Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu, hauoli makahiki hou, and, of course, happy new year in this year of the tiger for much health and happiness! Many thanks again for your expressions of kindness and support to our many dharma friends and our temple life. My wish continues to be to enrich our temple as a "special place" for taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha so that kindness, compassion, thoughtfulness, patience, and faith become the key ingredients for our life as a sangha.

The beginning of a new year also brings to mind the meditations that sustain my daily life. In their own way, these meditations reflect the awareness and appreciation with which I wish to live my life each day. They speak to me from a deep well-spring from which immeasurable life and immeasurable light touches me. May these meditations bring a measure of focus, direction, and understanding to you also.

I realize that life is changing rapidly for each of us. We have no control over change itself, but we do have a measure of control over how we live each moment as change occurs.

I realize that each moment we receive is the only real moment we have. The present is the only moment of reality. The past can never be recaptured or experienced in the same way; nor can we fully grasp and hold our illusive future. Reality, as it is, in this present moment, is absolute; never to be repeated in the same way.

I realize that the new year for living, creating, and appreciation the gift of each precious moment we are given. This moment is always fresh and new. It is fresh and new of spirit, of commitment, of our capacity to see and live clearly. True awareness of self and life happens only in this absolute moment.

I realize that life does not always go our way - "my" way. This often leads to feelings of frustration, agitation, confusion, loneliness, disenchantment, and even other afflictions. We struggle for solutions in our past or future, but the solutions often escape us. They escape us because we often look in the wrong places. Our sufferings and afflictions are not separate from who and what we are now. We are our suffering now. We own all that we are now. The solutions and answers to our existence are with and within us, here and now.

I realize too that because we cannot escape who and what we are, our only recourse is to realize and accept ourselves as we really are, just as we are, in the present - fragile/strong, intelligent/foolish, willful/vulnerable, courageous/fearful, giving/selfish, modest/opinionated, etc. When this realization and acceptance occurs clearly and authentically, a new and indescribable dimension of life opens for us. Our often self-generated sufferings become less burdensome as immeasurable light (amitayus=wisdom) and immeasurable life (amitabha=compassion) illuminate and transform our life. We are, in this very moment, graced and joined in "one body" with Amida Buddha

I realize now that we are not lost and confused when we are fully present and captured by immeasurable light and immeasurable life. Nothing is added nor subtracted from our life. We are fully present to our real life just as we are. We are, in effect, simply who we are. When we awaken to our reality, joyful gratitude and deep feelings of humility and wonderment naturally emerge.

Namu-amida-butsu is the name we are given in voicing and affirming this genuine moment of awakening and acceptance. This is the most selfless spiritual and liberating gift we receive in our ordinary, daily life. This unconditional gift of Namu-amida-butsu empowers and fulfills our deepest human wish for harmony and affirmation, acceptance and fulfillment. Namu-amida-butsu too is the compassionate prayer of Amida Buddha for the spiritual awakening and liberation of all beings in their quest for meaning and authenticity.

Blessed with true and real life,
This day, today, which never returns
Is a precious day to be treasured.
- Kinuye Takeuchi