Tis the season to be thankful and grateful. Others wish a Merry Christmas or a Happy Hanukkah and as Buddhist we too ask others to consider our appreciation for our beliefs. So, HAPPY ROHATSU, is appropriate for us to wish one another. So, what is its purpose? It is to say to others consider a person who through personal insight intuited an approach to life that can help all beings. Siddhartha Gotama after six years of searching and then seven days of sitting quiet and still under a tree, came to an awareness of the great matter of life and death. We say he awoke with clarity of mind as to what suffering is, how we can look into suffering, see karma/cause and effect and take steps to lessen or move beyond suffering as an attachment:

http://www.buddhanet.net/bp_sut17.htm

This Friday December 8, 2017, the Falmouth Soto Zen Sangha will sit from 6:30 PM through the night until 6:30 AM just as Shakyamuni Buddha did 2500 years ago. The plan is for all to be at Mokuyo/Nancy’s house, 56 Parson’s Lane (down the road from Waquoit Church) by 6:30PM. The following morning I will continue our tradition of treating all to breakfast at Moonakis Cafe. So please contact Mokuyo Nancy Sherwood <nmsherwood@gmail.com> if you would like to join us.

To you all Happy Rohatsu and may clarity of the wonder of the Universe unfold for you and for others as we wish that all beings be well...

Sangaku, _/\_