from its previous site at the Russian Fort, gives people an opportunity to think about life, and its impermanence.
“We see many animals’ dead bodies hit by cars on the highway,” Hojo said.
“Let us think about the animal’s life by attending this service.”
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
In Zen meditation of Nothingness, the ultimate goal of its members is to obtain Nirvana, which normally takes at least 10 years of intense practice. However this goal is nothing buy another level of awareness and the ability to control humankind’s ego, the problem for most issues at hand.