Dharma Talk given by Rev. Marvin Harada (Orange County Buddhist Church)
How many of you remember watching I Love Lucy, The Red Skelton Hour, The Ed Sullivan Show, Gunsmoke, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, or The Jack Benny Show? How many of you remember listening to music by the Temptations, the Supremes, the Beatles, Chicago, the Stylistics, or Earth Wind and Fire? How many of you remember driving a ‘65 Mustang, or a ‘69 GTO? Do you remember having long hair and bell-bottom pants? If you can relate to any of the above, you are a Baby Boomer.
I am a Baby Boomer, and the only regret in life I have is selling my 1969 Pontiac LeMans, my first car. We Baby Boomers are in the stage of mid-life now. We are in our 50’s and 60’s. Hasn’t life passed quickly? Where have the years gone? It didn’t seem that long ago that I was in high school, cruising around in my Pontiac, then going away to college and being able to put all of my worldly possessions into my car. After my college years, I got married, and my groomsmen wore those funny looking tuxedos with the big lapels. After that it was starting a family, and going through the various stages of raising children. First there were all the diapers and strollers and cups with lids. Then we went to the next stage of Chuck E. Cheese parties. Before we knew it, our kids were in Scouts and playing organized basketball and baseball. Those years flew by and then we were going to tons of high school games and marching band field shows. There was running the snack bar at the games and band booster activities. Now my kids are in college, and we find ourselves missing all of those games and activities.
Many of the Baby Boomer generation find themselves at this stage of life. Our kids are now grown up and don’t really need us anymore, except for our checkbooks, of course. In our careers, we might be winding down and looking towards retirement soon. Many of you might have even retired already. Depending on your work situation, you might have even been “shown the door” as your company pushed you aside for younger engineers that would cost the company less. I know of someone who gave thirty years of his life for his company, and he worked as a factory plant manager. He worked so hard for the company, even doing the plumbing repairs himself to save the company money. Before retiring, the company president changed, and so did all of the upper level management. His new boss knew nothing about running a plant. Conflicts arose, and he left the company, bitter and dejected.
As a Baby Boomer, you might be looking back at your life and you might be feeling a sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfillment. Your kids have grown up and don’t need you like when they were small. You have retired or your present work is unfulfilling. The company doesn’t really appreciate what you do. You are another cog in a big corporate wheel. You might be wondering, “Is this all there is to life? What is the meaning of my life?” Before, your meaning of life was clear. You had to work hard to support and raise the family. You had to be the coach of your son’s basketball team. You had to be the Den leader of the Scout troop. You were the head of your engineering team. Your reason for living was quite clear. Your purpose of life was clear to you everyday, because you had people that depended on you at work and at home.
But now that your children are grown up and you have retired or are near retirement, that meaning of life is now gone. You might even feel depressed or searching for new meaning in your life.
If that is the case, then you need look no further than Shin Buddhism to find the ultimate meaning of life. The temple that you grew up at, that used to have tons of Dharma School and YBA kids, that is now on the verge of closing in a few years, can be the very place that you find your deepest meaning and fulfillment of life.
In our younger years, there was always an excuse to not deeply study or listen to the Dharma. We had young children, or we had the demands of work, or we were already deeply involved in the temple in sports or scouts. Reading, listening, or attending study classes was not something we had time for or made a priority. But now that our kids are grown up and we have less demands of work or are retired, we have no excuse not to listen to the Dharma. In fact, this should be the most ideal time to listen, since we still have our health and we have yet to enter the next phase of life of babysitting our grandchildren.
In the Nembutsu, we can find the deepest sense of meaning and fulfillment in our life.
Saichi the Myokonin, in a poem, expresses how Namu amida butsu is inexhaustible. No matter how much he says it, it is inexhaustible. This means that Saichi never tires of saying the Nembutsu. Saichi finds in Namu amida butsu, a truth that never runs out, never fades away. It is a source of inexhaustible light, joy, fulfillment, wisdom, and meaning in his life.
To receive the Nembutsu deep within our hearts and minds, is to receive something inexhaustible. That is why we can find the deepest sense of meaning and fulfillment in our life even now, at this mid-life point of our life as a Baby Boomer.
At our temple, we have Senior Citizens who are deep listeners of the Dharma. They are into their high eighties now, but for them, their greatest joy and meaning of life comes from listening to the Dharma. One lady has taken my Introduction to Buddhism class at our Buddhist Education Center about eight times. I said, “You took this class already many times. I am going to cover the same material again.” Her response was, “Every time you go over the same material, I get something new from it.”
If we sincerely listen to the Dharma, read books on Buddhism, discuss it with our fellow members of the Sangha, we will begin to appreciate the depth and breadth of the Buddha- Dharma. We will come to receive Namu amida butsu as a deep and profound truth, not just as a word or something that we recite.
Instead of feeling like we are just on the downward slope of life and that there isn’t much to live for now, other than seeing our children get married or to have a grandchild born, we can feel like the best years of our life are right now, and those years ahead of us. There is so much that we can do, as a volunteer at our temple or in the Buddhist Churches of America. We need your help. We need your help to share and introduce Shin Buddhism to the general community. We need our temples to thrive and grow and become vibrant places to learn and listen to the Dharma. Volunteering at the temple, helping to create new Buddhist education programs, becoming a minister’s assistant, becoming a Dharma School teacher, creating a website for your temple, these are all just a few of the ways that you as a Baby Boomer can get involved in your local temple. Your involvement at the temple to help share Buddhism here in the west might be one of the most meaningful and fulfilling things you have ever done in your life.
Like Saichi, in Namu amida butsu, we can find an inexhaustible source of meaning, fulfillment, joy, strength, and wisdom in our life. To all of my fellow Baby Boomers, the best years of your life are ahead of you. May we move forward with a new sense of meaning in our life. May we attend services and study classes, not because we have to, but because we want to. We want to learn, we want to listen. We want to receive and come to understand the Nembutsu as a deep and profound truth. We want our temples to grow and flourish. We want to share the Nembutsu with others.
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