OBT Sangha celebrated Buddha's Birthday on April 7th this year. Many people decorated the Hanamidou with fresh flowers on Saturday, so people coming to the temple Sunday morning for "Hanamatsuri Service" were greeted with the beautiful flower altar with baby Buddha standing on a little pond of sweet tea.
Dharma School Students welcomed people into the temple building, handing out pink paper flowers. Then, they acted out the "Auspicious Birth of Baby Buddha", and offered flowers to celebrate his birth.
OBT Choir sang "Happy Buddha Day", followed by Reverend Yuki's children's talk and Dharma talk, "To Be A Disciple of Buddha" -- Please check out the OBT Youtube channel if you missed it, or would like to listen to it again!
The service was followed by the Dharma School program, starting with the piano performance by Avery. Sangha members enjoyed Avery's original composition, "Journey to Happiness", combined with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing". Avery composed his own music!
Theimpressive piano performance was followed by Mayu introducing the Dharma School T-shirt, with her artwork and Yukim's lettering design.
She explained that her design is based on the Buddhist story of the two headed bird; the two headed bird were jealous of each other, and was consumed with Greed, Anger and Stupidity (GAS), to harm each other. They did, however, realize their fault, and became more mindful of each other. Mayu concluded that the bird would be a good symbol and reminder for Dharma School. The students plan to wear the t-shirts when they do community services to represent Oregon Buddhist Temple
Dharma School Hanamatsuri program ended with the DS Choir singing "Mother Nature's Son". Reverend Yuki and Nancy played guitars with them.
And ofcourse, the amazing OBWA and toban teams had prepared delicious otoki downstairs for everyone to enjoy.
Thank you to everyone who came, who participated, who helped out, and who enjoyed the celebration of the birth of Baby Buddha.