A PureLand Service in Israel

[Pundarika (orna)]

Dear friends,

We are happy to tell you that yesterday, on Friday 31 July 2009 (beginning at 15:00 in the afternoon), we conducted a full (2 hours long) Pureland Service. As far as we know, this one has been the first Amida- Shu service to have taken place here in Israel.
Six women attended the service, so together we were 8. Orna was the bell master and Yaakov was the celebrant.
The preparations took us a long time, selecting and translating materials from the Nien Fo book into Hebrew and taking some decisions about the order of things, the length of time, preparing the room, setting a shrine etc. The service included the Dawn Prayers (Verse on Impermanence, Resolution, Refuges and Invocation), Incense Blessing, Verses on Impermanence (after Shan- Dao, from the Afternoon Service), two forms of Nembutsu chanting (walking in a circle and while sitting), the taking of the 5 refuges, the 5 precepts (including in Sanskrit), Boddhisattva Vow, Nei Quan and Chi Quan meditations, Dharma talk (by Yaakov) and Celebration of Amida`s Vows.
Both of us were very moved, as we have been waiting for a long time for such an occasion to happen. It was very special for us to conduct it together. We were told by the attendants, in a short informal conversation after the service, that it had been a moving and a meaningful event also for them.
We plan now to continue conducting Pureland services from time to time.
We would to thank from the bottom of our hearts our teachers and all our friends from Amida-Shu with whom we have been sharing the meaningful experiences of the Services during our visits to The Buddhist House in Leicester, to Sukkhavatti in London and in Amida France.
We will try to attach some pictures we took after the service. We hope these pictures may convey the warm ambience and the feeling of friendship there were during the service.

Namo Amida Bu
Orna and Yaakov

[Pundarika (orna)]

Dear Sahishnu,
Thank you very much for your comment. We had been working rather hard on the translation, making efforts to take into account potential religious and cultural sensitivities. The feedback from the participants had been that they felt much touched by the service and the contents. One of the participants felt there was too much "information" in the prayers - that the ideas expressed needed more time for personal exploration. Next time we will conduct a service we think we will reconsider the balance between readings, meditation and chanting.
Namo Amida Bu
Orna and Yaakov

[Sahishnu Joy Marston]

This is fantastic. I know from experience how hard it is to get a good translation of the Nien Fo book and to adapt services to make them meaningful to those from a different culture and to make them inclussive. In India with have a lot of rythmic instruments, bells drums etc and as we do not share a common language Dhama talks have to be simplified to the level of English that the translater can manage and as he is new to Bhuddhism he finds terminology difficult.Did you find that you felt a real sense of spaces being connected as we did?

[Kaspalita]

Amazing, thank you for sharing, this is wonderful news

[Pundarika (orna)]

Dear all,
Thank you very much for your encouraging responses!
Namo Amida Bu
Orna and Yaakov

[Modgala Duguid]

Dear Orna and Yaakov,
this is wonderful to hear. I salute you both for the wonderful work you are doing and the light you bring to the people around you. Namo amida bu Much love
modgala

[Robert McCarthy]

The pictures certainly convey the warm ambience and friendship. Very good to see amida come to a new part of the world. Namo Amida Bu

[Dharmavidya]

Excellent. Thank you. Congratulations.
Namo Amida Bu.

[Susthama]

That is wonderful news. A bit of the Pure Land in the Holy Land. Namo Amida Bu