Good morning everyone! And Happy New Year.
I hope everyone enjoyed the nice winter holiday. Did you eat lots of food? You did? … I didn’t. This year, I have decided that I will try to / not eat / too much food. I don’t know if I can do this until next year, but I will try.
At the New Year’s service, I told everyone about my New Year’s resolution. It is to “Be more active”. One of my favorite activities is fishing. So Michi and I bought our 2006 fishing licenses. I like fishing… And Michi likes to eat Sashimi. So, both of us have a good reason to go fishing.
January 1st and 2nd were rainy days. But fortunately, January 3rd was a nice day, so we decided to go fishing. At first we planed to go to Amador Lake. But I heard that the water level was too high in the Lake. So, we went to the Sacramento River marina on Broadway. It takes 5 minutes from our Betsuin to the marina.
When we went to the marina, already 10 people were enjoying fishing. At I mentioned during the end of December and into New Years’, we had heavy rain, so there were many branches and even uprooted trees floating down the Sacramento River. We could not find even one good fishing spot. I said to Michi “We should try to look for other places to fish.”
We put our fishing poles into my car, and we drove to Discovery Park. This park is located between Garden High Way and the American River.
We parked the car and walked into the park. When we walked on the river bank, Michi screamed and pointed to a park bridge and she said “Kaz, look at the Bridge! The bridge is almost flooded.”
We could not see the bridge piers, because the water level was so high.
And even a Stop sign was also almost covered with flooded water. It was scary.
When I saw the flooded river and park, I remembered again Tsunami Disaster in South Asia on December 26, 2004. It was only 1 year ago… In the Tsunami disaster, over 20 thousand people lost their lives; many children lost their parents… and many parents lost their children…
Mrs. Tak Ito said “almost every year, Discovery Park gets flooded. So here in Sacramento there may come a time when the river banks break and the water comes into our town… and into our homes.”
Rivers provide us with many good things; water to drink and water / to help grow our trees and crops and also rivers provide us with fish to eat.
But sometimes, when a river floods it can lead to terrible disasters like… we had in New Orleans.
Natural disasters large and small like our New Year’s Storm or Hurricane Katrina just happen. This is karma… and a natural part of life.
When people are victims of such a disasters, we should remind ourselves that the Golden chain says “we should protect all who are weaker than myself”.
We never know when we may be the victims of a disaster, so remember to try to help people who have such hardships. Helping is a most important / action / to all Buddhists. Within my resolution to “keep more active” this year, is also my hope to be / more helpful to those in need. So let us all try to be more active… and also more helpful in this New Year.
Gassho
As Buddhist, we feel there is goodness in people everywhere in the world… And if everyone lived the “Golden Chain”, what a wonderful would it could be.