Monday, February 18, 2008

Moving Out 2/18/08

2/10 I moved from Torrance to a new apartment in Irvine. What I took with me today were just the Buddha Statue and a sleeping bag. I started my new life with Buddha.

2/11 I went back to the family house and packed everything in boxes.

2/12 A big truck came and moved all furniture and boxes to the new place.

2/13 I cleaned my sweet house, dumping all trashes in the neighbors’ trash bins as well as mine.

2/14 I returned my house keys to the landlord. I tried to express how much I was appreciative of this house that supported our family life, then tears dropped.

2/18 Most boxes are now gone and I finally vacuumed the rooms in the new apartment.

It was a big week of moving my life from the previous place to the new place.
I realized that I have a strong attachment to my family. Things like a picture, note, toy, often stopped my hand of packing. In 2001, we came to US and my wife and kids made a great effort to adapt to this country. I may not be very considerate to each of them, however, as I was so busy with my own work too. Cleaning a house by oneself is hard, but I realized that it was a great time to feel deeply my appreciation to my wife and kids, Aki, Naoki, Yuri, and Taishi. It was another awakening!
Do not let your attachment controls you; Control your attachment for a new discovery.

Before I left the home, I bowed to each room and thanked. I also bowed to an old tree by the side of a kid's playhouse in the backyard. And I bowed to the house.

Thank you, Buddha.
Shoko Mizutani

3 comments:

Konapage said...

We're looking forward to your visit this week to Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. You certainly know that you are family here.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rev. Mizutani,
I know you have been so busy (as usual) moving, going to the Advanced Sutra study in Hawaii and soon back to Los Angeles. I just wanted to let you know I am thinking about you and hope you are well. The Oklahoma Sangha misses you; but we are glad you have a blog. We can keep up with your activities and continue to receive your guidance and wisdom as you share how you practice the teachings.
Thank you for staying in the United States with us to help establish RKINA.
Always,
Kim M.

Nori.T said...

Hello Rev. Mizutani,
This is Nori Takahashi at Meguro.
I spoke to you at daiseido and IBC in January. I'm glad to see you've started blogging too!!
I can be fun can't it? It's certainly good to hear what you are up to.

I want to tell you about what I've been up to which is working on another blog which is IBC and Nick's youth network related. Me and Nick talked about some ideas to make a better online community, and I worked on those ideas.

I think I have enough on there now to be able to show, so please take a look and make some comments too! We're hoping it'll be of use in deseminating the dharma online. It's at:

http://ww-sangha.blogspot.com

Thankyou and gassho
p.s let me know if I can help you with your blog too !